Technology and Knowledge Construction
Classroom Conversations: Taking Social Constructivism Online
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lorna Dreyer
The renewed B.Ed. Honours programme in a Faculty of Education is presented in a Blended Teaching and Learning model. This model allows for exploring ways of interfacing traditional pedagogies with digital technology. The evolving digital landscape is continuously transforming the sources that provide evidence of student engagement and learning and allow for learning and interaction beyond the physical classroom. With a blended model, students can be in various locations across the country or abroad. Subsequently teachers’ need to adapt learning activities to enhance social constructivist and deep learning where students can co-construct knowledge and understanding while not in the same room. Against this background, students were introduced to online engagement to promote understanding through online interactions. This was done through an online FORUM on the university’s Moodle platform. The ILD Framework of Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland (2005) and Anderson (2004) was used as an action research process to provide students with meaningful learning opportunities. The findings revealed some challenges in navigating the “new” way of engagement. However, the conversations on the online forum afforded students the opportunity to engage through constructive comments to enhance authentic learning. Digital technology has become an integral part of society and therefore also the teaching and learning environment. With blended teaching and learning model, were both students and lecturers have to communicate in online space for a large part of the programme, we have to find innovative ways to keep the conversation alive.
Advancing Information Literacy Asynchronously: Emerging Opportunities for Academic Librarians
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lindsey Wharton
As a growing number of educational experiences happen in distributed environments, it is imperative for library instructors to adapt our teaching practices to best fit the changing information literacy needs of diverse students. This paper presentation explores the emerging opportunities for librarians in redefining traditional information literacy and providing learners the skills and expertise to successfully navigate the information landscape in digital workspaces. A case study of asynchronous library instruction embedded in the learning management system will be provided as well as recommendations for librarians and instructors interested in developing and/or improving their online pedagogical practices. Utilizing a learner-centered perspective allows instructors to maintain collaborative, reflective, and meaningful exercises on knowledge production, use, and participation in online classrooms, allowing for inclusive and innovative learning experiences.
Humanising Data Science: Weaving Narrative, Empathy, and Context Through Complex Data Science Builds
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susan Karpasitis
Keypath Education Australia is an OPM collaborating with eight university partners across Australia. We are experts at building modern data science courses. However, data science is a notoriously complex subject to build. Whilst digging into the complexities of representing Deep Learning principles in a meaningful way, we realised something fundamental is often overlooked: the human element. This paper draws on a partnership between Keypath Australia and James Cook University, over a three-month data science course build. Having a background in teaching Literature, I was unprepared for the complexities building data science, however, through my experience in teaching narrative, I realised that data tells a story, in its own language, of how we operate in the world, what are needs are, and how we go about meeting them. This led to the development of an innovative approach to data science building. To strip it back. We cross-referenced how students learn in humanities disciplines – through narrative progression that leads to emotional connection and empathy with the material. We realised we needed context and a narrative that would tie the otherwise disparate elements of data science together, in a way that would evoke empathy, and therefore engagement, with the students. We needed an extended case- study based narrative running through the entire subject content. This paper presents the challenges, successes and resistance of building narrative context, and empathetically engaging content, within a subject that is often considered as purely technical and separate from such considerations.
