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In line with the pedagogical movement called Student Voice (Cook-Sather, 2014), a research group in the Pedagogy and Special Didactics field, from the University of Macerata, has carried out a pilot study with University students with disabilities and with Specific Learning Disorders (Giaconi, Capellini, 2015;Del Bianco, 2019). Specifically, the study will deepen how the Voices of all students can be recorded even during an emergency period and how students' feedback can be the first step to start new cooperation in the implementation of educational paths. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
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Study examined how we can upgrade the quality of online teaching (Feng and Bienkowski in Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology [Feng M, Bienkowski M (2012) Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology]) in the upcoming years. Data were collected through the Google form which were filled up by the students. Feedback is the most important attribute of assessment as it provides students with a statement of their learning and advises how to improve. Result was helping to enhance the quality of online teaching in educational system and also provide the constituent which helps in improving the online teaching. We will use sentiment analysis (Kumar and Nezhurina in Sentiment analysis on tweets for trains using machine learning. Research Gate, p 10 [Kumar S, Nezhurina MI (2020) Sentiment analysis on tweets for trains using machine learning. Research Gate, p 10]) also. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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When mastering new topics, the importance of timely and topical feedback is hard to overestimate. Distance education forced recently on educational community by COVID brought obstacles to one-on-one interaction, making direct feedback difficult. However, it also inspired educators to consider new tools and ideas. A possible approach allowing for quality feedback is outlined, supported by a comparison of pre-COVID and COVID results. © 2021 The Author(s).
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In Summer 2020, our university organized a two weeks summer research experience for 16 recently graduated first-generation and underrepresented high school students who would be joining University as incoming freshmen in various STEM majors. The summer camp was originally planned to be in-person with students residing in the university dorm to receive an early university experience and plan for their college life. But due to COVID-19, it had to be changed to a completely virtual format. This was the first time the faculty were organizing a two weeks camp in a complete virtual format. In this work, we discuss the overall virtual camp experience, challenges faced to provide effective experience to students in the online format, and evaluate the program based on student's feedback. We found that frequent breaks, activities that include students move around for some physical activity, interactive lesson plans, good communication tools, better planning and information tools are required to organize an efficient virtual program. In summer 2022, we plan to have second cohort of summer research camp and use the experiences from 2020 to improve the program. © 2022 IEEE.
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Study examined how we can upgrade the quality of online teaching (Feng and Bienkowski in Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology [Feng M, Bienkowski M (2012) Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology]) in the upcoming years. Data were collected through the Google form which were filled up by the students. Feedback is the most important attribute of assessment as it provides students with a statement of their learning and advises how to improve. Result was helping to enhance the quality of online teaching in educational system and also provide the constituent which helps in improving the online teaching. We will use sentiment analysis (Kumar and Nezhurina in Sentiment analysis on tweets for trains using machine learning. Research Gate, p 10 [Kumar S, Nezhurina MI (2020) Sentiment analysis on tweets for trains using machine learning. Research Gate, p 10]) also. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Due to the covid-19 pandemic, great changes appeared in education in general and digital technologies played a substantial role in the process. The main objective of this research is to consider students' feedback and opinions on teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in (a) the present form before schools were closed due to the pandemic, (b) the online distance form of instruction during the pandemic, and (c) the present form of instruction after the pandemic. Research questions focused on three areas: (1) what form(s) of instruction students preferred, (2) whether/how digital technologies contributed to the process of instruction, and (3) in which form of instruction they learned more. The ex-post-facto approach and mixed methodology were applied. Data were collected by questionnaire. It was available online for students of the upper secondary school for medical staff (N = 153) and advanced school for higher medical staff (N = 183). We expect that (1) the present form of instruction after the covid-19 pandemic will be appreciated;however, there will also be some supporters of online distance instruction;(2) it will be the present form that will allow students to learn more compared to online distance instruction;(3) both teachers and students will improve their digital skills during the pandemic so that technologies can be exploited to a wider extent in the present form of instruction after the pandemic. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Traditional hydraulic drive experiments present a number of challenges. During the hydraulic transmission experiment, the equipment is easily damaged and must be frequently updated, which makes it difficult for a large number of students to study at the same time;the traditional offline, monotonous, and boring experiments make it difficult for students to increase their interest in learning from what is inherent;and most undergraduate students have to study at home due to the impact of COVID-19. Therefore, students need an excellent teaching system that allows them to perform experiments at home and improve their learning efficiency. A teaching system for the undergraduate hydraulic transmission course was designed to meet the needs of the hydraulic transmission course and to stimulate students' interest in learning. This teaching system allows students to spend more time outside of the class to analyze experimental results and relate concepts presented in lecture courses to experimental results. Finally, a course on hydraulic drives taught at Nanchang University was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this teaching system. The analysis based on positive student feedback and academic performance shows that the proposed teaching system is an effective learning tool for undergraduate students in their learning process. © 2023 by the authors.
