The Changing Classroom
Gamification as a Key Formative Tool: Why the Use of "Gaming" Is an Excellent Tool for Instruction and Formative Assessment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Randall Woodard, Dene Williamson, Patrick Ryan Murphy
Educators are hearing a lot about "gamification" in the classroom, While some find it a wonderful use of time and technology, others argue that it panders to intellectual laziness on the students' behalf. This interactive session will introduce participants to the instructional philosophy of using gaming in the instructional process and demonstrate several ways to utilize a gamified classroom in respect to instructional pedagogy, and in order to provide valuable formative (and immediate) feedback to learners.
COCLE Teaching and Learning Model: EFL Students’ Preferences in China
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jinjin Lu, Yaqi Wu, Si Fan
In most traditional classrooms, Chinese students and EFL teachers have very few opportunities to communicate with others who are in wilder communities. The limited communication is only between students and students (Ss-Ss), students and English teachers (Ss to Ts). This means that the language communication from the beginning is very limited. The author proposes that a concept of the “Communicative Language Community of English Learners (CLCOEL)” could be brought into the EFL context (Lu, 2014). The CLCOEL model emphasises a wild community is essential to improve our students’ communicative skills and as a consequence, their cognitive skills could be enhanced in the process of perception. More importantly, in the reflective process, their learning autonomy proficiency and humanistic qualities could be improved as well. In this case, I proposed that the CLCOEL needs to be highlighted in the implications for practice as it is essential to create a harmonious atmosphere in English learning and teaching for both students and teachers.
Meaningful Teaching and Learning: MyStatLab and StatCrunch
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elaine Correa, Vochita Mihai
The pressure on institutions of higher learning to remain competitive has accompanied a paradigm shift in teaching and learning. The struggle between comprehension and effective teaching methods raises numerous interrelated concerns for faculty and students as on-line learning software becomes an integral feature of teaching and learning in higher education. In a culture of instant gratification and constant interaction through a range of hand held electronic devises, it is no longer unsettling or even surprising to raise the question of whether traditional environments of learning should integrate more technology in teaching. Today, cyber space is a part of where we live. It is integrated into our sense of identity and value, whether we fully accept it or not. It is a place in which we all have become naturalized digital citizens authorized through the purchase of an electronic devise and access to the internet. Even faculty today, have constructed their cyber identities and legitimated their on-line presence through on-going membership and activity as cyber citizens who religiously contribute to the web. Yet, despite the increased acceptance of technology within society faculty remain relatively distant to the full incorporation of online materials and software in their courses. The challenge remains as to how faculty can reconstruct pedagogies of engagement in the classroom that will draw student interest from disconnected spaces whilst simultaneously reconnecting learning. This paper will reflect the challenges, advantages and drawbacks that emerge as faculty attempt to utilize electronic software (such as MyStatLab and StatCrunch) in meaningful ways to teach and engage the digital learner.
