Comparing Students' Critical Thinking by Using the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy in Online and Face-to-Face Class Formats of Organic Chemistry

The purpose of this study is to compare critical thinking in online and face-to-face formats in an organic chemistry course and report the cognitive dimensions of revised Bloom's taxonomy. The sample used in this research was a 31 students group of grade 12 students at the Demonstration School of Ramkhamhaeng University, Thailand, in the academic year 2021, semester 2. The students took the online (N = 14) and face-to-face (N = 17) formats and were required to fill out an instrument designed to evaluate critical thinking skills in March 2022. The tools used for the test had 50 items, and 4 choices, with a confidence value of 0.83. The result shows that the face-to-face student has higher critical thinking scores than the online students along the highest cognitive dimensions;on the other hand, face-to-face and online formats did not affect remembering, understanding, and applying levels. These formats are effective for analysis, evaluation, and creation, the student's face-to-face has more of an analysis and evaluation level than the student's online. In contrast, online students have a more creative level than face-to-face students. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Flipping the Microwave Engineering Class

Microwave engineering is regaining importance as the world is witnessing the emergence of a new industrial revolution spearheaded by the internet of things and 5G communications and wireless networks. Preparing α-generation microwave engineering students for the future, especially in post-COVID era, represents a considerable challenge to universities worldwide that seldom offer a full autonomous course at the undergraduate level. Engineering curriculum should be revisited in order to incorporate skills suitable for work-based learning with emphasis on developing human-centred ICT competencies. Flipped classrooms are specifically attractive in engineering education to ensure deep comprehension of course material. A flipped microwave-engineering course with focus on amplifier design has therefore been re-designed with course learning outcomes aligned with Bloom's taxonomy and ABET program outcomes. The new learning cycle in the flipped mode, allow reaching the top cognitive pyramid where student exercised decision-making and practiced meta-cognitive knowledge and skills. The stretched flipped classroom represents a paradigm shift in instructional methodology and offers several advantages to the learning process at high cognitive levels as learning occurs in a comfortable pace where students collaborate with instructors in course design, curricula and delivery. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

How the CEPHEI E-course Syllabus Design Was Developed and Implemented

While the digitalization of education has been around since the 1990s, it is only since the Covid-19 pandemic that it has really taken hold in education, when universities were forced to rapidly move online and traditional patterns of teaching were no longer viable. This pushed universities to provide a blended learning environment drawing on technologies that our students, as digital natives, had already been using on a daily basis for some time. However, blended learning is only effective if underpinned by tried and tested learning frameworks—something that many universities were not prepared for when the shift to online learning took place. The Cooperative e-learning Platform for Industrial Innovation (CEPHEI) however, was already prepared and ready for this shift, as from 2017 it had been working on the development of an e-learning platform with the aim of digitizing education while also integrating the reality of professional innovation activities into the context of education according to the demands of industry. To achieve this aim, one of the first phases of the project was to identify key learning frameworks for e-course syllabus design, based on existing research, that could be used to provide recommendations for instructors in the development of their CEPHEI courses. This chapter presents the culmination of this process and provides a framework that can be used by instructors or institutions wishing to design e-learning courses. To make these frameworks tangible for the reader, examples are given throughout the chapter from an undergraduate environmental engineering course in a civil engineering department. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Leveraging the Fullest Potential of Online Teaching Learning: A Design Thinking Framework Approach

COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the switching of educational organizations into online learning serving platforms. The moment online education moved from an optional to the only form of learning and that too long term, the issues, and challenges become evident. Online learning will be more sustainable while learners become part of the solution framework. This is possible with the adoption of Design Thinking (DT). Learners' inclusion in problem-solving opens up a lot of possibilities. This can transform challenges in online learning into opportunities. The present article portrays the research carried out to improve students' learning effectiveness in online classes. The authors have proposed a Design Thinking framework that is in line with the high-order thinking skills of Bloom's taxonomy. This research has showcased the application of the five phases of the DT framework for attaining the optimum solution to the general issues of the online paradigm for teaching-learning. The study recommends that peer collaboration, timely feedback, and taking the learners along for co-designing the learning content are the essence borrowed from the DT framework and help in increasing learning engagement. © 2022 IEEE.

