Can we,should we,and do we integrate values education into adult distance education? Opinions of stakeholders at the Open University of Hong Kong

Because of the changing needs of society, brought about in part by workplace, family and social structures and partly by the decline of moral and ethical values, it is becoming increasingly urgent to address issues of values education at all levels of schooling. Recently there has been an increasing body of literature challenging those who teach adults at universities or other higher education institutions to incorporate values education, either directly or indirectly into the learning environments they create. This challenge extends to distance higher education, although there are many questions about how this can be done in an environment that is typically intended for independent learning with a focus on cognitive development. This paper reports the outcomes of interviews with three small groups of distance educator stakeholders at the Open University of Hong Kong, namely course co-ordinators, tutors and students, to explore their feelings and beliefs about values education being a component of their programmes. The interviews sought opinions about three broad questions: Should we take responsibility for values education in our distance education programmes? Can we take responsibility for values education in our distance education programmes? Do we take responsibility for values education in our distance education programmes? Responses suggested that, in the context of this study, we should and that it is possible to do so, particularly directly through the use of counselling and support services and indirectly through incorporating appropriate examples into course materials, but that currently not very much is being done. While the course co-ordinators and tutors were concerned that students might resent the inclusion of values education in their courses, the students themselves appeared to be more open to the suggestion.     

WWW-Based Environments for Collaborative Group Work

Since 1994, we have been involved in the design and use of a series of WWW-based environments to support collaborative group work for students in a technical university in The Netherlands. These environments, and the course re-design that accompanies each new environment, began in April 1994 and continue to the present (March 1998). What are the major issues emerging from this stream of experiences? What are the major lessons we have learned about the design and deployment of WWW-based environments to support collaborative learning in project groups in higher education? How has HCI (human-computer interaction) research informed our work? These questions will be addressed in this paper. One conclusion is that HCI research needs to become more focused on supporting HHD (human-human dialogue) than on human- computer interaction in order to better support collaborative learning in higher education. © IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers     

组件地理信息系统课程设计与建设

探讨了"组件地理信息系统"课程的设计与建设思路。在遵循课程内容的系统性、教学过程的探究性、提升综合性设计性实验的原则下,提出"组件地理信息系统"课程的三阶段式教学模式及其对应的教学内容框架。课程建设的重点是实验课程建设,将观察性实验、验证性实验与探究性实验、综合性实验相结合,通过观察性实验、验证性实验理解并掌握基本原理、基本方法,形成组件地理信息系统基本功能实现的思路,通过探究性实验引导学生找到解决问题的途径,通过综合性实验提升学生对技术的综合应用能力。通过课程建设,已经初步建成课程教学配套所需的讲义、实验指导书、案例库,达到了预期教学目标。     

Enhancing Students’ Learning Process Through Self-Generated Tests

The use of new technologies in higher education has surprisingly emphasized students’ tendency to adopt a passive behavior in class. Participation and interaction of students are essential to improve academic results. This paper describes an educational experiment aimed at the promotion of students’ autonomous learning by requiring them to generate test type questions related to the contents of the course. The main idea is to make the student feel part of the evaluation process by including students’ questions in the evaluation exams. A set of applications running on our university online learning environment has been developed in order to provide both students and teachers with the necessary tools for a good interaction between them. Questions uploaded by students are visible to every enrolled student as well as to each involved teacher. In this way, we enhance critical analysis skills, by solving and finding possible mistakes in the questions sent by their fellows. The experiment was applied over 769 students from 12 different courses. Results show that the students who have actively participated in the experiment have obtained better academic performance.     

Evaluation of the mixed-mode teaching design upon students’ learning satisfaction and academic performance in an introductory economics course

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the various facets of higher education globally. With the migration to online teaching happening at an unprecedented rate, educators are challenged in transforming the way they create opportunities for students’ learning. Specifically, in Australia, education providers have increasingly offered their courses in a dual-mode setting, making them available for both online and face-to-face students. This paper presents the design of a specific type of dual-mode teaching, referred to as mixed-mode teaching used in an introductory economics course at X University. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the mixed-mode teaching in creating an equitable learning experience for the online and face-to-face groups of students enroled in the course. Such an approach should then translate into there being no significant difference found in the academic performance of the two cohorts. In this study, we used the non-parametric Wilcoxon test and Kruskal-Wallis test to verify if a significant difference exists in learning satisfaction. Further, we utilised regression with dummies, and four different approaches of propensity score matching estimation in excluding self-selection bias, to evaluate differences in academic performance. Our results suggest no statistically significant differences in both the learning experiences and academic performances of our two groups of students. At a time when higher education is facing ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic, these findings offer useful insights for economics educators as well as those in higher education about how to enhance students’ academic performance and learning experience through more equitable, consistent course design.     

