Digital Insights
Team-based Learning as a Flipped Instructional Design in an ODeL Course
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Micheal M Van Wyk
Team-based learning (TBL) is a collaborative learning and teaching strategy that enables students to follow a structured process to enhance student engagement. Team-based learning is providing an active structured form of small-group learning, that could be applied in open distance e-learning (ODeL) space. Team-based learning as a flipped instructional design was used as a case in an ODeL course at a college for teacher education. The case study was informed by student teachers’ experiences as participants in a team-based learning strategy. Virtual video-conferencing interviews were conducted with 8 team-based focus groups (n=40) as a purposive sampling of participants. Virtually recorded transcripts were conducted and thematic analysis was employed to generate themes of lived experiences of participants. Findings revealed that participants develop professional attributes, are motivated to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses as members of the teams, and experience the value of working and collaborating in teams. Further research in the use of evidence-based practice will result in better outcomes for teams-based learning in flipped learning.
Navigating Digital Literacy: Pathways and Practices of First-generation Black Students at a South African University
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elzahn Rinquest
This paper examines the experiences of first-generation black (FGB) students at a South African university during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2021. The study focuses on how these students navigated their digital-scholarly becoming, taking into account the role of family, as well as issues of identity, context, and culture in shaping their digital literacy acquisition and learning pathways. The study draws on social reproduction theories incorporating Bourdieu's conceptual tools - habitus, various forms of capital, and field - to explore the students' acquisition pathways in the university. The paper highlights the importance of understanding the university as a context of digital immersion for gauging the extent of students’ access to digital literacy skills and supporting their pathways towards accumulating digital capital. The results of the study suggest that virtual teaching and learning require elaborate, creative, and autonomous expressions of teaching and learning identities, which entails that students extend their identities as they engage with their digitally-based teaching and learning spaces. The study also underscores the importance of digital literacy for FGB students in navigating the virtual HE field and emphasises the need for higher education institutions to pay attention to the swift adoption of blended and distance-learning models and their effects on all stakeholders. The paper concludes with recommendations for the development of policies and programs that promote digital literacy acquisition and equitable access to digital resources for FGB students in higher education institutions in South Africa.
English Language Education Provided by the App 'Estude em Casa': A Multimodal Analysis
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Karina de Oliveira Nascimento, Thiago De Melo Cardoso Santos, Maria Amália Vargas Façanha
The increase in the adoption of apps for language education is a reality nowadays, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are paid, others are free, but a number of them are now available to language learners. In this study, we focus on an app called 'Estude em Casa', made available, for free, to public school students of Sergipe, the smallest state of Brazil, during the pandemic times, starting in 2020. In a research from 2021 to 2023, we investigated the materials made available in the app, which were meant to teach English, observing how multimodality was/was not part of the activities proposed. It was qualitative and interpretive research which also took the form of a document investigation since our main focus was on the activities made available by the app aimed at basic education. After a thorough examination of the app, we found out multimodality was not explored as it could be, considering its potential in the processes of teaching and learning English using multimodal literacies. Therefore, there was little exploration of the connections between the visual and verbal in multimodal communication. After the investigation, we advocate for the importance of the development of multimodal literacies through the teaching of English.
