Education Commons^™

Playing To Grow. Roundtable Interview On Games, Education, And Character, Owen Gottlieb, Matthew Farber, Paul Darvasi

Articles

In this roundtable interview moderated by Paul Darvasi, lecturer at the University of Toronto and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, Owen Gottlieb and Matthew Farber discuss research and practice at the intersection of religion, character education, and games in schools. Gottlieb is an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, founder and lead faculty at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the MAGIC center, and founder and director of the Interaction, Media, and Learning Lab at RIT, where he specializes in interactive media, learning, religion, and culture. Farber is an associate professor of educational technology and coordinator …

Starting The Journey To Excellence With A College Faculty Onboarding Program, Robin Cooper, Judith Slapak-Barski

HCAS Instructional Design and Pedagogy

The journey to engaged, excellent teaching requires support and preparation for those doing the teaching. In this session, we describe a college Faculty Onboarding Program we developed in 2023 to introduce our new Halmos faculty to NSU (Nova Southeastern University) and to Halmos, and to provide them with the resources and information needed to succeed in their new role—driven by the belief that effective onboarding will lead to higher job satisfaction, better job performance, greater organizational commitment, and reduction in stress. Informed by feedback from recently hired faculty, we identified support strategies to help new faculty thrive by proactively removing …

Toward Cs1 Content Subscales: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of An Introductory Computing Assessment, Miranda C. Parker, Matt J. Davidson, Yvonne S. Kao, Lauren Margulieux, Zachary Tidler, Jan Vahrenhold

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background and Context. There is a constant, demonstrated need for valid and reliable assessments in computing education research. While there exist assessments at a course-based level (e.g., CS1, Data Structures, Discrete math, etc.), instructors and researchers would also like concept-based subscales that are more fine-grained. However, assessments designed and validated at the course level need additional work to determine whether they can reliably and validly measure individual concepts.

Objectives. In this paper, we explore the content and factor structure of an existing CS1 assessment, the Second CS1 (SCS1) assessment, which consists of nine CS1 concepts and three question types (definitional, …

Leading By Example And Giving Back To Society, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

N.R. Narayana Murthy, the founder and former Chairman of Infosys, a global provider of next-generation digital services and consulting, speaks with Havovi Joshi about the Indian growth story.

Learning Professionals That Leverage Learner Agency As An Asynchronous Instructional Design Strategy: A Phenomenological Study, Misha A. Mixon

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand asynchronous online professional learning for adults that maximizes learner agency through non-linear instructional design strategies by the lived experiences of Learning and Development professionals. The theory guiding this study is Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy, as it speaks to the unique characteristics of adult learners and is the lens by which the creation of asynchronous learning experiences that maximize learner agency can be viewed. The central research question investigates the lived experiences of learning professionals who create asynchronous online professional learning for adults that maximizes learner agency through non-linear instructional …

Use Of Mobile Applications For Information Management Among Library And Information Science Trainees In Federal Polytechnic Ede, Osun State, Nigeria, Blessing Babawale Amusan, Adepero Olajumoke Odumade Mrs.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study is an assessment of the use of mobile applications for information management among year two National Diploma students in the Department of Library and Information Science, Federal Polytechnic Ede, Osun State, Nigeria. The study adopted a survey method and questionnaire were administered on the 164 students from which 152 were completed and returned. The study discovered that the students commonly used mobile applications for managing information relating to their academic activities and were highly skilled in using mobile applications for streaming videos, sharing of documents and uploading of information using social media apps, but majority. The study also …

Proceedings Of The Cuny Games Conference 9.0, Robert O. Duncan, Grace L. Axler-Diperte, Joseph Bisz, Christina Boyle, Devorah Kletenik, Carolyn Stallard

Publications and Research

The CUNY Games Network is an organization dedicated to encouraging research, scholarship and teaching in the developing field of games-based learning. We connect educators from every campus and discipline at CUNY and beyond who are interested in digital and non-digital games, simulations, and other forms of interactive teaching and inquiry-based learning.