PBL(Project-based Learning)教学模式在高职英语自主学习课程中的应用研究

本文采用行动研究的方法,以武汉职业技术学院的英语听说过级自主学习课程为例,探讨如何在自主学习课程中应用PBL的教学模式改进自主学习课程的考核方式,提高学生的自主学习能力和意识。文章首先分析了自主学习课程在实施过程中遇到的问题,详细描述了PBL教学模式的总体设计构想和具体的实施步骤,并对实施的结果进行了讨论。经过统计和问卷调查结果发现,应用PBL模式后,实验班的学生的学习兴趣有了很大的提高,有利于培养他们的自主学习能力和合作精神。同时,试验前后的听力测试表明,实验班听力成绩较对照班也有了显著的提高。可见,PBL模式的应用能在一定程度上改进目前在自主学习课程中所遇到的一些问题。     

Just-in-Time Teaching Exercises to Engage Students in an Introductory-Level Dinosaur Course

The Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) technique allows students to be engaged in course material outside of the classroom by answering web-based questions. The responses are summarized and presented to students in class with a follow-up active learning exercise. College students enrolled in an introductory-level general education geoscience course were surveyed over a two-semester period on their engagement level during lecture and perceived learning of course content. Data show that students are able to reflect on their prior knowledge and construct new knowledge with weekly graded JiTT exercises. Despite increasing and competing pressures outside of the classroom, students reported increased learning and engagement in a course with required weekly assignments.     

Students’ attitudes towards interdisciplinary education: a course on interdisciplinary aspects of science and engineering education

A course entitled ‘Science and Engineering Education: Interdisciplinary Aspects’ was designed to expose undergraduate students of science and engineering education to the attributes of interdisciplinary education which integrates science and engineering. The core of the course is an interdisciplinary lesson, which each student is supposed to teach his/her peers. Sixteen students at advanced stages of their studies attended the course. The research presented here used qualitative instruments to characterise students’ attitudes towards interdisciplinary learning and teaching of science and engineering. According to the findings, despite the significant challenge which characterises interdisciplinary teaching, a notable improvement was evident throughout the course in the percentage of students who expressed willingness to teach interdisciplinary classes in future.     

Making learning whole: an instructional approach for mediating the practices of authentic science inquiries

This design experiment aimed to answer the question of how to mediate the practices of authentic science inquiries in primary education. An instructional approach based on activity theory was designed and carried out with multi-age students in a small village school. An open-ended learning task was offered to the older students. Their task was to design and implement instruction about the Ice Age to their younger fellows. The objective was collaborative learning among students, the teacher, and outside domain experts. Mobile phones and GPS technologies were applied as the main technological mediators in the learning process. Technology provided an opportunity to expand the learning environment outside the classroom, including the natural environment. Empirically, the goal was to answer the following questions: What kind of learning project emerged? How did the students’ knowledge develop? What kinds of science learning processes, activities, and practices were represented? Multiple and parallel data were collected to achieve this aim. The data analysis revealed that the learning project both challenged the students to develop explanations for the phenomena and generated high quality conceptual and physical models in question. During the learning project, the roles of the community members were shaped, mixed, and integrated. The teacher also repeatedly evaluated and adjusted her behavior. The confidence of the learners in their abilities raised the quality of their learning outcomes. The findings showed that this instructional approach can not only mediate the kind of authentic practices that scientists apply but also make learning more holistic than it has been. Thus, it can be concluded that nature of the task, the tool-integrated collaborative inquiries in the natural environment, and the multiage setting can make learning whole.     

Towards a framework of interactions in a blended synchronous learning environment: what effects are there on students' social presence experience?

A synchronous blend of online learning and “face-to-face” teaching is becoming a feasible instructional approach in higher education with the advent of technology. Although this learning mode is not new in higher education, little research has been done to contextualise social presence experiences in which effects of interactions were explored for enhancing learning. A qualitative approach was adopted using the case study method to examine the instructor and students’ pedagogic interactions in the social presence of a blended synchronous learning environment. This paper reports an exploration of the blended learning with an online group of students at a remote site attending a computer-aided engineering drawing course synchronously with a face-to-face group taught by an instructor in a laboratory. The process of interaction was visually and verbally mediated by videoconference as if in an online face-to-face learning community. The findings show that the online and face-to-face groups had different social presence experiences in which interaction emerged. Emotional adaptation and practice is needed for the students and the instructor in such a complex environment. Based on the interaction patterns, a framework of interactions in the blended synchronous learning environment is conceptualised to inform course development and instructional design. Implications for further study are also discussed.     

