Scenario for Analysing Student Interactions and Orchestration Load in Collaborative and Hybrid Learning Environments

Educational environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and have evolved to support classes, which involve in some cases synchronous hybrid learning environments. These environments enable students attend classes online and on-site simultaneously. Synchronous hybrid environments provide a greater flexibility for students but, in contrast, are likely to increase teachers’ orchestration load and decrease interactions between students, especially between those online and those on-site. This study proposes a scenario to explore the factors affecting the orchestration load and the student interactions in collaborative and synchronous hybrid learning environments. The scenario involves the use of a collaborative learning flow pattern (jigsaw) and the technologies that will enable the data collection to understand such factors affecting to orchestration load and interaction. The outcomes from the implementation of this scenario will provide useful insights to further understand the benefits and limitations of synchronous hybrid learning environments. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Impact of Student Engagement, Satisfaction, and Perception of Learning in Multi Channel Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic

The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has altered many things, including the way of learning, the way of learning that is carried out during the pandemic through online to avoid or minimize the spread of the virus. Changes in the way of learning for students provide new experiences for universities and students. Several previous studies have been conducted related to this and several important factors were found such as learning program structure factors, student interaction, lecturer presence, student engagement, student satisfaction and learning perception. This quantitative research was carried out using the SEM-PLS technique to see how the influence of the factors that affect learning perception and student satisfaction during pandemic Covid-19 took place. This study used a sample of 436 respondents and found a very significant relationship between factors. The results of this study found, Learning Program Structure, Student Interaction, Lecture Presence, Student Engagement have an influence on Learning Perception factors and Student Satisfaction. The study results useful for the development of future learning methods. © 2022 IEEE.

Best Practices and Lessons Learned on Organizing Effective Cohort-based Undergraduate Summer Research during COVID-19

This paper summarizes the best practices and lessons learned from organizing an effective remote REU Site during COVID-19. Our REU Site is a three-year program that is designed to offer closely-mentored summer research experience to a cohort of ten students in each of the three years. COVID-19 has disrupted our site by forcing us to split our second cohort to two groups, two students in summer 2020 and seven students in summer 2021. However, the experience that we gained in summer 2020 by mentoring the two students virtually online has provided us with the confidence that a virtual REU Site with a larger group can be as effective as in person and on campus. To further improve the quality of our REU Site in the on-line mode, we have applied multiple novel practices. Specifically, before the start of the 2021 REU site we as the site co-directors proactively worked with mentors to better understand the needs of the defined research projects. Subsequently, we tailored the topics covered by the crash course of our site to the needs of the research projects as well as purposefully increasing active learning activities and student interactions. In lieu of the previous in-person bond building activity (a two-day high rope course in a nearby camp), we added virtual scavenger image hunt in orientation and game nights every Wednesday. During the ten weeks, we also organized a half-hour daily check-in and check-out in the morning and afternoon respectively, through which students got ample opportunities to speak in a group setting about their own accomplishments and challenges for the day as well as their plans for the next day. Moreover, a PhD pathways panel and several professional development seminars on Graduate School and the research process were successfully organized to motivate students to pursue a research career. To facilitate communication, our site adopted multiple software tools (slack, google calendar, zoom, and moodle). An independent evaluator evaluated our program through online pre- and post-program surveys for both students and mentors as well as a focus group discussion with students. The evaluation report indicates significant improvement from the summer 2021 program regarding student satisfaction compared to the previous summer 2019 on-site program. Detailed quantitative analysis and lessons learned from the report will be presented in this paper to offer valuable experience and best practices for organizing effective cohort-based undergraduate research programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Effective online learning management system to improve and enhance the online learning and student engagement experience

With the spread of Covid-19, there has been a shift towards distance learning and teachers find it difficult to keep track of students who are attentive during class. Unlike before, where the traditional classroom environment helped teachers keep track of the students who are not fully concentrating during the lessons. This shift to online learning has made teachers find it much more difficult to keep track of students who are idling during their lecture period. For this the following solution is proposed to introduce an extension to help teachers integrate with existing video conferencing platforms. This solution will help teachers to know whether the student has been attentive during class, by keeping track of their peripheral device movements, such as mouse movements or keystrokes. Previous studies have been conducted to keep track of student's eye movement and browser history, but no solution has been developed to easily plug and play' into an existing platform for teachers to get real time progress of a student's interaction to the lecture. The main objective of this research will be to help enhance the learning experience of a student by keeping the teacher aware of the student's progress just like in a traditional classroom environment. © 2022 ACM.