Flipping the Microwave Engineering Class

Microwave engineering is regaining importance as the world is witnessing the emergence of a new industrial revolution spearheaded by the internet of things and 5G communications and wireless networks. Preparing α-generation microwave engineering students for the future, especially in post-COVID era, represents a considerable challenge to universities worldwide that seldom offer a full autonomous course at the undergraduate level. Engineering curriculum should be revisited in order to incorporate skills suitable for work-based learning with emphasis on developing human-centred ICT competencies. Flipped classrooms are specifically attractive in engineering education to ensure deep comprehension of course material. A flipped microwave-engineering course with focus on amplifier design has therefore been re-designed with course learning outcomes aligned with Bloom's taxonomy and ABET program outcomes. The new learning cycle in the flipped mode, allow reaching the top cognitive pyramid where student exercised decision-making and practiced meta-cognitive knowledge and skills. The stretched flipped classroom represents a paradigm shift in instructional methodology and offers several advantages to the learning process at high cognitive levels as learning occurs in a comfortable pace where students collaborate with instructors in course design, curricula and delivery. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

One Literacy and Multiple Intelligences? The Case of Media Literacy

Acceleration of globalisation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution expanded opportunities for intercultural interaction, facilitated by more accessible and affordable information and communication technologies (ICT). Media literacy as framed by UNESCO is to be interpreted as "[u]nderstanding and using mass media in either an assertive or non-assertive way, including an informed and critical understanding of media, the techniques they employ and their effects. Also the ability to read, analyse, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of media forms" (alias "the ability to decode, analyse, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of forms"). Furthermore, media and information literacy "refers to the essential competencies (knowledge, skills and attitude) that allow citizens to engage with media and other information". Dynamic developments in the contemporary world brought about by the post-factual era and the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the exposure of the public to misinterpretation. Being conscious of variable and increasingly multidimensional presentation in academic literature of what it takes to be literate, in our paper we reflect on media literacy alias a synergy of literacy and multiple intelligences. Since on 12 April 2022 UNESCO launched a global survey "Learning from the COVID-19 crisis to write the future: National policies and programmes for youth and adult literacy" addressed to all 193 UNESCO Member States to fill in the gap and collect information on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on youth and adult literacy, our online questionnaire is complementary in terms of scope (media literacy) and outreach (higher education students). The aim of this paper is to investigate awareness, understanding and interpretation of literacy as such, and media literacy in particular, within the cohort of native and international students at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia. The findings revealed a higher ratio of the general understanding of communication and its role in the society, but a lower ratio of awareness about literacy and media literacy. In the context of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives our main suggestion, therefore, is to reinforce the media literacy curriculum in terms of experiential learning in line with the so-called learner-centred approach to education when the needs/aspirations of individuals are placed at the centre and focus is on the experiences they bring to the learning situation.

Influence of Pedagogy on the Epistemological Estimation of Electrical Engineering Subject

COVID-19 pandemic has brought sudden changes in teaching and learning process compared to conventional face to face mode of education all around the globe. During social distancing in pandemic environment, the most common change that has been introduced was to opt online and hybrid mode of learning using e-resources by students and faculty at several organizations. In our organization, the BlackboardTM platform has been used to teach the course either in e-learning or blended mode. The present work is an epistemic case study of an electrical engineering subject taught in blended mode to undergraduate students. The performances of the students have been analysed in continuous assessment as well as in final assignment. The analysis criteria was based on expected “course learning outcomes” taken from ABET guidelines which was planned before the commencement of academic semester. In this case study, a specific part of the final assignment in which a questionnaire was framed to assess the “Understanding”, “Apply”, “Analyzed”, “Evaluate” and “Create” levels of Bloom's Taxonomy by determining the correlation factor among various parameters. It was observed that students had felt the difficulty in achieving the satisfactory response in “Evaluate” and “Create” while performed well in first three levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Based on analysis and results, it is concluded that to achieve satisfactory response of the students, continuous hands-on-experience of laboratory experiments and instruments are essential. In the coming months when it is difficult to start the face to face mode of teaching and learning, an alternate method for laboratory could be catered by introducing virtual laboratory and simulations. In addition a remedial plan has to be prepared to enhance the critical thinking of the students to improve the “Evaluate” and “Create” levels of students. © 2022, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.