One Font Doesn’T Fit All: The Influence Of Digital Text Personalization On Comprehension In Child And Adolescent Readers, Shannon M. Sheppard, Susanne L. Nobles, Anton Palma, Sophie Kajfez, Marjorie Jordan, Kathy Crowley, Sofie Beier

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Reading comprehension is an essential skill. It is unclear whether and to what degree typography and font personalization may impact reading comprehension in younger readers. With advancements in technology, it is now feasible to personalize digital reading formats in general technology tools, but this feature is not yet available for many educational tools. The current study aimed to investigate the effect of character width and inter-letter spacing on reading speed and comprehension. We enrolled 94 children (kindergarten–8th grade) and compared performance with six font variations on a word-level semantic decision task (Experiment 1) and a passage-level comprehension task (Experiment 2). …

How Teachers Conceptualise Shared Control With An Ai Co-Orchestration Tool: A Multiyear Teacher-Centred Design Process, Luettamae Lawrence, Vanessa Echeverria, Kexin Yang, Vincent Aleven, Nikol Rummel

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance teachers' capabilities by sharing control over different parts of learning activities. This is especially true for complex learning activities, such as dynamic learning transitions where students move between individual and collaborative learning in un-planned ways, as the need arises. Yet, few initiatives have emerged considering how shared responsibility between teachers and AI can support learning and how teachers' voices might be included to inform design decisions. The goal of our article is twofold. First, we describe a secondary analysis of our co-design process comprising six design methods to understand how teachers conceptualise sharing control with …

S-Kmn: Integrating Semantic Features Learning And Knowledge Mapping Network For Automatic Quiz Question Annotation, Jing Wang, Hao Li, Xu Du, Jui-Long Hung, Shuoqiu Yang

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Quiz question annotation aims to assign the most relevant knowledge point to a question, which is a key technology to support intelligent education applications. However, the existing methods only extract the explicit semantic information that reveals the literal meaning of a question, and ignore the implicit knowledge information that highlights the knowledge intention. To this end, an innovative dual-channel model, the Semantic-Knowledge Mapping Network (S-KMN) is proposed to enrich the question representation from two perspectives, semantic and knowledge, simultaneously. It integrates semantic features learning and knowledge mapping network (KMN) to extract explicit semantic features and implicit knowledge features of questions,respectively. …

How Co-Designing Computational Modeling Activities Helped Teachers Implement Responsive Teaching Strategies, Hillary Swanson, Luettamae Lawrence, Jared Arnell, Allisia Dawkins, Bonni Jones, Bruce Sherin, Uri Wilensky

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In recent years, science education has shifted focus, from content to practice. This is reflected in the NGSS, which advocate learning science concepts through engagement in science and engineering practices. Theory building is a central activity of science and computational modeling is a key practice through which contemporary scientists construct theory. In this paper, we discuss an 8th grade science teacher's implementation of a computational modeling lesson. The teacher had co-designed the computational modeling microworld and lesson with the research team over the preceding summers. We investigate the teacher's activity during a whole-class discussion near the end of the lesson, …

Understanding Computational Thinking In The Gameplay Of The African Songo Board Game, Rebecca Y. Bayeck

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Computational thinking is a necessary skill for the 21st century. While previously examined in computer-rich settings, researchers are increasingly studying computational thinking in unplugged environments such as board games. Focusing on the African board game Songo, this study shows that computational thinking practices are embedded in Songo board gameplay and interact with the cultural context. The study also reveals a computing practice peculiar to Songo gameplay, songoputation. This paper suggests that researchers can benefit from exploring computational thinking and computing practices beyond board games in western contexts.

Pursuing Professional Learning By Using Social Media: How Do Instructional Designers Apply Self-Regulated Learning?, Pauline Salim Muljana, Tian Luo

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The instructional design and technology field are dynamic, requiring instructional designers to stay abreast through timely professional learning. Social media offers characteristics to collapse the time, geographical, and financial limitations of informal professional learning, but challenges exist. Continuous professional learning requires proactive actions, wherein self-regulated learning (SRL) plays an important role. However, not all professionals know the effective strategies to promote SRL skills. This study examines instructional designers’ (N = 17) experiences of professional learning on social media through an SRL lens. Data collected through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings include SRL strategies conducted by instructional designers …

Relationships Among Radiologic Science Educators' Years Of Teaching Experience, Technological Self-Efficacy, And Digital Technology Use In The Classroom, Jessica Anne Church

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine the relationships among radiologic science educators’ years of teaching experience, technological self-efficacy, and digital technology use in the classroom. The underuse of technology in higher education is an issue. Students use technology every day and radiologic science students, in particular, are expected to use it proficiently in training and practice. It is important that these students are exposed in the classroom, as technologies beneficial to learning are available. It is also important to determine the role of years of teaching experience in educators’ beliefs about their abilities to use technology …

Supporting And Sustaining Equitable Steam Activities In High School Classrooms: Understanding Computer Science Teachers’ Needs And Practices When Implementing An E-Textiles Curriculum To Forge Connections Across Communities, Deborah A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While the last two decades have seen an increased interest in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) in K-12 schools, few efforts have focused on the teachers and teaching practices necessary to support these interventions. Even fewer have considered the important work that teachers carry out not just inside classrooms but beyond the classroom walls to sustain such STEAM implementation efforts, from interacting with administrators to recruiting students and persuading parents about the importance of arts and computer science. In order to understand teachers’ needs and practices regarding STEAM implementation, in this paper, we focus on eight experienced computer …