What Is the Status of Interactions in University Online Teaching? A Survey on 371 Students

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years, the scale of online teaching has covered all kinds of schools at different levels around the world. Interaction is an important characteristic of teaching activities, and online teaching should also attach importance to teaching interaction. To reveal the status of interaction in online teaching, this study investigated 371 students in a university of China by questionnaire survey. It is found that the interaction does happen in the online teaching, but the initiators of online interaction are mainly teachers. The type of interaction is mainly teacher-student interaction, whose main form is "teacher's questions with students' responses", and the student-student interactions are less than teacher-student interaction. The contents of online interaction are diverse, but most of them are subject content oriented. The number of students who actively participate in the interaction is roughly the same as that of students who passively participate in the interaction. Most of students' perceptions of online interaction are positive. © 2022 ACM.

Application of technological tools Youtube and Zoom in the teaching-learning process of fifth grade students of the Basic General Education School “Gral. Manuel Serrano Renda” del Cantón El Guabo

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the teaching-learning process moved to a virtual modality, experiencing changes in teacher-student interaction, for which it was necessary to use technological tools, such as YouTube and Zoom, the which became the most used due to their accessibility and diversity of collaborative functionalities. The objective of this work was to determine the application of the technological tools YouTube and Zoom, as interactive resources in the development of the teaching-learning process of a primary institution in Ecuador. For this, a case study is presented, where a quantitative methodology was applied, with a descriptive-correlational type of study, considering the total population of fifth grade students to whom a previously structured survey and interviews with teachers were applied. In this context, it is concluded based on the results that the use of YouTube and Zoom contribute significantly to the teaching-learning process, however, little knowledge is reflected in the teachers regarding the use of its functionalities, which compromises the adequate development of the apprenticeships. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Intentional librarian-student interactions during COVID-19: A clear bridge to developing first-year student information literacy skills

As part of a research study to examine first-year college students’ preparation for college-level research, students at six U.S. institutions of higher education were surveyed in the spring semester of 2021. The pandemic continued to affect the delivery of information literacy (IL) instruction and library services across the United States throughout the 2020-2021 academic year. When students completed this survey in April and May of 2021, the majority of instructional services were offered in synchronous and asynchronous remote formats. The students' engagement with librarians and librarian-created instructional resources were captured via the survey and analysed to determine whether students were able to leverage these interactions and materials despite the remote contexts. Students who did not interact with an academic librarian were less likely to use library resources, had more problems accessing information, and felt more overwhelmed by the quantity of resources and services offered by the library. Results show that intentional student-librarian interactions are a bridge to the acquisition and development of knowledge practices and dispositions of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The findings suggest considerations for moving forward when it comes to communicating with students and delivering IL support in academic libraries around the world as countries emerge from pandemic conditions. © 2022, CILIP Information Literacy Group. All rights reserved.

The Use of Computer Training Systems in Distance Learning

Information and communication technologies in the context of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 are used in all industries. In the context of COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to distance learning, computer hardware and software systems are an effective tool for the successful implementation of the training process in the universities. Virtual laboratories, simulators, test computer systems are the components of the virtual educational environment of the universities. Today these tools contain a specific multimedia element - a virtual robot assistant. Student's interaction with a virtual assistant should be comfortable and provide the successful educational process. The authors examined several aspects of effective student's interaction with the multimedia components of the interface of the computerized learning environment. The results of the conducted experiment can be used by developers of computer virtual laboratories, simulators, experimental research stands, test computer systems, a component of which is a virtual robot assistant, to optimize the processes of educational activities distance learning included. © 2022 IEEE.

