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During the pandemic period, most of the universities shifted their curricula into fully distance learning models. Due to these Emergency Remote Education circumstances, we adopted the application of Flipped Classroom model combined with Team-based Learning pedagogical strategy in four Computer Engineering courses. Our approach was reinforced by employing LAMS Learning Activities Management System in conjunction with interactive video services. Results of the application of this approach reveal enhanced student engagement with learning resources and improved achievement when compared to the traditional, in-class, conduction of the same courses. Moreover, students report positive estimation of the adopted approach.
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INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the traditional delivery of medical education. Medical education programmes have had to cope with limitations on face-to-face learning, and accelerate the adoption of digital learning. In addition, the pandemic has potential serious implications on the psychological well-being of medical students. We aim to assess the changes in perceptions and experiences of medical students as a consequence of this pandemic. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey of medical students at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) between March and April 2022 was performed. The survey explored student satisfaction with the current education program, teaching delivery and the impact of COVID-19 on education and student well-being. RESULTS: 175 medical students participated in the survey. Overall, the majority of students were happy/neutral with their medical education. 93 (53.1%) felt tutorials and problem-based learning (PBL) to be the most effective method of teaching, followed by laboratory and clinical placements in 78 participants (44.6%) and hybrid-learning in 85 participants (48.6%). There was a mixed reaction to the changes in the delivery of education brought about by the pandemic. 67 participants (40.6%) felt happy with the changes, another 64 participants (38.8%) felt neutral, whilst only 34 participants (20.6%) were unhappy. However, most participants felt the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health, with 96 participants (55.8%) reporting negative responses. 58% of participants (n = 102/175) reported utilising the student support services at university campus and 49% (n = 50) were satisfied with their services. CONCLUSION: Digital content and delivery confer the benefit of greater flexibility in learning, the ability to learn at one's own pace and in a preferred environment, however lacks the advantage of bedside teaching and hands-on training. Our findings reinforce the potential advantages of online learning.
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BACKGROUND: Under the digital transformation trend nursing education, online formative assessment (OFA) provides a new opportunity. However, the OFA of nursing humanities course lacks design and practice, and faces the challenge of enhancing effective communication between teachers and students, student participation and autonomous learning. OBJECTIVES: To enhance the reliability of OFA in nursing humanities courses and provide practical experience for online teaching in the nursing profession. DESIGN: A quantitative research approach was used. SETTING: This study was conducted in a comprehensive university in China. PARTICIPANTS: We conducted teaching practice on 185 nursing undergraduates, with 89 students in the experimental group, and 96 students in the control group. METHODS: In the 2020-2021 multicultural nursing course, student learning outcomes and questionnaires were analyzed through the online learning tool Superstar Learning, student feedback and satisfaction questionnaires, and descriptive analysis and independent sample t-tests were conducted using SPSS 25.0 software. RESULTS: The OFA of students using Superstar Learning differed in learning performance and time to receive feedback from teachers between the experimental and control groups, and both groups had higher satisfaction levels. The experimental group's instructional design contained a synchronous classroom discussion module with better participation. CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online learning tools can support the implementation of OFA, build an environment where teachers and students participate together, have a positive impact on the continuous updating of teachers' teaching programs and students' learning outcomes. Simultaneous classroom discussions are expected to be an effective way to improve the reliability of OFA. Our instructional design, provides best practice suggestions for future online teaching and learning.
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The study presents the results of an Action-Research project carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic with Italian teachers of primary, lower and upper secondary schools, interested in monitoring the activity of students in that difficult situation. The purposes of this study were: (a) to demonstrate that the involvement of teachers in the creation of metacognitive tools promotes the use of formative assessment at school;(b) to verify to what extent the use of a metacognitive form makes students more aware of the mistakes made during the test. The results were: (a) teachers showed great enthusiasm in adapting the metacognitive form to their school subject;(b) students pointed out high percentages of appreciation of the form;what is more, a group of students improved in identifying the typology of errors and understood more clearly what they should study in a better way to correct their mistakes;another group noted that their awareness of their strengths in study method had grown;finally, one group highlighted that the skills used during the completion of the form were also useful in other areas of their daily life, not only at school. Both teachers and students appreciated the online version of the tool: the pie charts created automatically by the system, by displaying percentages over typologies of errors made, provided immediate feedback, motivating students more and more. The study shows how much reflection on mistakes can be a source of growth. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.