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The use of online courses is growing worldwide that has opened the door for the interested students to learn comfortably from their locations especially, during Covid-19 pandemic. However, an important aspect of traditional classroom is real-time students' feedback for content delivery and interactive sessions, which is missing in online courses. The aim of this work is to bridge this gap by providing an automatic recognition system for engagement level of the students during online courses using deep transfer learning. In this paper, a CNN based method is proposed to predict the level of engagement while watching online class sessions. The CNN based method consists of two different modalities including: (1) pre-trained network based transfer learning for feature extraction from image data, (2) support vector machine (SVM) classifier for classification. Ten different pre-trained networks are used in the proposed method. The superiority of the method is evaluated on the dataset created using images of graduate students. Of all pre-trained networks, Resnet50 and VGG16 achieved highest classification accuracy of 72.34% and 71.77% using the proposed approach respectively. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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This commentary describes some of the reported challenges of health participation for the gender- and sexuality-diverse (GSD) population, particularly related to medical imaging practice. The approach and student feedback of an undergraduate education initiative to support students in the delivery of culturally competent care are described. The experiences of delivery over a three-year period are reported, including the 2020 online delivery due to COVID-19 precautions. Student feedback demonstrates positive outcomes from the workshops and activities.
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CONTEXT The subject ENG10003 Mechanics of Structures is common to all Engineering degree courses at Swinburne University of Technology. In the 2020 COVID year, the course was delivered fully online. Student feedback from the Subject Assessment Surveys for 2020 largely uncovered the limitations they perceived in the online delivery of the subject for its first time. A particular inference made, was that some students claimed they gained little additional benefit from the online delivery of the subject than from going through presentation of the theory and example solved/worked problems in textbooks. PURPOSE OR GOAL In reviewing the content of the delivery, student comments were vindicated in places as some material was based on inclusion of its electronic form of treatment with worked examples made available by the publishers of the recommended textbook. Some of the more positive feedback from students related to the screening of the videoed performance of the two experiments and their results presented in Weeks 7 and 10 of the online delivery. Students were required to perform analysis of the measurements made available to obtain key results and then to compare these against their theoretical counterparts in a report forming part of their assessment for the subject. The inclusion of experiment-based evidence on topics treated in other weeks of the subject delivery was therefore seen as a positive step towards increasing value to students of the online delivery of subject ENG10003 in 2021. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS The content of the online delivery of ENG10003 in every alternate week of Semester1 2021, was therefore supplemented by excerpts of experiment-based material drawn from www.Mechanics-Lab.com and made available by Strucomp P/L as a trial. The trial was anticipated to provide an opportunity to judge the efficacy of inclusion of experiment-based evidence as an enhancement to the learning of topics relevant to the subject. In addition, relaxing of COVID restrictions during the latter part of Semester 1, allowed students optional attendance of two "Open Sessions” where they could perform the TechnoLab™-based experiments used in the online delivery of ENG10003, hands-on for themselves. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES Informal student feedback has been quite positive. Results from a purpose-specific quiz and the Subject Assessment Learning Survey for the subject, also show favourable responses for the inclusion of experiment-based verification of topics in the delivery of ENG10003. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY Whilst hands-on performance of experimentation on physical models for obtaining experiment-based evidence supporting the understanding and acceptance of basic principles and analysis/modelling techniques treated in ENG10003 has been acknowledged by students as superior to online delivery of such material, these students still feel it worthwhile to include videos of experiment-based evidence of topics in the online delivery of the subject. Copyright © Jessey Lee and Nicholas Haritos, 2021.