Instructor Attribute and Feedback to Empower Mature Learners in ODL Education

With the outbreak of Covid-19, Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has become even popular particularly among those who aim to pursue postgraduate studies. ODL provides alternative for many to study while working or while raising a family. Nevertheless, the lack of student engagement and noncompletion rate in ODL programs were reported higher than in traditional programs. One of the main factors is due to the instructor-student interaction issue. The objective of this qualitative study was to understand the issue by looking at instructor attributes and types of feedback required by the students. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews with a small sample of university postgraduate students and academics in Malaysia and were analysed using thematic analysis and data triangulation. The results show two factors that need attention to improve instructor-student interaction and make ODL a better learning option for mature learners: instructor empathy and feedback to empower learners. These findings cannot be generalised without further research but are able to provide some information on the important factors to consider in preparing instructors for learning delivery completely online. © 2022,International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. All rights reserved

Online engineering tutorials: Investigation into tutors' use of technologies for learning

The transition to online teaching and learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates scholarship regarding the affordances and challenges inherent in this transition. A wealth of such scholarship has already been produced, most of which focuses on this transition from the perspective of students and/or lecturers. However, a relatively under-explored perspective has been the experiences of peer tutors with regard to online teaching and learning. This paper addresses this gap, by examining how peer tutors in a first-year introduction to engineering design module make use of technological resources to undertake their tutoring activities. Two teams of two tutors each were given a digital, pen-enabled device with which to conduct online tutorial sessions, which were recorded and observed. In addition, the tutors completed personalised questionnaires via email. The results of this study reveal that the tutors demonstrated high levels of professionalism and technological fluency, but that moments of struggle with the technologies still occurred. In addition, tutors also experienced challenges with regard to encouraging student interaction and participation in the online environment. There is a need for additional tutor training and development with regard to promoting student interaction, and strategies to make use of the various affordances offered by technology. Moreover, in a resource-constrained environment such as South Africa, where this research was conducted, tutors may experience additional needs over and above devices for tutoring, which higher education institutions will need to accommodate. © 2021 IEEE.

Survey Design for Evaluating Student Interaction in Face-to-Face and Online Learning Environment

Social learning is an important part of the college experience. With the rapid transition from face-to-face to online courses after COVID-19, the instructors were challenged with creating an online learning environment that supports social interaction for students. This project investigates the use of technology for interaction by the instructors, and how the students adapted technologies that allowed them to keep their interactions alive in the online courses. A 15-minute online survey was designed at a large engineering school in the southwestern United States. The undergraduate and graduate students in engineering who were enrolled in STEM courses in summer 2020 were invited to complete the survey at the end of the summer. Due to the online nature of the summer semester, this survey included separate questions for the students who took synchronous or asynchronous courses. The survey included both qualitative and quantitative questions. This research paper explains the survey design and the type of results obtained from the survey. To assess the student interaction with instructors/Teaching Assistants and with other students in online courses, the students answered questions related to (i) technology/platforms used by their instructor, (ii) methods used by their instructor, (iii) how the students adapted their interaction in the online environment, (iv) average time spent interacting each week, and (v) the satisfaction ratings on a Likert scale. For comparing with face-to-face courses (pre-COVID-19), the students were also asked to explain their interaction with instructors/Teaching Assistants and with other students in the face-to-face courses taken in fall 2019, and the average time spent interacting each week. The demographic questions included the student classification, engineering major, gender, ethnicity, the highest level of education completed by parents, and whether they were an international student. The results from this survey will play an important role in our understanding of how the students adapt from face-to-face courses to the online learning environment. Zoom and eCampus were the most commonly used tools for interaction in online courses. The virtual study groups and live interaction were widely used methods for students to interact with each other in online courses. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

