Technology-supported personalised learning: Rapid Evidence Review

This Rapid Evidence Review (RER) provides an overview of existing research on the use of technology to support personalised learning in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The RER has been produced in response to the widespread global shutdown of schools resulting from the outbreak of COVID-19. It therefore emphasises transferable insights that may be applicable to educational responses resulting from the limitations caused by COVID-19. In the current context, lessons learnt from the use of technology-supported personalised learning — in which technology enables or supports learning based upon particular characteristics of relevance or importance to learners — are particularly salient given this has the potential to adapt to learners’ needs by ‘teaching at the right level’

Simulated internships in schools::Engaging learners with the world of work to promote collaborative creativity

School curricula have often struggled to authentically engage young people with the world of work. This chapter examines the potential of ‘simulated’ school classroom-based internships to support collaborative and creative learning and links to the workplace. It reports on design-based research in areas of low social mobility in England. This investigates how simulated internships give students access to authentic experiences of workplace practices in addition to enhancing skills associated with collaborative creativity. Through a challenge-based learning pedagogy implemented as part of regular classroom instruction, simulated internships involve small groups of students aged 11-13 studying Computing or Design and Technology. Over six-to-seven-weeks, together they design, model, or build a local solution to a global challenge presented virtually by engineers in two leading international telecommunications companies. An empirical ‘case study’, based on discourse and thematic analysis, is provided to evidence the scope and challenges of embedding a mutual focus on creative collaboration and supporting authentic insights into the world of work. Reported research is significant as it offers a proof of concept that identifies the potential of simulated internships in generating meaningful insights into the world of work. Focused on the development of collaborative creativity, this conceptualisation of simulated internships can inform and guide future pedagogical and research initiatives. Potentially this could expand to cover other curricular areas and, indeed, other educational settings

‘Collaborating2Create’: A conceptual tool to develop learners’ capacity for collaborative creativity through Virtual Internships in schools

Background: Many employers are clear about the skills future workers need: technical and practical skills, alongside transferable skills including an ability to effectively solve problems and to work creatively within a team. School-based ‘Virtual Internships’ offer potential to respond to these calls, enabling learners to engage in pedagogically-aligned challenges grounded in authentic workplace practices. Limited research has, however, investigated how schools may facilitate authentic workplace experiences virtually – through online interaction as well as role-play of workplace practices: to enable young people to develop important competencies around creative groupwork through curricular activities. Aim: In this paper we outline the development of ‘Collaborating2Create’ (C2C): a conceptual tool devised through the ‘Virtual Internships Project’ to support the teaching of group creativity, in a way that meaningfully links education to the world of work. Method: We offer a critical literature review followed by extracts from qualitative discourse analysis of classroom data, selected to evidence the value and practice of C2C in genuine classroom interaction. Extracts are presented with integrated analytic commentary, followed by a summary, to make salient features of dialogic interaction that promote C2C. Extracts from a teacher post-programme interview and student focus group, around the deductive theme of C2C, are incorporated to evidence how the programme was developed iteratively based on learning from trials. Findings & Implications: This paper argues that C2C conceptualised as a ‘complex competency’ within a broader Virtual Internship programme offers a conceptual tool that can be embedded and have value beyond the current project. Further, many charities and businesses are keen to establish links with education but their capacity to engage learners in schools is limited. It is argued that C2C could act as an effective ‘bridging concept’ between education and the world of work.Project funded by BT and Huawe

Review of Design Research in Education: A Practical Guide for Early Career Researchers

No Abstract</jats:p

Country-Level Research Review: EdTech in Ghana

This document presents a review of the research landscape in Ghana in relation to EdTech research focused at the level of school-based education (not including higher education). The search strategy identified research literature, policy documents, grey literature, and communications with key experts and stakeholders. A growing body of relevant EdTech research is identified to have been undertaken in Ghana. After undertaking searches for relevant literature since 2007, 132 research articles or papers were identified for inclusion. The review provides an overview of trends in this literature in addition to identifying key actors and projects. It also considers how existing research on EdTech in Ghana relates to five research topics that will be the focus of future EdTech Hub research. In combination with political economy analysis, the research identifies potential areas for new research which would be practical and likely to have high impact

Realising ‘dialogic intentions’ when working with a microblogging tool in secondary school classrooms.

In this paper we argue that joint teacher and student awareness of dialogic intentions (DIs) in lessons can focus and guide students' spoken dialogic interactions in the context of the use of digital technology. We focus on DI as a factor in promoting metacognitive awareness of productive dialogue amongst students, considering how teachers in ‘dialogic classrooms’ express DIs and how the use of a microblogging tool (Talkwall) can support, enhance or disrupt students' realisation of these intentions. Data consist of 17 lessons with Year 7 students (aged 11–12), taught by six teachers and covering three subject areas: English, science and geography. A systematic model is used for analysis of technology-focused student interactions, revealing how technology affordances and constraints are implicated in the realisation of DI. This paper is significant in examining how the ability to engage in dialogue can be focused through learning intentions, or set of intentions, within lessons. Further, it considers how specific technological affordances are central to the ways in which technology is implicated in the creation of a relational space for intra-action that might support teaching and learning

Developing learners’ dialogic collaborative problem-solving skills in a real-time 3D environment

Gaming2Development (G2D: 2020-21) investigated learners’ dialogic interactions in - and virtually around - a powerful real-time 3D creation tool. Led by a team of academics, charitable partners and technology developers, design-based research involving four teachers and 50 students (aged 13-19) was undertaken in the north of England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Working in small groups, students participated in 12-hours of G2D workshops in classroom and home contexts. Through innovative access to virtual machines with necessary processing power, working synchronously, students used the Unreal Engine to work dialogically on a collaborative challenge-based learning task. This presentation reports on an exploratory (embedded) single-case study of a two-day collaborative challenge involving one group of five Creative Digital Media students (aged 16-18) working remotely (non co-located). Data includes workshop observations, student-only discussion, student focus groups, and teacher interviews. Analysis involved systematically coding screen-/video-recorded workshops, sociocultural discourse analysis and thematic analysis. Findings reveal how alongside drastic shifts in learning due to the pandemic, students worked creatively to overcome technical barriers and adapted their means of dialogue to ensure each group member’s contribution was appropriately represented. However, while most students saw advantages of contributing to the group effort, some still perceived barriers to this. Analysis of student-only dialogue also demonstrates different patterns of interaction compared to facilitated workshops. Our conjecture is that engagement in the workshops provided an opportunity for students’ to develop transferable skills: technical skills related to the real-time 3D environment, alongside future skills of collaborative dialogue and problem solving. However, it is apparent that the digital, physical, and social boundaries of home- and education-life were unclear and that this may have impeded dialogue. While acknowledging methodological limitations, the significance of this research lies in demonstrating the potential role of real-time 3D development environments in enabling new opportunities for educational dialogue to support collaborative problem-solving online