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Introduction: Dental education reform has been a focus for many schools over recent years, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the presented study was to assess faculty and student preferences for feedback styles, learning modalities in the clinical setting, and transitioning from the preclinical to clinical environments. Methods: Two separate surveys were distributed to clinical faculty and students from classes of 2021, 2022, and 2023. Results: Notably, faculty had significantly more favorable views on interpersonal dynamics within the student clinic compared to students (p = 0.0255). While students and faculty differed in their views on the transition from preclinical to clinical practice, clinical performance, and teaching/learning modality preferences, these results were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Nevertheless, discrepancies in student and faculty responses to questions centering on feedback preferences, teaching/learning modality preferences, and transitioning to the clinical environment indicate potential avenues to explore for future development efforts. © 2022 The authors.
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We explored whether a project-based approach and experiential-learning activity would improve learning of complex concepts related to concrete manufacturing in the workplace. We designed a group-based laboratory activity, followed by student-peer teaching and marking and a final report writing task, based on the job of a concrete technician/engineer in a concrete production plant. An action research approach was used to assess student satisfaction (N = 269), their perception of the learning experience, and the impact on their grades. There were four data sources: Observations made by lecturers and TAs, standardised student evaluations, a targeted survey, and course grades. We correlated measures of student peer -teaching with academic output. Students were satisfied overall with the activity and their perceptions of experiential-learning were positive. The student peer-teaching activity needs improvements. Despite extra online-learning resources provided to compensate for Covid disruptions, students were more satisfied with the in-person activity than with the on-line counterpart. Our positive results suggest that student learning about concrete manufacturing improves when complex theory is integrated with practical learning activities using a project-based approach. We will further modify and integrate learning activities based on these results in our new multi-disciplinary learning spaces.
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This research evaluates the impact of switching college engineering courses from in-person instruction to emergency remote learning among engineering students at a university in the Midwest. The study aimed to answer the question: What were the concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning? The goal of this study is to uncover the challenges students were facing in engineering online courses and to understand students' concerns. Our findings can help improve teaching instruction to provide students with previously unavailable educational assistance for online engineering courses. We collected online survey responses during weeks 8 and 9 of the academic semester, shortly after the COVID-19 shutdown and emergency transition to remote learning in Spring 2020. The survey included two open-ended questions which inquired about students' feedback about moving the class online, and one two-item scale which assessed students' confidence in online engineering learning. Data analysis for the open-ended questions was guided by the theoretical framework - Social Cognitive Career Theory [1] that explores how context, person factors and social cognitions contribute to career goals, interests and actions. A phenomenological approach [2] was conducted to understand the experience of these students. Open coding and axial coding [2] methods were used to create initial categories then themes related to students' concerns and challenges. Data from the two-item scale was evaluated using descriptive statistics: means, standard deviations, and ranges. Four main themes with separate sub-categories emerged from the student responses: 1) Instructor's ability to teach course online (Instructional limitations, Seeking help, Increased Workload), 2) Student's ability to learn online (Time Management, Lower engagement and motivation, Harder to absorb material, Hard to focus, Worry about performance), 3) Difficulties outside of class (Technology issues), and 4) No concerns. Students seemed more concerned about their ability to learn the material (48% of responses) than the instructor's ability to teach the material (36% of responses). The instructional limitations or lack of instructional support (22% of responses) and time management (12% of responses) were among the major concerns in the sub-categories. The results from two-item scale indicated participants' s confidence in their ability to master their classroom knowledge was at an intermediate level via online instruction (6/10), and participants' confidence in the instructor's ability to teach knowledge in online classes is moderate to high (7/10). The results align with the open-ended question response in which students were somewhat more concerned about their ability to learn than the instructor's ability to teach. The themes and analysis will be a valuable tool to help institutions and instructors improve student learning experiences. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
