Online Lightning Talks
Lightning Talks are 5-minute "flash" video presentations. Authors present summaries or overviews of their work, describing the essential features (related to purpose, procedures, outcomes, or product). Authors are welcome to submit traditional "lecture style" videos or videos that use visual supports like PowerPoint. After the conference, the videos are made available on the network's YouTube channel.
Leading Academic Transformation Through Innovative Technological and Team-Building Strategies: How the School of Graduate Education at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Strategically Improved Its Offerings and Pedagogy
Online Lightning Talk Joseph Evanick
The School of Graduate Education at the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (GCSOM) successfully increased its offerings and pedagogy by implementing innovative technology implementation and team-building strategies. Results include new online programs, improved team engagement, and increased enrollment. This Lightning Talk will break down the strategies used to ensure the School of Graduate Education at GCSOM continues to move forward in the right direction.
Greek MOOCs (Mathesis) Design And Quality: An Empirical Research
Online Lightning Talk Dimitrios Tsolis, Spyridon Kappas
The first Greek organized MOOC platform called Mathesis has now been in operation for four years constituting a model for the creation of Greek University MOOCs which have not yet come to life. In our paper, we present some complete empirical research conducted over the last two years via our enrolling in all of the courses with the aim to investigating their most fundamental features. We categorize the courses according to their subject and investigate characteristics such as their level and the time required to complete each course, the types and features of teaching material and wider issues related to the design and quality of courses. Emphasis is placed on collaborative learning issues as they arise during the research into the various course forums, the attempts at volunteering but also into the expenditure required to run the platform. Based on our research, as well as on the conclusions drawn from participants’ answers to Output Questionnaires, we intend to look into the advantages and drawbacks of the corresponding courses, and suggest ways this MOOCs platform can improve, having in mind the considerable amount of completion in comparison to what applies on a broader scale to MOOCs. Particular attention is given to investigating the potential for using such courses for SE Teacher Training, and methods are suggested to this end.
Designing for Impact: Creating Functional Change in Online Information Literacy Programs to Ensure Transfer of Learning
Online Lightning Talk Marta Samokishyn
Academic librarians, as partners in the educational process, strive to provide support to faculty and students with a wide range of skills, from bibliographic support and research data management to information literacy and digital literacy skills. However, as higher education institutions increasingly adopt online learning models, academic librarians are struggling to find established processes to meet the needs of online students to ensure that they are making a difference in students’ learning. This lightning talk addresses the issue of instructional design in academic libraries, and specifically discusses the design process of online Information Literacy programs for transferable students’ skills and mechanisms to measure the impact of these instructions on online students to ensure their success and transfer of learning. It addresses such strategies as problem-based student-centred learning, collaboration with the faculty, follow-up opportunities for librarians, and the issue of human connection in digital learning environments.
Successes and Limitations of Stealth Learning in a Minecraft Game World
Online Lightning Talk Liam McCashin
Digital game use is on the rise in the classroom. Across all grade and subject areas, games are increasingly being used as a teaching tool and classroom motivator; Usually, they are used to increase classroom engagement and participation. Research has previously identified theoretical evidence for classroom digital games but fails to deliver a concrete methodology for practical adaptation of game-based learning. In this project, we explored elementary-aged camp participants as they played the sandbox game Minecraft. We examined their digital game artifacts to try and pinpoint their use of spatial geometry math concepts that they had not yet learned in school. We found that practical math competency was gained while playing Minecraft but also that this knowledge transferred poorly to evaluation items we deliver to try and measure that understanding. Participants that were using spatial geometry concepts effectively in camp activities were unable to demonstrate those same skills on a pen and paper post-test. We argue that in-game, stealth learning is a valuable teaching tool but that it requires a more sensitive, perhaps more game-like, assessment tool to properly evaluate learning.
