Designing gamification for case and project-based online learning: A study in higher education

The emergence of online learning has become important during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the advent of internet technology. The unpreparedness of planning and implementing online learning has caused many problems during the pandemic such as limited or monotonous academic materials as well as difficulty in organizing activities and student involvement. Online learning is also more stressful because students are stuck in private academic processes in the absence of challenging and fun activities leading to knowledge development difficulties. Therefore, this study aims to develop and analyze the feasibility of a gamification model for case and project-based online learning in universities. This analysis used the research and development (R&D) method with the experimental procedure containing model development as well as product validation and testing. In the validation process, two learning design and media experts as well as 76 students participated with a descriptive statistical analysis used to analyze the data. The results of the learning design experts' assessment showed a score of 4.35, learning media experts' assessment showed a score of 4.90 and the average score of the students' assessment was 4.33. Based on the results, the developed learning model was feasible to use in university academic processes. © 2023 by the authors.

Digital Transformation of Education Toward Successful Internships: A Methodology Developed Over Seven Years and Tested During COVID-19

Contribution: This article provides a teaching methodology which combines project-based learning, self-regulated learning (SRL), and design projects (DPs) to improve the preparedness of students for computing science-related internships. The methodology is supported by the implementation of the educational technology that transforms the way teaching and learning is transformed to benefit on-campus and off-campus students equitably, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: Success in the workspace is governed by the ability of an individual to learn on-the-job and independently. Online learning has led to a shift from instructor-led learning to SRL. This requires individuals to discipline themselves, and be in control of their learning and education. Outcome: The success of internships is improved with skills learnt in class through hands-on real-world projects. Both on/off-campus students gain equitable relevant experience. The teaching methodology developed over several years combines project-based learning, SRL, and DPs. Application Design: The methodology was applied using a flipped classroom approach. The educational technology was used to enhance SRL before in-class learning. This way, in-class rote learning was replaced with hands-on projects. Exam assessments were replaced with DPs where soft skills and technical skills are applied. Findings: The effectiveness of the developed methodology is measured through quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools. The evaluation demonstrates that combining well-designed education technology for SRL, with in-class project-based learning and DPs, can improve students' chances in getting high-impact internships.

Emergency response to digital pedagogy: A simple blueprint for transitioning online

School closures and society's retooling to social distancing brought by the COVID-19 pandemic have left teachers and workplace trainers scrambling to adapt to a new reality while facing the possibility that both distance and distributed learning may be here to stay. Many are unprepared to deal with their student bodies studying from home and the necessary revamping of the curriculum to an online format. The COVID-19 crisis called to us, a group of doctoral students in distance education, with decades of combined experience, to serve in creating a scalable general blueprint for an online course, informed by our own praxis and that of seminal educator-researchers. The blueprint can be easily understood through the schematic and five-minute audio yet is enhanced with links to provide a deeper understanding of the why behind its application. We used project-based learning (PBL) theory to guide the educator in weaving the right kind, sequence, and quantity of learning interaction into their digital modules. Unintentionally, this project modeled swarm leadership, a collaborative networked effort that adapts and self-organizes in the moment, swarming in on a task of challenge and collectively innovating, organizing, and sharing responsibility. The end result was a useful public open educational resource (OER) and lifelong friendships. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Developing Cadets' Soft Skills through Project-Based Learning in Moodle LMS

This paper reports on a study conducted to examine the development of cadets' soft skills by implementing project-based learning in Moodle LMS during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was classroom action research following the Kemmis & McTaggart's model. It was conducted in three cycles, each consisting of plan, action, observation, and reflection. The participants of this study were the cadets from four different study programs at Sekolah Tinggi Maritim Yogyakarta currently enrolled in online classes. The data were collected through observations and focused-group discussions. The results showed that the implementation of project-based learning in Moodle LMS contributed effectively to the development of the cadets' soft skills including responsibility, discipline, creativity, and problem-solving. After implementing the project-based learning for about 16 week-meetings, the researchers recorded the gradual improvement in the soft skills performed by the cadets as follows: 39.42% (low) in Pre-cycle, 52.71% (average) in Cycle I, 69.91% (high) in Cycle II, and 83.71% (very high) in Cycle III. The aforementioned skills were perceived as key fundamental skills required by the cadets to perform their jobs successfully in the 21st century workplace, particularly in the maritime industry. © 2023, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.

