Advancing Approaches (Asynchronous Session)
Flipped Instructional Design as an Online Pedagogy Enabling Students to Learn to Teach in an Open Distance E-Learning Course View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Micheal M Van Wyk
The growing body of literature is reporting positive results when it comes to flipped learning” which across disciplines and contexts involves a student-centered, technology-integrated teaching. Therefore, the purpose is to determine the extent to which the flipped instructional design (FID) as an online pedagogy enable students to benefit from personalized learning experiences in the teacher education course. This study employed a pragmatic approach, an explanatory mixed-methods design. An online closed-structured questionnaire, the flipped instructional design was sent to students with an online link to be completed, anonymously. The convenient and purposive sample postgraduate students in the Teaching Methodology of Economics course, comprised of Postgraduate Certificate in Education and Bachelor Education (Senior and Further Education and Training phase) student teachers. Findings concluded that the flipped instructional design does engage students’ learning and empowers them in terms of modeling to teach during the course. The flipped instructional design as a teaching strategy was used as reliable, relevant and appropriate to search scholarly works systematically but more research needs to be conducted for an Open Distance E-Learning (ODeL) environment.
Evolving a Understanding of the Declaration of Human Rights through a Guided Technology Course: One Professor's Experience View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Geary
Students can apply a variety of technology tools to almost any content area. However, because technology enables more and more specialized viewing habits, it may be challenging to help students see issues from multiple points of view. This paper focuses on what happens when students use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the base content for a technology in education course.
Agree or Disagree Posts: Which Approach Facilitates Critical Thinking and Engagement in Online Student Discussions More Effectively? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marina Klimenko
Asynchronous online group discussions have become one of the most popular tools used to engage students in active learning and to facilitate critical thinking. Although, online learning, in general, is a relatively new phenomenon, there has been some research around the effectiveness of online group discussions. The results of these studies have been mixed. There are potentially multiple factors that may facilitate or hinder students’ critical thinking progression within group discussions. One such factor is the instructional design—e.g., whether students are required to make an original post and a reply to others’ post in their groups. It is possible that forcing students into posting and replying to peers’ posts discourages authenticity. Students may view group discussions as required school work and not as the platform where they can reflect critically upon what they are learning. The present study was set to evaluate a small change in the instructions of online discussions, allowing students to make or reply to their peers’ posts—in other words, they did not have to make replies if they had nothing significant to add. Students were particularly encouraged to reply to posts with which they disagreed. Although the modification in the instructions appears small, it is predicted that students will make more thoughtful posts; and their replies to others’ posts will demonstrate more authentic and critical thought.
Incorporating Video Feedback into Asynchronous Writing Center Support Strategies: Expanding Ideas of Digital Pedagogies with User-Friendly Technology View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lauren Hammond, Christina Trujillo
Asynchronous writing consultations are often considered challenging given the format’s lack of nonverbal cues and real-time dialogue. However, this presentation argues that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy of writing support and asynchronous online tutoring can be an effective modality for working with students. Asynchronicity offers real advantages in the online learning environment where student learning and thinking has the potential to become more visible as consultants make productive use of additional time to develop intentional, thoughtful feedback: in the form of both marginal and recorded commentary. This paper demonstrates how asynchronous techniques and strategies, such as integration of user-friendly programs like Microsoft Word and Quicktime Screen Capture, allow the writing center to widen its range of benefits for all types of graduate and professional students. Drawing on the experiences with WCOnline’s tutoring platform, interviews with tutors, data, and practices of the University of California, Riverside’s Graduate Writing Center with an asynchronous tutoring program, this study considers empirical evidence for best practices and provides practical applications of how to maximize multimodal instructional potential for student success. This innovative modality offers two different collaboration contexts: the collaboration taking place between consultants and the collaboration between the students sending in repeat drafts to the same consultants, creating a conversation across channels about the student’s ideas of their own professional identity as they put “pen to paper” and explain why they kept or removed content from the previous drafts.
Graduate Students’ Perceptions of an Online Coteaching Instruction Experience View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Annette Miller, Judi Roux
The purpose of this project is to determine the effectiveness of online, coteaching strategies for student engagement and learning, as well as to determine the perceptions and experiences of graduate students participating in a co-instructed online course. In this mixed methods study, both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. A survey asked about graduate students’ experiences in two online co-taught courses in which they participated. The survey inquired about course activities including Zoom class meetings, assignments and projects, instructor-student consultations, and educational technology. The researchers also analyzed student participation in archived Zoom class recordings, their completed assignments, the final course evaluations, reflective instructor conferencing as evidenced in calendars, and course material revisions. The implications emerging from the study may help improve online instruction and coteaching in future graduate courses. Preliminary findings indicate that communication between students, between students and co-instructors, and between both instructors is critical, as is building a community of learners within the online course. Students need to feel supported within each course and by the larger community including from employers and institutions of higher learning. And, high quality online learning must offer students authentic instruction and assessments, active student participation, and shared authority with instructors.