Building An Infrastructure For Down Syndrome Care, Kate E. Martin

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

People with intellectual disabilities experience greater obstacles in attaining their full health potential. The most common identifiable cause of intellectual disability is Down syndrome. Established in September 2021, the Down Syndrome Program at The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) aims to meet the healthcare needs of members of the Southern Nevada community with Down syndrome and their families. However, there is currently no infrastructure in place in Southern Nevada to provide Down syndrome care, or clinical services dedicated to individuals with the condition. This work discusses options that were explored to develop …

Is Microethnography An Ethnographic Case Study? And/Or A Mini-Ethnographic Case Study? An Analysis Of The Literature, Rebecca Y. Bayeck

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Selecting the research approach that addresses the research question is often challenging for novice researchers. However, getting a better understanding of the research approaches available in the field, is likely to help novice researchers identify and choose the research approach that fits their situation. In this paper, we discuss microethnography, ethnographic case study, and mini-ethnography case study in order to show that these approaches may have similarities but are different. The author hopes that this discussion will help researchers get a better understanding of these approaches and dissipate the confusion that may exist.

Investigating Collaborative Problem Solving Temporal Dynamics Using Interactions Within A Digital Whiteboard, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Collaborative Problem Solving, the resolution of complex problems with the collaboration of multiple peoplepooling their knowledge, skills and effort is postulated as an essential 21st century skills for the futureworkforce. Collaborative Problem Solving has been embraced in schools where both online and face-to-face collaboration are afforded through the proliferation of educational technology tools. Assessing the amount of collaboration that has taken place among the students has however been challenging. In this research, we seek to identify the collaboration patterns of our students by mining the temporal sequence of their actions logs captured within a digital whiteboard tool. With the use …

Engaging The Adult Learner: An Action Research Study On Delivering Effective Online Learning Experiences, Amanda Nolan

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

Since the pandemic of 2020, there has been a vast increase of adults learning online. Today, online learning is the most popular learning approach among adult learners. However, many adults have faced obstacles and challenges when learning online, resulting in a poor learning experience. Online learning is a modality that has become the forefront of learning in our society and continues to grow more and more popular, which makes it a critically important research area. This paper discusses adult learners and their most common challenges and obstacles when learning online and suggestions on how to avoid them. A positionality statement …

The Predictive Validity Of The Gre Across Graduate Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis Of Trends Over Time, David F. Feldon, Kaylee Litson, Brinleigh Cahoon, Zhang Feng, Andrew Walker, Colby Tofel-Grehl

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This meta-analysis assesses the predictive validity of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) across outcome variables, including grade point average, for graduate students. In addition to aggregate effects, this paper also assessed changes in observed effects over time as related to increasing diversity in the graduate student population and as a function of gender and racial/ethnic composition of study samples. Framed using a lens of critical whiteness, this analysis examined n = 1,744 individual effects across k = 208 studies. Overall, 61.6% of reported effects were nonsignificant (i.e. no predictive value of GRE scores on student outcomes). Further, the magnitude of …

Impact Of Big Data Analytics On Banking: A Case Study, Wu He, Jui-Long Hung, Lixin Liu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose – The paper aims to help enterprises gain valuable knowledge about big data implementation in practice and improve their information management ability, as they accumulate experience, to reuse or adapt the proposed method to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Design/methodology/approach – Guided by the theory of technological frames of reference (TFR) and transaction cost theory (TCT), this paper describes a real-world case study in the banking industry to explain how to help enterprises leverage big data analytics for changes. Through close integration with bank's daily operations and strategic planning, the case study shows how the analytics team frame the …

Thinking Global, Acting Local, Ali Gohar Qazi

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Ongoing or continuous professional development is essential for teachers to develop and maintain the knowledge base required to produce more powerful learning outcomes among their students. Research has shown that professional development is more effective and meaningful to teachers when it is content focused, involves active learning and collective participation, and when it is sustained in duration, instead of being top-down, episodic, or delivered as ‘one-shot’ training workshops.