Lessons from on-line and off-line PBL in an engineering economics course under the Covid-19 pandemic

The application and effects of the project-based learning (PBL) model have been carried out in various majors and courses, and the results analysed in several studies. This study was focused on the Covid-19 pandemic period from 2020 to 2022 to discuss lessons and effects of applying an on-line and off-line PBL model to engineering economics courses for engineering students in 2021 and 2022 compared with a simple on-line course in 2020 without PBL. Project teams consisting of three-four students carried out on-line collaborative learning to solve open-ended problems through a four-step PBL procedure including presentation of the final result. Except for this PBL application in 2021 and 2022, textbooks, lecture contents, assignments and tests were implemented in the same way for each semester over these three years. Through lecture evaluation and a simple survey for students, the semesters with PBL showed higher effects in inducing student-led learning and lecture satisfaction compared to the semesters without it. Further, it was established that the PBL application to the course and the evaluation method were more appropriate than the approach in other semesters. It is expected that the PBL method and operation procedure outlined in this article could be utilised as a best practice for various on-line and mixed courses in student-led collaborative learning activities to achieve better educational effects and satisfaction. © WIETE 2023.

Project-based learning as a model for the normalized use of digital technologies: Facilitating practical, meaningful, and learner-centered online teaching and learning

The COVID-19 global health crisis of 2020 forced the physical closure of Turkish educational institutions. This case study describes how a 12-week English preparatory course used project-based learning (PBL) in an Istanbul-based university. It describes how a midcourse switch from classroom-based face-to-face course delivery to online delivery became an example of an adaptive educational solution turning the negative impacts of the pandemic into educational opportunities facilitated through the normalized, realistic use of digital technologies. The study explores the original educational context in which the course was offered and, also, the guiding principles of the course design, the educational, emotional, logistical, and technological challenges posed by this transition, and the response to these challenges. The study concludes, using data collected from course instructors and students, with an analysis of the learning impact of the course and a discussion of implications and possibilities arising for future iterations and potential application to other online teaching and learning situations. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

The Impact of the Online Project-Based Learning on Students' Communication, Engagement, Motivation, and Academic Achievement

Purpose. Project-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered environment that emphasizes a dynamic classroom approach. It is founded on the idea that students gain a deeper understanding by actively tackling difficulties and issues from the real world. Students gain knowledge in a subject by devoting a significant amount of time to researching and solving a challenging question or interesting issue. Methods & Procedure. PBL was used in online classes during the pandemic of COVID-19. The study concentrated on projects that were created by students themselves under the guidance of teachers with the aim of determining their impact on their communication, engagement, motivation, and academic accomplishment in L2 acquisition context. The sample of the study that consisted of 100 EFL college students deployed this methodology in their weekly lectures. Results. The results show that PBL can have some positive effect on the entire spectrum of parameters under consideration as well as have a substantial impact on communication, engagement, motivation, and academic performance in online education. The findings clearly show that PBL can be a useful methodology for L2 acquisition and can provide students with various challenging activities and topics that increase their motivation and engagement, and thus, academic achievement. © The Author(s) 2023.

Leading Edge Use of Technology for Teacher Professional Development in Indian Schools

This paper presents a case study of a decade-long technology-enabled teacher professional development (TPD) initiative for government-run school teachers in India. The TPD aimed at capacitating teachers in integrating project-based or constructivist learning with technology in curriculum and pedagogy. Teachers are central to the teaching–learning processes, and hence capacitating them to leverage digital technologies confidently is essential to improve the quality of education imparted to learners. This paper focuses on the use of innovative technologies leading to the education of teachers. A decade of TPD is divided into three phases providing an analytical framework for the evolving technologies and pedagogies across the phases. Documents, resources and tools used for the TPD activities, researchers' first-hand experiences and documented research studies supported the comparative analysis of the three phases of TPD. This comparison highlighted leading-edge technologies influencing changes in TPD delivery mode, learning support, pedagogy, scale, etc., across the phases. The paper also maps the interrelationship between technologies and pedagogies of TPD, suggesting various features of innovations such as continuous, practice-based, collaborative, scalable, shareable, transferable, and adaptable.