Disciplinary Foundations for Solving Interdisciplinary Scientific Problems

Problem-solving has been one of the major strands in science education research. But much of the problem-solving research has been conducted on discipline-based contexts; little research has been done on how students, especially individuals, solve interdisciplinary problems. To understand how individuals reason about interdisciplinary problems, we conducted an interview study with 16 graduate students coming from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. During the interviews, we asked participants to solve two interdisciplinary science problems on the topic of osmosis. We investigated participants’ problem reasoning processes and probed in their attitudes toward general interdisciplinary approach and specific interdisciplinary problems. Through a careful inductive content analysis of their responses, we studied how disciplinary, cognitive, and affective factors influenced their interdisciplinary problems-solving. We found that participants’ prior discipline-based science learning experiences had both positive and negative influences on their interdisciplinary problem-solving. These influences were embodied in their conceptualization of the interdisciplinary problems, the strategies they used to integrate different disciplinary knowledge, and the attitudes they had toward interdisciplinary approach in general and specific interdisciplinary problems. This study sheds light on interdisciplinary science education by revealing the complex relationship between disciplinary learning and interdisciplinary problem-solving.     

Constructivist learning environments and the (im)possibility to change students’ perceptions of assessment demands and approaches to learning

Recent research shows that, as students interpret the demands of the assessment tasks, they vary their approaches to learning in order to cope with the assessment tasks. Three research questions are central in the present paper: (1) Do students who participate in a constructivist learning environment change their perception of assessment demands towards more deep level demands? (2) Do students in a constructivist learning environment change their approaches to learning towards a more deep approach to learning? (3) Is there a relation between change in approaches to learning and change in the perceptions of the assessment demands? Students following the course ‘Education and psychology’ of the teacher training program at the University of Antwerp completed questionnaires during the first, the second and the final lesson of the course. One questionnaire measured their approaches to learning and the other their general perceptions of the assessment demands. The course ‘Education and psychology’ can be labelled as a ‘constructivist learning environment’ with congruent assessment methods. Results of the paired sampled t-tests indicated that students indeed do change their perceptions of assessment demands towards more deep level demands. However, the results also indicated that students did not change their approach to learning towards a more deep approach. On the contrary, students seem to develop more surface approaches to learning during the course. Correlation analyses indicated that only changes of perceptions of assessment demands towards less surface levels are significantly related to changes in approaches to learning, towards a more surface approach. Results of the stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that students’ approach to learning at the beginning of the course seems to have a higher impact on the extent to which they change their approach to learning than how students perceive the demands of the assessment within the course. These results point us to the complexity of the relationship between the learning environment, the students’ perceptions of assessment demands, and students’ approaches to learning.     

Too much,too soon? A critical investigation into factors that make Flipped Classrooms effective

The Flipped Classroom (FC) method is used widely in higher education, with studies claiming various benefits. However, to date, little work has focused on what makes FCs effective for student learning. This study presents data collected from interviews with 14 UK-based undergraduate students, investigating their perceptions of participating in a series of FC sessions. Findings indicate that the FC format discouraged a significant number of students from attending. However, students who did attend the flipped classes reported valuing the resultant learning opportunities and enjoying the experience. This study sheds light on the learning process within the FC. Challenges in implementing the FC were highlighted both by students who attended and by those who did not. We conclude that implementing the FC should not be undertaken lightly or be seen as a quick fix; at minimum, it requires staff willingness and opportunities for engagement and peer learning.     

A community of inquiry-based framework for civic education at Universitas Terbuka,Indonesia

This study focused on the civic education course at Universitas Terbuka (UT). Its purpose was to design a new approach for the online tutorial for the course by analyzing the literature related to online and distance education and investigating participant feedback on the current offering of the course and tutorial, which is a compulsory course in all programs at UT. The study draws from the community of inquiry framework, which promotes a social constructivist approach as well as teaching about democracy by example. This model is intended to create meaningful learning experiences for students in a reformulated civic education course, in which they would learn to think critically through interacting with classmates, experiencing collaborative learning, and supporting fellow students in learning activities and processes. In this model, learning is seen as occurring within the community through the interaction of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence where, students are able to develop civic competences, namely civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions, as well as experience a democratic interaction that forms the core of civic interactions in a democratic society.     

Best Practices for an Interdisciplinary Team-Taught Course

In the interdisciplinary course, Aging to Infancy: A Life Course Retrospective, the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for education were embraced through the role modeling provided by faculty both across and between disciplines. Over the five years since its creation, the course has introduced students to aging in a positive manner, establishing the foundation for higher level courses within each program's curriculum. The course also introduces students to the interdisciplinary healthcare team and reinforces the need for practitioners who value the interdisciplinary approach and expect it in their place of work. These are best practices for an interdisciplinary course.     