An Examination of Professor-Student Interactions, Stem Learning Challenges, and Student Adaptation Decisions During Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed STEM learning environments across U.S. institutions. However, the impact of this pandemic on learning and decision-making in students are yet to be fully understood. It is important to gain insights into student experiences during COVID-19 pandemic so that student and institutional resiliency can be improved during future pandemics. This research is part of a larger nationwide inductive research project with the purpose of developing theories to explain the learning experiences and decisions of undergraduate STEM students during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-methods approach with purposive sampling was utilized to enroll 63 undergraduate STEM students from six U.S institutions. Data was collected through recruitment surveys, academic transcripts, and interviews. One-hour ZOOM interviews, gave research participants the opportunity to narrate their salient STEM learning experiences during the spring 2020 semester. Data was analyzed using the NVivo qualitative analysis software and Microsoft Excel for coding, categorizing, memo-ing, constant comparative analysis, and theme development. Also, Microsoft Excel was used to analyze demographic data from recruitment surveys and GPA data from the academic transcripts. Results from the analysis of 30 coded interview transcripts revealed an emergent theme - Professor-Student Interactions Impact Learning and Adaptation Decisions. The three key categories of this theme are: Professor-Student Interactions and Learning Challenges;Adaptation Decisions;and STEM Performance. The seven categories of Professor-Student Interactions are coded as: Online Instructional Delivery Methods;Professor Caring Attitudes;Professor Leniency;Professor Availability;Student Workloads;Professor Technology Proficiency;and Professor Teaching Resources. Positive professor-student interactions improve student learning experiences. Negative professor-student interactions worsen student learning challenges and are coded as: Illusion of Time, Procrastination;Lack of Focus;Challenge of Asking Questions;Poor Understanding;Poor Quality Assignments;Poor Intermediate Grades;Stresses;and Lowered Motivation. While most research participants experienced high stresses, a few of them experienced low or no stresses. To minimize the impact of COVID-related learning challenges on their STEM learning and performance, research participants made effective adaptation decisions coded as: Refined Scheduling;Alternate Learning Resources;Professor Office Hours;Teaching Assistants;Peer Collaboration;Relaxation Strategies;and Pass/Fail Options. Compared to the fall 2019 GPAs, the improved spring 2020 GPAs of research participants may be partially attributed to professor leniency, pass/fail option, and cheating. Findings indicate that while STEM professors were adjusting to COVID-modified teaching and learning environments, many STEM students were developing a sense of self-discipline, self-teaching, and independence. They relied on both professor and non-professor generated resources to improve their own STEM learning and performance. Lessons learned and best practices for improved professor-student interactions and student adaptation decisions are discussed for potential replication in STEM communities for improved adaptability and resiliency during future pandemics. Future research will focus on quantifying the long-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on STEM performance. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Online, Interactive Tool for Studying How Students Troubleshoot Circuits

We have developed a new tool to look at how students interact with circuits during the troubleshooting process. The online tool was originally designed to analyze individual troubleshooting strategy for large classes, but it also works well in the COVID-era to facilitate remote learning. While there are a number of tools that allow students to virtually interact with circuits, none supported both breadboard graphics and recording all student interactions, which were necessary to create an authentic troubleshooting situation that could be analyzed by the researchers afterwards. Therefore, we created our own circuit and data analysis tool using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, which utilizes breadboard imagery from Fritzing and runs on most modern browsers. Unlike a traditional paper-and-pencil test, the interactive, online tool allows us to see how students react to new information and measure domain knowledge beyond theory-including interpreting physical circuits and making measurements. Instead of relying on students to tell us everything on their mind, we can use their actions as a proxy for their thought processes. This paper describes how we developed the tool and some preliminary data on how students debug. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Investigation of Technology-based Student Interaction for Social Learning in Online Courses