Student satisfaction with online teaching in times of COVID-19

Higher education is one of the driving forces behind the social and economic development of countries, with the ultimate aim of providing quality academic training. At present, teaching-learning models in virtual environments face a number of important challenges, particularly in the current situation caused by COVID-19. Some of these challenges will be addressed in this study. We worked with 225 third-year undergraduate students in health science degrees over two academic years during the pandemic. The objectives were: (1) to ascertain whether there were significant differences in student satisfaction with the teaching process in the first year of the pandemic (e-learning teaching) vs. the second year (b-learning teaching);(2) to determine whether there were significant differences in academic performance between the two groups. Quantitative research (using a 2x2 factorial design, ANOVA and ANCOVA) and qualitative research (using a comparative design with categorisation analysis) were carried out. The results indicate differences in some aspects of satisfaction and learning outcomes in favour of teaching in the second of the two years. Students rated the use of active methodologies and technological resources positively, although they concluded that their use required more work time. Future studies will seek to compare student satisfaction in other areas of knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Spanish) La Educacion Superior es uno de los motores del desarrollo social y economico de los paises, teniendo como objetivo ultimo el de facilitar una formacion academica de calidad. En la actualidad, los modelos de ensenanza-aprendizaje en entornos virtuales implican retos importantes, especificamente en la actual situacion por la COVID-19. Algunos de estos desafios se abordaran en este estudio. Se trabajo con 225 estudiantes de tercero de grado en titulaciones de Ciencias de la Salud, a lo largo de dos cursos academicos impartidos durante la situacion de pandemia. Los objetivos fueron: 1) comprobar si existian diferencias significativas en la satisfaccion de los estudiantes con el proceso docente respecto del primer ano de pandemia (se aplico docencia e-Learning) vs. el segundo ano (se aplico docencia b-Learning);2) comprobar si existian diferencias significativas en los resultados academicos entre ambos grupos. Se realizo una investigacion cuantitativa (se utilizo un diseno factorial 2x2, ANOVA y ANCOVA) y otra cualitativa (se utilizo un diseno comparativo con analisis de categorizacion). Los resultados indican diferencias en algunos aspectos de la satisfaccion y en los resultados de aprendizaje, a favor de la docencia en el segundo ano. Los estudiantes valoraron positivamente el uso de metodologias activas y de recursos tecnologicos, si bien concluyeron que su uso exigia mas tiempo de trabajo. Futuros estudios se dirigiran a contrastar la satisfaccion de estudiantes en otras ramas de conocimiento. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The Lecturer as a Program Manager: Lessons Learned from Continuously Improving a Project Management Master's Course for Engineers

This chapter presents the evolution of the Engineering Project Management (EPM) master's course from 2018 to 2021. The EPM is a project-based learning (PBL) course that aims to close the gap between teaching and the reality of engineering project management practices. The challenges include accommodating both in-depth content and group coaching within the course timeframe, fairly assessing student performance, dealing with the ambiguity and uncertainty intrinsic to open problems and adapting to COVID-19 restrictions and the fully online course setting. To tackle these challenges and achieve the course aim, the pedagogical approaches of individual assessment in PBL, flipped classroom, socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) and peer feedback were gradually incorporated throughout the three years. These redesigns also led to changes in the lecturer's role, which evolved from content expert and assessor to coach and program manager. Hence, this chapter's primary objective is to share experiences and support other lectures in the flipping journey of project-based courses. Although the research was conducted in the EPM course context, we understand that this work brings theoretical and practical insights to those intending to design or redesign courses that have a group project as their backbone. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Replacing Exams with Project-Based Assessment: Analysis of Students' Performance and Experience

This study seeks to investigate whether project-based assignments can lead to better student performance and learning experience compared to traditional examinations. In an engineering course of soil mechanics, the traditional mid-semester and final exams were replaced by project work which was related to a real-life site investigation. Student performance was evaluated on the basis of student marks whilst student feedback was analysed to understand student experience with project-based assignments. The results indicated that the student average mark for the projects was greater than the average mark for the exams. In addition, their learning experience improved after the exams were replaced with the project-based assignments because students were able to see practical applications of the course content. However, a few issues, including feedback to students delivered at the end of the term, increased teacher's workload, and the effect of COVID were also identified.

