Running an open MOOC on learning in laboratories

CONTEXT Teaching in laboratories plays an integral role in education. This includes both proximal as well as remote laboratories. In many instances, learning activities are designed around equipment and traditional laboratory activities. Pedagogical aspects and instructional design are often not considered or are an afterthought. PURPOSE The aim of this project was to help to address this gap by designing, implementing and facilitating an open online course on the pedagogy of using laboratory experiences in the curriculum. APPROACH The MOOC for Enhancing Laboratory Learning Outcomes (MELLO) has been designed to assist educators at all levels, from schools to universities, to improve the quality of laboratory experiences in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Experienced educators seeking to review and revise current practices or beginning educators were all welcome to participate. Based on learning theory and research literature, online course has been developed that covers constructive alignment of practical activities with the wider curriculum, learning objectives, pedagogical approaches to laboratory learning, laboratory modalities and session planning. RESULTS 120 participants from Australia and around the world took part in the course. While the participants did not work on their own laboratory activity throughout the courses (as envisaged when designing the course), participants who actively took part in the course were positive about the value of the course. CONCLUSIONS The MOOC has been capable of supporting a large number of participants including university educators around the world who use laboratory experiences and will continue to do so through future iterations of the course. Moving forward, there is scope to adapt the pedagogical approach of the course to cater for the way the participants have engaged with the material

Alleviating pre-service teachers’ STEM anxiety through the use of remote access laboratories

Amid calls for greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in primary education, non-specialist teachers required to teach these subjects are often prone to anxiety as a consequence of their own education including only limited exposure to STEM. This paper reports on a study in which pre-service primary teachers (N=40) worked with Remote Access laboratory (RAL) activities to develop their knowledge of, and confidence with, STEM concepts. The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) was used to measure their emotional status before and after participating in the RAL activities. Challenges in operation of the experimental equipment produced inconclusive quantitative results but analysis of qualitative data suggested that, with further development, the activities could contribute to a reduction in STEM anxiety

Using gamification to create opportunities for engagement, collaboration and communication in a peer-to-peer environment for making and using remote access labs

The RALfie Project began in 2013 with the goal of engaging children and youth with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math learning in formal and informal settings using Remote Access Labs (RAL). A design based research approach is being used to develop and test a peer-to-peer system that incorporates gamification of the system to engage learners in collaboration and communication. The key game mechanics used are: Narrative with a group of characters who play key roles in the community; a maker approach where the participants build the RAL as opposed to expert-built rigs; communities of practice based on video game style `guilds'; tasks and activities designed as quests with opportunities for collaboration; and a reputation and achievement system to track mastery that uses points, levels and badges. An iterative approach is being used to test and refine the gamification elements and technical system that form the environment. This paper provides a summary of the theoretical educational foundations of this project; discusses design-based research as the methodology in the context of the RALfie project; and presents initial results. It includes design decisions and feedback from expert review

Merging remote laboratories and enquiry-based learning for STEM education

Practical learning activities are effective ways to increase the interest of students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) topics. Attracting school students to STEM careers is a challenge in many parts of the world. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) allow for offsite control of state-of-the-art science and technology experiments. Such learning activities, while mostly used in universities, can also provide additional learning opportunities in schools. Current RAL technologies are targeted at undergraduate engineering education and offer limited operational autonomy. Opportunities for collaboration and experiment design are not well supported. However, both are important components of STEM education in schools. This paper discusses how RAL can be adapted to better support enquiry based learning in the context of STEM education. The limitations of current architectures are discussed and approaches to address these are presented

Joining the game and the experiment in peer-to-peer remote laboratories for STEM education

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) provide access to experimental setups from remote locations. These experimental setups are composed of controller units programmed to gather data and interact with user inputs. A distributed version of RAL can be maker oriented i.e. the experiment rigs are designed by individuals and shared among each other. This paper presents the programming aspects and activity user interface (UI) design and organization of experiments in a distributed RAL aims at STEM education. The user interface must be interactive to increase engagement and motivation for the user. Being designed for school students, the environment to create the control logic of a rig created by the student needs to be on a homogenous platform. The programming language has to be easy to understand and use. Characteristics and requirements of a graphical programming language SNAP, which is modified and used as the programming platform for RAL, is studied in this paper

Remote access laboratories for preparing STEM teachers: A mixed methods study

Bandura’s self-efficacy theory provided the conceptual framework for this mixed methods investigation of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) self-efficacy to teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-B (STEBI-B) was modified to create the Technology Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (T-TEBI). Pre-test and post-test T-TEBI scores were measured to investigate changes in PSTs’ self-efficacy to teach technology. Interviews and reflections were used to explore the reasons for changes in pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy. This paper reports results from a pilot study using an innovative Remote Access Laboratory system with PSTs

Bridging distance: Practical and pedagogical implications of virtual Makerspaces

Makerspaces are locations where people with common interests can work on projects, share ideas, tools, and expertise to make or create. There is an abundance of ‘how to’ guides and research studies on physical makerspaces, little research focuses on describing the virtual making processes and the experiences therein. This qualitative study explores the experiences of seven participants who engaged in a synchronous virtual makerspace. Meeting once a month over 16 weeks, members of the International Maker Educator Network (IMEN) participated in the making a robot. This case study describes how the virtual making occurred, the personal experiences of the makers, technology used to support virtual making, and the affordances and inhibitors of virtual making. Data are analysed through the lens of a professional learning community and the People, Means and Activities makerspace framework. The paper concludes with implications for virtual making in practice and future research opportunities

Remote access laboratories for preparing STEM teachers: preliminary exploration

Education for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is acknowledged as a priority throughout the world but many K-6 teachers are inadequately prepared for it by virtue of limited exposure in their own schooling and teacher preparation. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) offer opportunities to enhance the variety of STEM experiences available to learners and teachers in schools, especially those in remote locations. They also have potential for preparing teachers to work with STEM in their classrooms by developing relevant knowledge and self-efficacy for teaching technologies education. This paper reports some results from preliminary trials of an innovative RAL system with pre-service teachers

Hosting and sharing your own remote experiments with RALfie – an open ended experiment design experience

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) are online platforms for performing experiments from remote locations usually following a centralised service oriented paradigm. This short article presents RALfie - Remote Access Laboratories for Fun, Innovation and Education using a peer-to-peer RAL architecture where some participants or makers can create, host and share experiments for other users. The system is built upon a VPN service that establishes end-to-end connections between learner and makers’ experiential rigs. A graphical programming platform - SNAP is the basis of programming and designing the interface with the experimental rig. The experiments are then shard using a quest-based learning strategy that presents the experiments as a set of hierarchical groups of activities or quests. This distributed design of RAL allows more hands-on experience to build experimentals setup and provides opportunities to collaborate with fellow peers. The environment is suitable foe STEM Education. This approach requires the makers among the users to create and host the experiments, which demand certain responsibilities and offers new learning opportunities

How are Australian higher education institutions contributing to change through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds?

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed in 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions present an overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activities such as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to create opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through more traditional approaches