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It has become evident in the past years that capstone design project course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) does not provide adequate guidance to students. The fall semester of this two-semester course was spent largely on project proposal deliverables, delaying project implementation. There was a disconnect between course instructors, administrators, and students about project expectations and scope. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic forced all courses to take place online and restricted student access to most university facilities. This work evaluates changes to the course structure based on student surveys and observations from teaching staff. To address concerns with project execution and expectations, the timing and format of course deliverables were changed. A September proposal meeting was introduced to allow all stakeholders to clearly define project expectations and scope. As a result, misinterpretations of the project were resolved at early stages. The “Implementation Plan” deliverable was delayed from September to late November, giving students adequate time to consider implementation strategies before following with documentation. An Interim Demonstration was introduced during the first week of December to encourage students to kick-off the implementation phase during fall semester. After the Interim Demonstration, requirements and methods were clear to most students, allowing them to complete the projects with minimal supervision. Deliverable expectations must be better communicated in future years however, as student feedback identified how deliverables were not well-suited to software projects and were not always clear. In addition to changes in deliverables, significant changes had to be made to accommodate remote learning. Online networking sessions were held during summer to help form teams and build community within the class. The sessions were well-attended and resulted in formation of several student teams at early stages of the course. Course lectures were held online with minimal difficulty, following an identical format to other online ECE courses. Team meetings with administrators and supervisors were held online, and students' feedback were positive. The end-of-course design fair was moved online, with pre-recorded videos replacing in-person presentations. Some students expressed disappointment that they were not able to present their projects to a wider community. Despite pandemic challenges and changes to deliverables, a detailed end-of-semester student survey showed that students perceived the course workload to be similar to other courses. Despite accommodations for remote learning, student surveys revealed that the pandemic affected their choice of project, and negatively affected the quality of their projects. The survey also showed, however, that the changes to deliverables and the early all stakeholders' meeting were effective and improved overall project quality. 71% of students indicated they would take the course even if it was not a program requirement. The structure of deliverables for the 2022-2023 will be similar, and remote learning tools will still be used when appropriate. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
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At the start of 2020, safety concerns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic caused educational institutions around the world to rapidly transition to emergency remote learning (ERL). This has caused educators to rethink their course delivery strategies and re-examine their assumptions about what constitutes a good education. Although the research community has widely reported on remote learning-including its benefits, its challenges, and suggestions for the future-institutions have recently begun resuming in-person activities, which begs the question, what has changed? While previous work has compared remote learning during the pandemic to pre-ERL in-person learning, we expand on the findings of the community by examining student feedback obtained during post-ERL in-person learning. We begin by discussing the main challenges we faced during the year of online teaching, then present an analysis of survey data gathered for both remote and (post-ERL) in-person learning during the pandemic. Insights on synchronous and asynchronous learning are presented, including the benefits and drawbacks that are unique to each. We show that while students generally preferred synchronous learning over asynchronous, many of the key benefits of synchronous learning are only attainable in a physical setting. We discuss the reasons for this, as well as the reasons why students overwhelmingly desired an asynchronous learning option to augment their synchronous learning activities. Unlike many previous studies which solely rely on quantitative survey data, we draw our conclusions using a combination of quantitative data and written feedback from students, the latter of which allows us to better understand students' reasons for adopting certain learning strategies and preferences. Alongside these insights, we identify opportunities for improving student satisfaction and share actions we took to better support our students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
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As a best practice, it is customary to ask students for their feedback on curricular interventions. The feedback is typically used to justify further changes and ascertain how well they may accept the intervention for broader implementation. At the University of New Haven, 18 e-learning modules were developed and integrated into courses spanning the 4-year engineering and computer science majors' curricula. The modules centered on topics seen to contribute to the development of students' entrepreneurial mindset. We saw this as a way to assist faculty in leveraging entrepreneurial minded learning (EML) in their courses when the topics are likely outside their area of expertise. The development, integration, and students' learning assessment efforts of the e-learning modules have been the topics of many of our previous papers and presentations. This paper focuses on an analysis of the feedback collected from students regarding the modules and their integration. Our faculty have been using the modules for over five years. In that span, we have collected over 1000 student responses to an end-of-term survey administered in every course in which a module was integrated. The survey includes questions pertaining to time spent on the module and the associated course assignment, their level of agreement related to statements about their perceived effectiveness of the curricular intervention, and open-ended