Covid-19 Literacy as a Modulator of Emotions Linked to the Pandemic

An inquiry-based teacher training proposal concerning covid-19 was implemented during lockdown with Pre-Primary Education Degree students. The objective was to analyse how the workshop changed the students' emotions and their knowledge linked to the pandemic. To this end, the participants responded to an open-ended questionnaire passed out before and after the workshop, and to a Likert-type questionnaire on emotions when they handed in their responses. The results show that, in the case of learning, the students modified their covid-19 literacy to a greater or lesser extent and, in the case of emotions, they felt less fear, anger, concern, and insecurity, and greater tranquillity and optimism. In conclusion, an emotional modulation is perceived in which scientific literacy participates. © 2023 Eskisehir Osmangazi University. All rights reserved.

Micro-Videos as a Learning Tool for Professional Practice during the Post-COVID Era: An Educational Experience

With the arrival of the pandemic, many education students in higher education classrooms saw how their internships were cancelled, making it impossible for them to access real contexts that would let them know how their everyday professional life would be. Consequently, it was necessary to make a methodological change. To bridge the gap between theoretical and practical training, we conducted an educational experience at a private university where several educational videos were used to reflect the implementation of different educational methodologies in teaching mathematics by expert teachers. In the recorded practices, it was shown how four different methodologies were implemented in several contexts during the day-to-day classes: International Baccalaureate (IB), gamification, flipped classroom and project-based learning. We studied each methodology to measure their impact on primary students' learning and guarantee that higher education students had visualized effective practices through micro-videos. The results of our study show that, in certain aspects of mathematics, the students' own teaching capabilities have greater influence than the theoretical methodological instruction they generally receive in the classroom. Further, concerning students' perceptions, we can conclude that their motivation increased towards the use of micro-videos, since they became active agents of their own learning. © 2023 by the authors.

Guidelines for teaching with ill-structured real-world engineering problems: insights from a redesigned engineering project management course

Real-world design settings can be complex, ill-structured, open and typically uncertain and/or ambiguous about their goals and solution paths. This study contributes to understanding how to work with these types of problems in a course project setting. The main objective of the study is to identify, propose and validate a set of practical guidelines for dealing with ill-structured, open-problem project assignments in courses that teach design engineering or design development planning. A literature review identifies key practices for proposing the guidelines, which are then validated by intervening in an engineering project management master's course. The intervention took place during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions with 12 project groups created from 105 enrolled students. During the validation, qualitative and quantitative feedback was gathered from the students, and the results provide positive evidence for achieving the objective. Key to this outcome was the combination of the self-regulation of learning, co-regulation of learning and socially shared regulation of learning. In this sense, the proposed guidelines look promising for redesigning university courses that deal with open problems, thus enhancing students' capacity for handling uncertainty and ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of European Journal of Engineering Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Evidence-Based Practice to the Forefront: A Case Study of Engineering Team Project-Based Learning in an Online Learning Environment

Approaches such as problem and project-based learning (PBL) are the cornerstone of modern engineering curricula. With a growing need to move these student-centred active learning curricula to online and blended learning environments due to issues including increasing cohort sizes and limited budgets, it is essential that instructional designers in engineering education understand the impacts that these differing mediums may have on student collaboration. This study is the beginning of a body of work with the aim to develop effective teaching and learning strategies for team project-based learning in online and blended learning environments. This case study was carried out in an Irish university in 2021 in a first-year engineering module during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study followed an explanatory mixed methods design in which a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were utilised to collect data. The research data was gathered in two phases. Phase 1 included a questionnaire with both closed- and open-ended questions (N=94). Phase 2 was based on semi-structured interviews (N=7). This paper will focus on the qualitative datasets, including the open-ended questions and interviews. After completing a thematic analysis, we identified six themes and eighteen sub-themes that affect students' perceptions of team project-based learning (PBL) in an online environment. Each of these themes are discussed within this paper. The paper concludes with an outline of future research plans for the ongoing project. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Impact of Sudden Change in Mode of Learning and Proposed Teaching Methods on Students