Promoting higher order thinking skills using inquiry-based learning

Active learning pedagogies play an important role in enhancing higher order cognitive skills among the student community. In this work, a laboratory course for first year engineering chemistry is designed and executed using an inquiry-based learning pedagogical approach. The goal of this module is to promote higher order thinking skills in chemistry. Laboratory exercises are designed based on Bloom's taxonomy and a just-in-time facilitation approach is used. A pre-laboratory discussion outlining the theory of the experiment and its relevance is carried out to enable the students to analyse real-life problems. The performance of the students is assessed based on their ability to perform the experiment, design new experiments and correlate practical utility of the course module with real life. The novelty of the present approach lies in the fact that the learning outcomes of the existing experiments are achieved through establishing a relationship with real-world problems.     

Designing discipline-specific roles for interdisciplinary learning: two comparative cases in an afterschool STEM + L programme

The current K-12 educational system often does not engage students in interdisciplinary learning. To address this need, we developed an integrated STEM?+?L (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Digital Literacies) afterschool programme in which middle school students took discipline-specific roles (writer, scientist, artist, and engineer) and worked in small groups to produce multimodal science fictions. The study aims to investigate the effect of discipline-specific roles on students’ interdisciplinary and collaborative learning processes. Two groups were chosen as comparison cases because their final products indicated low and high levels in integrating science and literacy respectively. Analysing and visualising students’ individual role-changing patterns and examining their discourse in role-specific interactions revealed the following features for high-quality interdisciplinary learning: (1) Students need to be willing and able to enact not only expected roles, but also other roles; (2) Students need to develop awareness of their own and others’ role enactment; (3) Collaboration between students with different roles may follow a possible trajectory from solo-construction, to co-construction, to re-construction. This study also proposes instructional strategies related to the design of discipline-specific roles to facilitate interdisciplinary learning in STEM education.     

Destination,Imagination and the Fires Within: Design Thinking in a Middle School Classroom

The purpose of the Taking Design Thinking to Schools Research Project was to extend the knowledge base that contributes to an improved understanding of the role of design thinking in K‐12 classrooms. The ethnographic qualitative study focused on the implementation of an interdisciplinary design curriculum by a team of university instructors in a public charter school. Three questions framed the study. How did students express their understanding of design thinking classroom activities? How did affective elements impact design thinking in the classroom environment? How is design thinking connected to academic standards and content learning in the classroom?     

Which variables predict teachers diagnostic competence when diagnosing students’ learning behavior at different stages of a teacher’s career?

Diagnosing is one of teachers’ key competences. Lately, a new model of teachers’ diagnostic competence and therewith a new measurement method focusing on diagnosing students’ learning behavior in an interdisciplinary approach have been developed. They can build a basis for promoting teachers’ diagnostic competence. However, some questions relevant to promoting teachers’ diagnostic competence concerning students’ learning behavior still remain unanswered: Which values do teachers-on-the-job in contrast to preservice teachers with or without teaching experience gain through experience and which are the relevant variables that lead to a high level of diagnostic competence focused on learning behavior? Thus, this study aims at enlightening these issues. In a sample of 293 participants (93 German grammar school teachers, 107 German teacher students in their second phase of teacher education, and 93 German preservice students in their first phase of teacher education), teachers’ diagnostic competence concerning learning behavior as well as teachers’ motivation, attitude, self-efficacy, knowledge, and reflection on experience concerning diagnosing was measured. Motivation, attitude, and knowledge were found to be substantial positive predictors of diagnostic competence concerning learning behavior, with differentiated predictions for teachers’ experience. Reflection on experience and self-efficacy unexpectedly was not found to be relevant. Teachers-on-the-job were generally better at diagnosing their students’ learning behavior than were preservice teachers without teaching experience. However, the diagnostic work of preservice teachers with teaching experience was as credible as that of the in-service teachers.     

Informed learning design: teaching and learning through engagement with information

ABSTRACT

While higher education teachers are able to use information in sophisticated ways to learn and communicate within their disciplines, they may not be accustomed to teaching their students to use information creatively and reflectively to support their work in a course. This article introduces informed learning design, a curriculum design model by which teachers specifically enable students to learn course content through intentional engagement with information. Drawing from informed learning pedagogy and the variation theory of learning, the design model outlines an instructional pattern for enabling student awareness of critical aspects and features of the object being studied related to both information use and course content.