A Redesigned Educational System for the COVID-19 Pandemic and Post Pandemic era

This research aims to develop a technology-driven educational application that will be a platform for providing interesting content to students. In light of the COVID-19 pan-demic, the objective of this redesign is to address the shortcomings of the current teaching strategy. In addition, survey and interview results supported the need for a revision of the current educational strategy. The proposed application employs Bloom's taxonomy quizzes to create a customized learning technique and structure content so that students can comprehend subjects more thoroughly. Visual Studio Code and the Ionic Framework were used for front-end development, while the Angular and PHP frameworks were utilized for the back-end. The program was reviewed using white box testing techniques and received positive feedback from users. In addition, it highlighted the possibility for sophisticated enhancements, such as the incorporation of learning styles, to improve the learning experiences of students. © 2022 IEEE.

A Softcomputing Approach for Predicting and Categorising Learner’s Performance Using Fuzzy Model

Covid-19: a pandemic situation in the world gives a turning point to education system and it becomes e-education. E-learning is emerging trend in digital era and empowerment of this trend is necessary. Traditional education system trying to adopt this new method of teaching and learning. But only teaching and learning is not sufficient in education system. We have to focus on learner and the environmental impact on them. Traditional education system unable to resolve all the issues arises due to obstacles such as understanding ability, thinking, mood, concentration etc. Proposed research work focusing on designing, developing and modelling of soft computing decision making model for solving real life problems and learners capability in education system. This research work uses Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) which is one of the applications in MATLAB software, for analysing learners result from obtained score and other factors related to environment. It also predict the learner which is helpful in e-learning. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

It's time to rethink teaching! Bloom's pyramid of higher order thinking skills revisited

This chapter discusses the status of teaching and learning during COVID-19 with a focus on the challenge courageously accepted by the education sector to not interrupt the learning-teaching process, based on the great technological support provided to primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Significantly, this chapter calls for a new era of post-covID-19 education! It focuses on inviting educators and education institutions' leaders to "Rethink Education" and adopt Blended Learning-Teaching Approach. This approach integrates the learning and teaching technologies into the physical classroom settings while incorporating improvements based on education stakeholders' perspectives about their children's learning. More importantly, this chapter makes a revisit to the "Pyramid" of Bloom's Higher Order Thinking Skills and suggest changing it to a "Ladder" that comprises learners' engagement in a "Learning Challenge" in every step of this "Ladder." It also suggests changing the "Remembering" and "Understanding" levels into "Find" and "Explain" stages respectively. © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2022.

Micro-Tutorial: A Strategy for Integrating Error Handling and Concept Application Skills in Traditional Micro-Lecturing Process

The teaching trend is shifting towards online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this, micro-lectures (MIL) are gaining popularity. Generally, assignments follow MIL to make learners comfortable with the concept explained in the MIL. So, the traditional micro-lecturing process (MILP) aims to enhance students' concept understanding skills. However, according to Bloom's taxonomy, understanding, application, and error handling are three fundamental skills required for students' overall academic development. Hence, traditional MILs fail to nurture the other two skills. So, is it possible to integrate application and error handling skills in the traditional micro-lecturing process? This research provides a handle to address this research question by proposing the micro-tutorial strategy. This strategy modifies the traditional MILP by doping it with micro-tutorials (MTUT). This modified MILP is called the micro-tutorial-based MILP. This process can simultaneously enhance students' understanding, application, and error handling skills. To prove the validity of the proposed strategy, we floated a 'C' programming course in which we lectured students using the proposed strategy and observed fantastic results. We believe that this research opens new dimensions for designing pedagogically effective MILs. © 2022 IEEE.