One of the impacts of COVID-19 is the exponential growth of online classroom teaching. However, grasping the reaction and understanding of the students in an online classroom is difficult for the teachers. This is especially a problem in Project Based Learning (PBL) courses with practical exercises. This study provides a "place” to share information about problems encountered by each student. Other students can then use this information to perform practical exercises remotely. As a result, we were able to identify bottlenecks in the exercise tasks by creating "empathize with problems” among students. © 2023 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

Psychology of Mobbing as a Form of Conflict in the Workplace: Finding and Testing Project-Based Learning in Students' Education

Project-based learning has long been used in universities when preparing students. However, project-based technologies are currently being increasingly used in work with students. The authors found various options for the application of these technologies in teaching psychological and pedagogical disciplines. The research aims to determine the practice of implementing project-based learning to provide a deeper practice-oriented understanding of academic disciplines. The authors use a set of methods of theoretical analysis and practical psychological techniques. The authors present the research results in the form of several generalizations. The first one concerns the fact that mobbing has recently become a stable trend in teams;a conflict often manifests itself in the form of mobbing. The study of various organizational cultures and their models shows that the optimal and morally oriented model of organizational culture is the barrier preventing the development of mobbing in the company. The practical application of the developed theory provides methodological support for training a successful specialist.

Virtual Distance in Project Work: What We Have Learned From the Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic posed novel challenges to language teachers and learners, as ‘emergency remote teaching' became a necessity in order for teachers and learners to isolate from one another. Much has already been written about the nature of those challenges and language teachers' response to them, which response frequently made use of video-conferencing technology like Zoom in order to facilitate remote interaction, teaching and learning. The existing work has focused heavily on teacher experiences, including the kinds of strategies and competencies that teachers made use of when ‘doing' synchronous online learning. However, much less work has examined the student experience. In addition, one challenge consistently identified in the literature is that of fostering meaningful interaction and engagement. In this viewpoint article, we apply the concept of ‘virtual distance' to the activity of project-based learning taking place at a university in Hong Kong and mediated by digital technologies as part of emergency remote teaching. We report on the emergence of a socio-technical divide in one particular student team and teacher strategies that tend to bridge the divide. We offer suggestions on how the lessons learned from this experience can inform project-based learning in the post-pandemic future. © The Author(s) 2023.

Creating Space for Student Action and Reflection on Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger

The aim of this paper is to provide insight to delivering global sustainability education in online asynchronous environments. High impact educational practices such as service-learning, community-based learning and global learning often require face-to-face interaction and off-campus travel. Few high impact practices are offered in an asynchronous online environment, highlighting a need in sustainability education that was made particularly urgent by the covid-19 pandemic. To address this need, an online asynchronous course was developed focused on Zero Hunger. Students explore different aspects of food security in domestic and international settings through asynchronous modules before being tasked in the creation of an individual action plan to address the issue of food security in a designated target audience. Students work independently on the action plans culminating their learning with an impact report presentation to the class community. The authenticity of the learning experience is increased by harnessing the power of student autonomy and student voice in crafting the application of course content knowledge. Intentional reflection on all aspects of the action project, including project impact, is a key aspect of enduring student learning. Course participants have the opportunity for cultural learning and intercultural communication due to a multinational cohort of students in each class. Well-designed high impact educational practices can play an important role in sustainability education in online, on-demand environments. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Automate the process of creating and conducting lessons on the Project-based method through a Web-based platform

The modern development of education is associated with its digitization and the search for our learning approaches to suit new generations and their peculiarities. During the COVID-19 crisis and the transition of learning in a remote form, the search for a new approach has become mandatory. The project-based approach has been identified as suitable for the new conditions. Learning in an electronic environment is a new way of teaching, which poses a number of challenges for teachers in creating, managing and evaluating projects. In this paper, the specific functionalities of a web-based platform for preparing and conducting projects according to the project-based method are presented. These functionalities include guided creation of projects, automated connections of project theme and educational materials and methods for the evaluation process. Detailed are the steps that the platform provides when creating a project. These steps are implemented in the form of a guide so as to facilitate as much as possible the work of teachers. Such a platform will help motivate a greater number of teachers to choose and teach by this method. © 2022 IEEE.