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This study aims to show how formative assessment that is assisted by technology can improve student learning in English literature courses in higher education. Moreover, it explores how the use of technology could help implement formative assessment by the instructors to assure student learning in English literature courses in an efficient and timely manner. Formative assessment is somewhat new for higher education instructors, especially those who teach English literature. Applying this type of assessment is, unfortunately, not easy and the results are not always ideal. Nevertheless, to reach the goals of the study, a quantitative method is distributed to 50 English literature instructors from higher educational institutions that recently started implementing technology in their formative assessments. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the study is conducted in a region where formative assessment has recently been used in education, specifically in higher education English literature courses. The contribution also lies in how technology can help implement formative assessment, overcome any obstacles, and thus ensure student learning. The findings of the study show significant awareness of formative assessment in higher education, and especially among instructors of English literature. The findings also indicate that implementing technology with formative assessments enhances students' learning in English literature course in higher education after COVID-19. © 2023 by authors;.
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Liveworksheets (https://www.liveworksheets.com/) is a web-based and mobile-assisted educational platform that allows teachers to transform traditional printable worksheets such as .pdf or .jpg into interactive online with self-correction, which we call "interactive worksheets." Students can do the worksheets online and submit their answers to the teacher. Liveworksheets offers versatile tasks, so it is motivating to students. It also helps teachers save time for task design, and formative assessment, and is environmentally friendly, or saves paper. Additionally, interactive worksheets can support students in practicing all language skills (listening, reading, writing, and even speaking) and language areas (grammar and vocabulary). Liveworksheets is beneficial in many aspects, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic since it is an effective communication channel between teachers and students. Thanks to Liveworksheets, the interaction between students and teachers is facilitated during online learning. This review aims to investigate the merits of Liveworksheets in English learning and teaching, especially formative assessment. © 2023, The Pacific Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (PacCALL). All rights reserved.
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The pandemic situation is contributing to the redesign of training models, promoting new scenarios, or readjusting other pedagogical resources already known, which help to deal with the uncertainty and doubts that have arisen. This context raises new requirements and solutions in the approach of the face-to-face, online and mixed model. Adaptation of spaces, compliance with prevention measures, interaction with students, methodologies and especially, an assessment system, which helps to keep track of the subject, so that a more active attitude of the student and their commitment to this process, are of great value. From the reflection on the achievement of objectives, follow-up of the subject, and the auto- and peer-assessment, an experience of formative assessment is presented in two environments, online and face-to-face. Both are supported by a process of self-assessment and peer-assessment, which has allowed students to successfully face the subject of Artistic Expression I, in the Degree in Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Despite the general consensus on the positive impact of formative assessment on student learning, researchers have not shown the underlying mechanisms between specific formative assessment strategies and academic performance on an international sample. This study examines the link between student and teacher reports of teachers' formative assessment strategies (i.e. clarifying goals and monitoring progress, providing feedback, and instructional adjustments) and students' reading achievement, based on data from 151,969 fifteen‐year‐olds in 5,225 schools in 19 countries/regions in PISA 2018 via multilevel analysis of plausible values. The results show that clarifying goals and monitoring progress, and instruction adjustments are positively linked to reading achievement, but providing feedback alone has no significant impact. These findings highlight the complexity of formative assessment as a multifaceted concept and the different impacts of formative assessment strategies on student learning. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. [ FROM AUTHOR]
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In March 2020, many schools worldwide were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This closure confronted mathematics teachers with the challenging transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT). How did students experience ERT, and how did these experiences relate to context variables and to their teachers' beliefs and practices? In particular, what didactic approaches and formative assessment practices did secondary mathematics students experience, and which beliefs did they hold concerning digital mathematics education? How were these student experiences and beliefs related to student context variables (gender, need to support family, personal home equipment), teacher beliefs, delivery modes, and student appreciation of mathematics? To investigate these issues, we set out online questionnaires for mathematics teachers and their students in Flanders-the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium-, Germany, and the Netherlands. Data consisted of completed questionnaires by 323 mathematics teachers and 2126 of their students. Results show that even though students preferred regular face-to-face teaching, they were content with the quality of their teachers' distance mathematics teaching. Students reported that they were taught new topics often, but did not experience teachers initiating peer feedback. High student appreciation of mathematics, good home environment, and more synchronous delivery of ERT were related to ERT experiences and more positive beliefs concerning digital mathematics education. These findings have implications for ERT teaching strategies in future, as well as for hybrid teaching practices.