An evaluation of smart learning approach using bloom taxonomy based neuro-fuzzy system

The World Health Organization has stated Covid-19 as a pandemic that has posture a current hazard to humanity. Covid-19 pandemic has magnificently forced global shutdown of several events, including educational activities. This has caused in tremendous crisis-response immigration of educational institutes with online smart learning helping as the educational platform. Smart learning targets at providing universal learning to students consuming modern technology to completely prepare them for a fast-changing world everywhere. In this research paper an evaluation system has been developed that is based on bloom taxonomy. A Neuro-fuzzy system for the training and testing of the data for smart and traditional learning outcomes has been applied on collected data. For this research work, we have selected students of the computing discipline and focus on core-computing subjects. The findings of this research work shows the importance of smart learning and its positive impact on student learning outcomes. The evaluation criteria are based on revised bloom taxonomy levels, such that all six levels have been covered. The students' performance are very much encouraging when compared with ground truth values and reported 91.2% overall accuracy of proposed model on collected samples. © 2022 - IOS Press. All rights reserved.

Audience response systems as an interim measure of quality using Bloom's taxonomy of learning outcomes

Learning methods are transforming with the help of modern technology. The availability of versatile innovative technologies such as the audience response systems may assist in the transformation of learning and training methods in pharmacy education and consequently, increase student engagement and promote active learning. This review emphasises the audience response system as an assessment tool that can be emulated by pharmacy instructors. It can be implemented in the daily learning process to foster the wide engagement of students in the learning process. Furthermore, the shift in pharmacy education due to COVID-19 and the upsurge of online tools support the innovative role of audience response systems. The audience response system suits numerous interactive classroom purposes. A new generation of pharmacy students' transformational roles, future responsibilities, and emerging patient and societal needs dictate the need for interactive learning styles that encompasses the use of the current audience response system and other appropriate approved tools. The audience response system needs to be mapped with a revised version of Bloom's taxonomy to ensure the learning outcomes are achieved in appropriate levels.

Methodological innovation for the teaching of TIC in Higher Education

The inclusion of technology in the different academic spaces of higher education education has allowed the educational process to take another course and for both teachers and students to adapt to these changes and even more so to those that have been experienced around the pandemic of COVID-19. This study shows the methodological approach for the micro-curricular organization of the Information and Communication Technologies subject, based on didactic methodological strategies that seek to achieve learning achievements based on digital tools according to Bloom’s taxonomy. This research has been carried out in a public university in Ecuador with 207 first-semester students divided into 6 groups. Through the methodological application of its four phases: analysis, planning, design and implementation, and evaluation;favorable results have been obtained in meaningful learning achieved with students. As future work it is intended to apply this methodological approach in related subjects in higher education, thus exposing this approach to a process of continuous improvement. © 2021, Associacao Iberica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informacao. All rights reserved.

PBeL—A Novel Problem-Based (e-)Learning for Geomatics Students

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning had to be increasingly implemented at universities, and more e-learning formats had to be applied. The LBS2ITS project carried out under the lead of the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation at TU Wien (TUW), Austria, came at the right time for these tasks. Education in Location-Based Services (LBS) is put to a new level including interactive e-learning and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) pedagogy. In the courses modernization, special attention is paid to the development and/or update of the courses to be implemented with these two pedagogic forms. Thus, teaching with an emphasis on learning outcomes is a central theme in the LBS2ITS project. To achieve this goal, the active verbs used in updated Bloom’s taxonomy for teaching on learning outcomes, i.e., remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating, are applied to achieve the six levels of thinking and the active nature of learning. LBS2ITS will build a fully immersive and integrated LBS teaching and learning experience with the LBS application of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in mind. The outcome will be an innovative digital learning environment supporting synthetic and real-world PBL learning experiences. In the course of the project, a workshop for introduction of these new developments was held. This paper provides an insight into the results and experiences from this workshop. As e-learning and PBL must be combined and integrated nowadays, the new term PBeL (Problem-Based e-Learning) is proposed and introduced in this paper. The development of this approach and background information on the theory and the LBS2ITS project are presented.