response questions focused on what they liked/did not like about the modules and their integration. Our findings thus far reveal a positive trend in the students' perception of the e-learning modules and their integration over the span of the deployment. Correlation analysis of several indicators provide further insights about students' attitudes towards the modules. For example, students place more value on the module if they see a connection between the module content and the content of the course, as well as if the instructor reinforces what they learned in the module through a contextual activity. However, despite students seeing value in the module or stating that the assignment supported the concepts taught in the module, we do not find a strong correlation to students expressing interest in additional modules of this type integrated into their courses. These findings are insightful and timely given the increased use of hybrid learning in a COVID and post-COVID academic environment. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
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The four- and six-year graduation rates (~17.7% and ~64.5% respectively) of engineering (ENGR), are below the University's average graduation rates (~ 33.1% and 67.4%). The goal of this study is to seek solutions towards increasing the graduation rates and ultimately decreasing the time-to-graduation. There are several steps that could be taken to help the engineering students graduate earlier. Examples are summer bridge programs that focus on strengthening mathematical skills of students, encouraging students to attend tutoring sessions and practice problem-solving. One of the factors that add to the time-to-graduation of students is not being able to pass the lower division courses that serve as the prerequisite to other discipline courses. The result will be high DFW rate courses which students repeat several times before they can pass them and pursue other courses that rely on these high DFW courses. This can adversely affect the student's sense of belonging and decrease the retention rate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, all courses, including some of the high DFW courses, were taught in various modalities. This has created different results and perceptions by students. The Linear Circuits I is a high DFW rate course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of CSU Chico. In this study, the author, who has taught this course in four different modalities, looks closely at the results of this class and compares the effect of different teaching modalities on the DFW rates. The author will also reflect on the effectiveness of each of the teaching modes, student engagement, and student feedback on each mode. The results could be used for the recommendation of teaching modalities if the course is offered online again due to a pandemic or other need. Additionally, the lessons learned and the technology related features of online instruction can be integrated with in-person instruction to increase the effectiveness of teaching. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
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The paper presents the application of active learning used for teaching the topic 'Design of Finite Impulse Response Filters in MATLAB' in the course 'Digital Signal Processing' for bachelor students of the specialties 'Internet and Mobile Communication' (3rd semester) and 'Information and Communication Technologies' (2nd semester) at the University of Ruse during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Some issues about students' feedback are given in the paper. © 2022 IEEE.
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The paper presents results of research that deals with online distance instruction from students’ point of view. The main objective of the research is to detect the principal features of the process and propose recommendations to improve the quality in the future. Data were collected via a questionnaire consisting of 18 items that required multiple-choice and open answers. The research sample included 228 respondents who attended upper secondary and higher education institutions in the Czech Republic. Each respondent provided feedback on two courses taught within the second closure of schools (September 2020–May 2021). First, they reflected on the course they appreciated;second, they described the course which was not designed and conducted in accord with didactic principles from their point of view. The collected data were structured using four criteria: (1) First contact and communication, (2) Learning content acquisition, (3) Learning content delivery, (4) Student’s final feedback on online distance instruction, including teachers’ and learners’ effort devoted to teaching and learning, and the quality of learning outcomes. Based on the collected data, recommendations for further development in online distance instruction are proposed. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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COVID19 outbreak brought about many challenges including the shifting of university assessments to conduct in online mode. This research study tries to explore the impact of newly designed online formative assessments on students' learning, in a Plant Physiology course. The designing of assessments were carried out focusing on constructive alignment, for which an Open Book Test (OBT) was conducted in three parts: OBT1 -problem based learning assignment, providing feedback using a rubric;OBT2 -multiple choice, multi response, matching and missing word questions with immediate feedback;OBT3 -analysing research results with MCQs and short answer questions with feedback. A mixed approach of convergent parallel design method was followed to collect data through two questionnaires and interviews. Findings indicated students' engagement in self- determined learning in solving a real-world problem and their enthusiasm in learning with research-based questions in assessments, while self-assessing their performance through feedback. However, geographically varied technological challenges need to be addressed in conducting successful online assessments.