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Lockdowns imposed by many countries on their populations at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis forced teachers to adapt quickly and without adequate preparation to distance teaching. In this paper, we focus on one of the most formidable challenges that teachers faced during the lockdowns and even in the post-lockdown emergency period, namely, developing assessment that maintains the pedagogical continuity that educational institutions typically require. Based on the results of a previous study, focused on the analysis of answers to an open-ended questionnaire administered to a population of 700 teachers from France, Germany, Israel and Italy, a semi-structured interview series was designed and implemented by the authors of this paper with a small group of teachers. The transcripts of these interviews were analysed according to the interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, with the aim of investigating teachers' own perspectives on the following: (a) the difficulties with which they had to contend, with respect to the question of assessment; (b) the techniques adopted to deal with these difficulties; and (c) the ways in which the lockdown experience could affect the future evolution of teachers' assessment practices. This analysis supported us in formulating hypotheses concerning the possible long-term effects of lockdown on modes of assessment in mathematics.
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In March 2020, Belgian universities moved all their courses online due to the COVID-19 outbreak that was sweeping across the globe. Higher education institutions had to take urgent measures to deal with this unprecedented crisis by providing rapid technological and pedagogical solutions for exclusively digital learning and teaching environments. This chapter focuses on third-year medical students' perceptions of the online assessment methods used in an ICL course on respiratory diseases at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of the University of Mons. The authors wish to look into the challenges presented, the constraints imposed, and the impact that this sudden and unprepared shift to distance learning has had on content learning through the medium of English. More specifically, the analysis aims to explore the scope of this abrupt change in assessment methods in a course originally designed as a collaborative ICLHE experiment in formative learning. Drawing on the students' experiences and the teachers' observations and reflections, the following questions will be addressed: To what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic, and its consequences on online assessment, affected student understanding of the learning outcomes?How have students perceived the final online assignment and what implications has this had on their language and content learning?How can content teachers and language practitioners better collaborate in on- and offline ICLHE environments?What are the lessons to be learnt and the solutions that can be envisaged to maintain the quality of formative assessment methods of EMI courses in digital settings? © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The aim of this study was to reveal formative assessments as being a component of the teaching-learning process in the university context in post-COVID-19 times. This study has focused on the qualitative approach through the interpretive phenomenological method. The data gathering tool used was that of a semi-structured interview with seven professors from the education and engineering programs at the Universidad Nacional José María Arguedas, Peru. The methodological procedure involved the organization through the Atlas.ti computer program and the transcription of the information through content analysis, resulting in the emergence of validated categories through the triangulation process reflecting the phenomenological reduction. The results showed there to be three categories: the role of the professor in the formative assessment, socio-emotional bonding, and learning feedback. In conclusion, formative assessment is a fundamental component of teaching and learning in the classroom where the professor, through feedback in the class sessions, promotes socio-emotional bonding, perceives mistakes to offer correction, and recognizes the work well done to encourage reinforcement and reflection of the teaching practice. A new evaluative culture focused on the formation of skills and competencies is required for which the professor has a high commitment and responsibility not only in terms of preparing and training the student but also themselves. © 2022 Society for Research and Knowledge Management. All rights reserved.
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Purpose: This study examines the effect of two main factors, that is, lack of knowledge of ICT, and the availability of ICT facilities such as hardware, software, and internet access, which identified to be the common barriers towards practicing online formative assessment. Theoretical framework: Many educational institutions have been urged to adopt online learning due to the development of communications and digital device technology as well as the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the world in the previous two years. The shift from offline to online mode affects how formative assessment should be conducted during teaching and learning. The lack of knowledge of information and communication technology (ICT) and ICT facilities are prevalent in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a survey design to examine online assessment feedback practice as well as factors contributing to the practices among 256 academics in one tertiary education in Sokoto. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were used. Findings: Online formative assessment feedback practice is at low level due to lack of knowledge of software applications and facilities. Research, Practical & Social implications: Government needs to invest more on educational technology by providing adequate ICT facilities in tertiary institutions in Sokoto, as well as offering suitable trainings on ICT literacy for academics. Originality/value: Online formative assessment contributes to enhancement in educational attainment and efficiency in learning and teaching. © 2022 by the Author(s).