Automated Transformation from Competency List to Tree: Way to Competency-Based Adaptive Knowledge E-Evaluation

Featured ApplicationThe proposed model for competency list transformation to competency tree can be applied in e-learning and e-evaluation systems to ensure integration between systems, using competency lists and competency trees and, at the same time, providing some additional adaptability for the existing e-learning systems.E-learning is rapidly gaining its application. While actively adapting student-oriented learning with the competency evaluation model, the standard of competency support in existing e-learning systems is not implemented and varies. This complicated integration of different e-learning systems or transfer from one system to another might be challenging if the student had his or her competency portfolio in list form, while another system supports tree-based competency portfolios. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a transformation model dedicated to converting the competency list to a competency tree. This solution incorporates text processing and analysis, competency ranking based on Bloom’s taxonomy, and competency topic area clustering. The case analysis illustrates the model’s capability to generate a qualitative tree from the competency list, where the average accuracy of competency assignment to appropriate parent competency is 72%, but, in some cases, it reaches just 50%.

Enriching Mobile Learning Software with Interactive Activities and Motivational Feedback for Advancing Users’ High-Level Cognitive Skills

Mobile learning is a promising form of digital education to access learning content through modern handheld devices. Through mobile learning, students can learn using smartphones, connected to the Internet, without having restrictions posed by time and place. However, such environments should be enriched with sophisticated techniques so that the learners can achieve their learning goals and have an optimized learning experience. To this direction, in this paper, presents a mobile learning software which delivers interactive activities and motivational feedback to learners with the aim of advancing their higher level cognitive skills. In more detail, the mobile application employs two theories, namely Bloom’s taxonomy and the taxonomy of intrinsic motivations by Malone and Lepper. Bloom’s taxonomy is used for the design of interactive activities that belong to varying levels of complexity, i.e., remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Concerning motivational feedback, the taxonomy of intrinsic motivations by Malone and Lepper is used, which identifies four major factors, namely challenge, curiosity, control, and fantasy, and renders the learning environment intrinsically motivating. As a testbed for our research, the presented mobile learning system was designed for the teaching of a primary school course;however, the incorporated taxonomies could be adapted to the tutoring of any course. The mobile application was evaluated by school students with very promising results.

AMALGAMATING BLOOM'S TAXONOMY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO FACE THE CHALLENGES OF ONLINE EFL LEARNING AMID POST-COVID-19 IN SAUDI ARABIA

During the coronavirus pandemic, remote learning offered instructors numerous potential opportunities to implement online applications for the success of students' language proficiency. Despite this, there has been a rise in the number of challenges that afflicted EFL Saudi instructors and their learners from attaining sustainable development. The core purpose of this work was to explore these complexities and provide suggestions on how Saudi EFL instructors could adapt while maintaining learners' cognitive and psychological well-being. Furthermore, it questioned the extent to which artificial intelligence (AI) and Bloom's digital taxonomy (BDT) played an innovative role in improving Saudi educational quality and effectiveness. To this end, a qualitative study design was embraced, consisting of a meta-analysis of the most recent studies conducted on the topic of study. The findings indicated that despite having gained access to platforms and apps led by technology, EFL instructors faced numerous challenges such as inadequate training, incompetence, restricted accessibility, poor web infrastructure, modest technological assistance, low motivation, and attention to deficit learners. Thus, AI and BDT may help bridge the gaps and overcome some of the pandemic's challenges. This study provided recommendations for curriculum designers, developers, and policymakers, on the challenges of e-learning systems and how to address them during the pandemic and afterward. © 2022 AESS Publications.

Evidentiary and theoretical foundations for virtual simulation in nursing education.

Virtual simulation has been used extensively in nursing education since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the unavailability of clinical sites. Extant research supports substitution of up to 50% of nursing clinical hours with simulation. However, in many nursing programs virtual simulation is currently substituting more than half of traditional clinical hours, and the knowledge gaps and limitations surrounding virtual simulation exist. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evidentiary and theoretical foundations for virtual simulation. Through examination of adult learning theories, learning styles and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, recommendations for maximizing the use of virtual simulation in the current clinical learning environment are outlined. Debriefing is a vital component of virtual simulation. Synchronous debriefing with nursing students, faculty, preceptors, and peers provides the opportunity for scaffolding to support students' learning needs and foster reflection and evaluation to mitigate shortcomings of virtual simulation in the current clinical learning environment.