This work in progress research paper studied the use of technologies, platforms, and methods for interactions during the course and outside the course by the engineering students enrolled in the summer 2020 semester at a large Southwestern public research university. In March of 2020, this university migrated away from face-to-face teaching, like other institutions, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This migration resulted in the development of synchronous (remote) and asynchronous (fully online) courses that were offered to students through the remaining Spring and also the Summer semester of 2020. Previous studies have shown that student and faculty interaction along with student-student interaction have a net positive effect on student retention and learning. This study was designed to identify the tools-technology or platforms-and methods used for interaction in the summer 2020 courses. All students enrolled in engineering courses in summer 2020 were invited to take part in the survey. However, 315 students started the survey and only 93 respondents completed the survey fully. While there are useful data from the entire starter group, this study looked at the data generated by the 93 respondents who completed the survey. The student responses indicate that most faculty, whether teaching synchronously or asynchronously, supplemented their courses with some technology or platform that facilitated live interactions (Zoom, Google Meet, Blackboard Collaborate, Microsoft Teams). Even though the students were moderately satisfied with the technology/platforms and methods that were used, they showed a higher degree of satisfaction for courses that used active learning and other methods for student engagement. For social learning, the students used GroupMe, text messaging, or Zoom calls to interact with each other outside of class. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Asynchronous online mathematics learning support: An exploration of interaction data to inform future provision

Over the past 30 years, higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide have been grappling with the difficulties experienced by many students entering higher education due to their poor pre-entry core mathematical skills. In the Republic of Ireland and the UK, the provision of mathematics learning support (MLS) is the approach most commonly adopted by HEIs to deal with this problem, providing free one-to-one mathematical support and/or workshops for students. However, despite the availability of such supports and research that suggests that engagement with these supports can have a positive impact on student retention and progression, ensuring high levels of student engagement with these supports remains a significant challenge. In more recent years, some institutions have started to provide online MLS which takes many different forms but mainly provide links to websites, revision notes, past exam papers, etc. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for many to resort to remote teaching, it would appear the successful provision of online mathematics support is set to become increasingly important over the coming years. This paper will examine student interaction data with one such online MLS provision, hosted within a virtual learning environment. The interaction data will be analysed in order to gain a better understanding of the level of student engagement with this resource and the content most frequently accessed. This analysis will be used to inform the future development and enhancement of the resource so as to encourage student engagement. © 2020 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved

Student experiences of online study groups and drop-in mathematics support during COVID-19

In this paper, we consider the changes to mathematics learning support (MLS) at Maynooth University due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the provision of novel online study groups aimed at increasing student engagement and interaction. We briefly outline the local, national and international impact of COVID-19 on MLS and then focus on the results of a student survey. Respondents who regularly used online MLS were broadly positive about their experiences. They cited, in particular, the influence of tutors and the scheduled study groups, which provided structure and motivation as well as the opportunity to work with others and ask questions in less intimidating small groups. However, some respondents highlighted factors that impacted negatively on their engagement. These included low attendance or interaction from peers, timetabling issues or busy schedules, lack of awareness of the details of the services and increased feelings of discomfort and anxiety in an online environment. We consider how this student feedback may influence our future online and in-person supports. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved

Student perspectives on the digital learning experience during covid-19 lockdown

As a result of lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students and lecturers in higher education worldwide had to move from campus-based teaching to digital learning environments. Almost over-night, lecturers and students had to adjust to teaching and learning through live streams like Zoom as well as video recordings of lectures. Several differences from campus teaching were immediately apparent. As an example, many lecturers experienced less interaction with their students during lectures, as most students were reluctant to speak or turn on their web cameras. This paper presents a study exploring the learning experiences and overall situation as seen from the student perspective. 15 participants were recruited among first-and second-year bachelor students enrolled in IT studies at a Norwegian university college. A qualitative approach was taken, and the students were interviewed in a semi-structured manner. This research reveals that the individual experiences differ greatly among the students, due to personal circumstances like family and living situation. However, challenges related to self-discipline, motivation and communication seem to be experienced by most of the participants. Our findings suggest that when facilitating for courses with a larger amount of the content delivered online, one should have particular focus on how to guide the students to be more independent and self-motivated, in addition to helping them develop a daily routine. For instance, the role of live lectures, as opposed to pre-recorded videos, may be a way of scaffolding the digital learning environment. Furthermore, there should be increased focus on how to support the students to meet with their peers. Measures could be social or informal gatherings, meetings in smaller groups, or group assignments demanding collaboration. © the authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.