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Providing and receiving feedback is a crucial aspect of K-12 education, and is foundational to building a strong student-educator relationship in project-based learning. Previous research has highlighted the importance of student documentation, thus we study the implementation of a mobile application prototype (CoCreator App) that encourages student documentation along with features for asynchronous educator feedback. We observed and analyzed how educators provided synchronous feedback when conversing in-person with students. Our analysis indicates a variety of differences between synchronous and asynchronous feedback. Asynchronous feedback was typically used for praise and encouragement, but also offered additional opportunities for educators to notice student struggles that may not have been visible in class. Synchronous feedback was largely used to provide process-oriented feedback. Looking ahead as the COVID-19 pandemic prevails, we suggest practices and workflows for maker educators to consider as they provide both synchronous and asynchronous feedback in interdisciplinary (and potentially hybrid) learning environments. © ISLS.
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The study presents the results of an Action-Research project carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic with Italian teachers of primary, lower and upper secondary schools, interested in monitoring the activity of students in that difficult situation. The purposes of this study were: (a) to demonstrate that the involvement of teachers in the creation of metacognitive tools promotes the use of formative assessment at school;(b) to verify to what extent the use of a metacognitive form makes students more aware of the mistakes made during the test. The results were: (a) teachers showed great enthusiasm in adapting the metacognitive form to their school subject;(b) students pointed out high percentages of appreciation of the form;what is more, a group of students improved in identifying the typology of errors and understood more clearly what they should study in a better way to correct their mistakes;another group noted that their awareness of their strengths in study method had grown;finally, one group highlighted that the skills used during the completion of the form were also useful in other areas of their daily life, not only at school. Both teachers and students appreciated the online version of the tool: the pie charts created automatically by the system, by displaying percentages over typologies of errors made, provided immediate feedback, motivating students more and more. The study shows how much reflection on mistakes can be a source of growth.
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The purpose of this study was to measure and describe students' learning development in mental computation of mixed addition and subtraction tasks up to 100. We used a learning progress monitoring (LPM) approach with multiple repeated measurements to examine the learning curves of second-and third-grade primary school students in mental computation over a period of 17 biweekly measurement intervals in the school year 2020/2021. Moreover, we investigated how homogeneous students' learning curves were and how sociodemographic variables (gender, grade level, the assignment of special educational needs) affected students' learning growth. Therefore, 348 German students from six schools and 20 classes (10.9% students with special educational needs) worked on systematically, but randomly mixed addition and subtraction tasks at regular intervals with an online LPM tool. We collected learning progress data for 12 measurement intervals during the survey period that was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Technical results show that the employed LPM tool for mental computation met the criteria of LPM research stages 1 and 2. Focusing on the learning curves, results from latent growth curve modeling showed significant differences in the intercept and in the slope based on the background variables. The results illustrate that one-size-fits-all instruction is not appropriate, thus highlighting the value of LPM or other means that allow individualized, adaptive teaching. The study provides a first quantitative overview over the learning curves for mental computation in second and third grade. Furthermore, it offers a validated tool for the empirical analysis of learning curves regarding mental computation and strong reference data against which individual learning growth can be compared to identify students with unfavorable learning curves and provide targeted support as part of an adaptive, evidence-based teaching approach. Implications for further research and school practice are discussed.
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A well-designed assessment has beneficial impacts on students' learning and competency attainment. Failure in obtaining psychomotor learning competency, lack of understanding of assessment principles among instructors, unoptimized information and technology facilities, and difficulties in ensuring the integrity of online examination are among the threats to validity of online anatomy assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the validity of anatomy assessment during the pandemic, it is important to adopt several educational principles into the assessment design. We solidify the input discussed in the Malaysian Anatomical Association webinar 2021, on the challenges of anatomy online assessment and proposed six solutions to the challenges, namely adopting the programmatic assessment design, conducting small group in-person high stake examination, modifying assessment policy, utilizing question bank software, upgrading ICT facilities, and offering the ICT training to the students and instructors. It is envisioned that anatomy assessment are future ready are adaptive to change. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.