Protecting Students: Data Privacy In The African Union, Etienne Vallée, Yu-Chang Hsu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The adoption by the African Union of its Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection in 2014 represented a step forward to protect personal data and to ensure that data remain private and secure. This is especially important for students, who often have no autonomy in the educational technology they use. Students cannot choose why data and information is collected, nor how it is used. In this paper, the importance of data privacy in general is explored, along with a particular focus on educational data privacy. The legal implications for the protection of data privacy in Africa are then …

Accessible Online Learning: A Preliminary Investigation Of Educational Technologists’ And Faculty Members’ Knowledge And Skills, Patrick R. Lowenthal, Amy Lomellini

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Colleges and Universities have a more diverse student body than ever before—this includes a growing number of students with disabilities. Many of these students are attracted to the flexibility and anonymity of learning online. However, research suggests that students with disabilities often face barriers learning online. Given this, we set out to investigate how faculty and educational technologists are prepared to design accessible online courses and instructional materials. We surveyed 95 educational technologists, directors, and disability access personnel in this exploratory study. In the following paper, we report the results of our inquiry into these professionals’ perspectives on faculty and …

Designing Hybrid Human-Ai Orchestration Tools For Individual And Collaborative Activities: A Technology Probe Study, Vanessa Echeverria, Kexin Yang, Luettamae Lawrence, Nikol Rummel, Vincent Aleven

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Combining individual and collaborative learning is common, but dynamic combinations (which happen as-the-need arises, rather than in pre-planned ways, and may happen on an individual basis) are rare. This work reports findings from a technology probe study exploring alternative designs for classroom co-orchestration support for dynamically transitioning between individual and collaborative learning. The study involved 1) a technology-probe classroom study in an authentic, AI-supported classroom to understand teachers' and students' needs for co-orchestration support over dynamic transitions; and 2) workshops and interviews with students and teachers to get informed feedback about their lived experiences. 118 students and three teachers from …

What Is Pedagogy?: Discovering The Hidden Pedagogical Dimension, Norm Friesen, Hanno Su

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam-Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific “model for teaching” (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a “pedagogy of the oppressed”). In this paper, Norm Friesen and Hanno Su follow the Continental pedagogical tradition in giving pedagogy a general but explicit definition. They do so by looking at how pedagogy arises both in everyday life and in school as unavoidably …

Investigating Pre-Service Teachers' Intention To Apply Critical Media Literacy (Cml) In Career, Chenyang Xu

College of Education Student Presentation Series

Poster presented on 2023 UMass Amherst College of Education Annual Research Showcase

In the contemporary era characterized by the proliferation of "fake news" and "alternative facts," the importance of Critical Media Literacy (CML) has never been more pronounced. This study investigates the beliefs and intentions of pre-service teachers towards the integration of CML into their future teaching practices, utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework. The outcomes of this study aim to provide a comprehensive insight into pre-service teachers' perspective towards CML, serving as a significant resource for researchers, teacher education faculty, administrators, and the broader …

Technology-Enabled Active Learning In Gen Ed Courses, Emily Faulconer

Publications

Technology tools can achieve active learning in asynchronous online courses. The H5P platform promotes self-paced, self-directed active learning through activities including branching scenarios, crosswords, flashcards, and interactive videos. This tool can provide formative feedback through features that allow provision of automatic feedback for a variety of question types (e.g.; fill in the blank, multiple choice, image hotspot, and drag and drop). H5P activities were embedded in the learning management system of two introductory general education courses. Learning analytics data and student perspectives were collected. This data will be used to guide future use of this technology tool in online courses.

Evaluating The Design And Development Of The “Making Molecules” Simulation: Students’ Perceptions And Recommendations, Pauline Salim Muljana, Jodye I. Selco

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Students perceive molecular bonding as an abstract concept; therefore, learning this concept seems uninteresting and difficult. A strategically designed learning object (LO), such as in the form of a simulation, can be used to help students acquire accurate mental images and build appropriate schema in addition to providing a concrete learning experience and encouraging knowledge construction. This paper presents an evaluation of the design and development of the Making Molecules simulation through students’ perceptions of the previous version and recommendations for improving a future version. Data were collected from two online chemistry courses (N = 159) through an anonymous online …

Online Early Childhood Teacher Education Program: Practices And Future Possibilities, Yasmeen Mehboob, Silpa Aziz Karim

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

The study aimed to test the effectiveness and the feasibility of Zoom and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) for early childhood teacher education (ECTE) at a university in Pakistan. The study addresses how a Community of Inquiry (COI) framework can be embedded within Zoom and VLE to make the online course meaningful, interactive and accessible. This is an exploratory case study with a mixed method approach. Data was gathered through survey, focus group discussion, reflective journals, observations and meeting notes. Pre- and post-online knowledge tests and assignments were used to assess changes in participant’s knowledge and understanding. Survey result indicated positive …