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Effective teamwork is one of the Engineering Council of South Africa's (ECSA) exit-level outcomes. To achieve this outcome, one has to learn specific discourses and behaviours related to teamwork. Professional Orientation is a first-year engineering module offered in an extended engineering degree programme at a residential university in South Africa. This module assists students in developing a `teamwork discourse', using engineering-based projects that follow the CDIO framework. In 2020, these projects transitioned fully to a virtual environment due to Covid-19 restrictions. The iPeer Learning Management System tool for peer- and self-assessment was used in this research to investigate whether first-year students were able to apply the teamwork discourses taught to them when completing the projects online. A quantitative analysis of the iPeer results reflected that while 54% of the students remained consistent in the two projects, 16% showed an improvement, and 30% showed a decrease. The reasons for these results could be varied. Thus, a qualitative analysis of the students' comments for increased and decreased marks was also conducted to assess how the relevant teamwork discourses were applied and to what extent. These findings confirmed that teamwork discourses could effectively be applied by a smaller percentage of first-year students.
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The objective of this dissertation was to design and study a transformative model of climate change education that foregrounded sociopolitical processes and was socially relevant to Black and Latinx urban high school students. The intervention was implemented at the Mann-UCLA Community School in South Los Angeles while distance learning was mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic and was part of a research-practice partnership with a chemistry teacher. Using the Participatory Design Research methodology, I designed the learning context and documented how this instructional model structured classroom engagement and supported the outcomes of learning climate science and developing critical climate awareness. A mixed methods approach was used for analysis of data including pre/post assessments of climate science knowledge and climate concern, formative assessments of critical awareness of climate change, classroom artifacts, classroom observations, and interviews with focal students. Findings on classroom engagement, organized with the Connective and Productive Disciplinary Engagement framework, show that organizing instruction around the sociopolitical dimensions of climate change was productive. Participation was structured around students' critical awareness of social issues in their community and their imagined futures when they could participate in the transition to low-emission energy sources. Student engagement embodied the four principles of Connective and Productive Disciplinary Engagement more strongly over time as they grappled with authentic problems of climate change in their community. The sociopolitical framing of climate change was also productive for learning climate science concepts and developing students' critical climate awareness. Findings show a statistically significant improvement in students' understanding of canonical scientific concepts and a shift towards awareness of and concern about climate change. Performance on formative assessments shows students made progress in explaining critical aspects of climate change, specifically in ascribing agency for causes and solutions. The significance of these findings is that centering sociopolitical, local dimensions of climate change does not diminish canonical, standard-aligned learning opportunities. Foregrounding social justice and inviting students' critical awareness into the science classroom as a sense-making resource supported many students in developing sophisticated explanations of climate change in their community. This research contributes an approach to climate change instruction that advances culturally-relevant, justice-centered science pedagogy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Formative assessment and descriptive feedback have emerged as key elements of education. Yet most traditional college engineering courses (based on a lecture-homework format) offer few opportunities to provide individual students with descriptive feedback. This paper describes our department's recent experiences using flipped classroom instruction to improve feedback and attainment in our introductory thermodynamics course in Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington. In our implementation of a flipped class, traditional lectures are replaced with 20~40 minute instructional videos that incorporate course content, laboratory demonstrations, and how-to tutorials. Students view and take notes on these materials outside of class, and take an online “Prep Quiz” that provides feedback on their basic understanding before coming to class. Once in class, students spend most of their time working in table groups on complex multi-part problems that challenge their understanding and provide practice in key skills. As they work, the instructor and TAs check-in with each group, interrogate their thinking and problem solving strategies, and provide on-the-spot descriptive feedback as the students struggle with the material. At the end of each week a zero-stakes “Exit Quiz” provides further feedback, allowing each student to measure how deeply they understand the material. Summative assessment is conducted traditionally with exams, using a standards-based rubric. Six years of final exam data show that the grade distribution under a flipped format is more asymmetric than under a traditional lecture-homework format, with median students performing better relative to the mean. A seventh year of data collected during 100% remote teaching (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) is more difficult to interpret, but exhibits some of the same favorable features in the grade distribution. This paper also describes some of our practical observations and challenges in successfully implementing a flipped class. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022