Skip to main content
ASCILITE Publications logo
Search

2019: ASCILITE 2019 Conference Proceedings: Personalised Learning. Diverse Goals. One Heart

The 2019 ASCILITE annual conference was hosted by Singapore University of Social Sciences, 2nd to 5th December.

Editors: Y. W. Chew, K. M. Chan, and A. Alphonso

Published: 2 December 2019

Full Issue

ASCILITE Conference - Concise Papers

  • Seeing the wood for the trees: Insights into the complexity of developing pre-service teachers’ digital competencies for future teaching

    Sarah Howard, Jo Tondeur, Jun Ma, Jie Yang

    Developing digital competencies is a critical component in pre-service teacher training for future practice. However, this is a complex process which includes a range of strategies, and little is known about how they should be implemented. Methods that can address this complexity are needed to improve understanding of strategies to develop digital competency in teacher training. In this paper, data mining approaches are used to explore this issue, through analysis of preservice teachers’ experiences with six key digital competency strategies. Specifically, association rules analysis was conducted on a questionnaire dataset of 931 pre- service teachers’ experiences in their training, with 24 different practices representing the sixstrategies. Results showed four distinct clusters of associated strategies, which illustrates how the approach was able to reveal some complexity among digital competency strategies. The most important strategies were Authentic Experiences, Instructional Design and Role Models, showing multiple relationships and effects across all four clusters. Implications for practice suggest certain combinations of strategies are necessary to support pre-service teachers’ developing digital competencies. Future directions for research are discussed.

    Read article: Seeing the wood for the trees: Insights into the complexity of developing pre-service teachers’ digital competencies for future teaching

  • Improving return on investment in higher education retention: Leveraging data analytics insights

    Simon Huband, Eric Parkin, David C. Gibson, Dirk Ifenthaler

    This article describes data analytics action research initiatives that have gained traction at a university in Western Australia, with a focus on the return on investment of improving retention. In this report we focus on how actionable data can be provided and insights supported to the right stakeholders at various levels of the organization. The article will detail experiences with three levels of initiatives that have been implemented at the university: high level insights being delivered to faculty staff, the provision of integrated reports for lecturing staff, and the curation of ‘at-risk’ student lists for triage by student support staff. In conclusion, higher education institutions may consider five dimensions of learning and teaching operations: finding and selecting students; knowing learners and their expectations; just-in-time services, content, mentoring and support; anytime, anywhere accessibility; and global connectivity.

    Read article: Improving return on investment in higher education retention: Leveraging data analytics insights

  • Higher Education Stakeholders’ Views on Guiding the Implementation of Learning Analytics for Study Success

    Dirk Ifenthaler, Jane Yin-Kim Yau

    Learning analytics show promise to support study success in higher education. Hence, they are increasingly adopted in higher education institutions. This study examines higher education stakeholders’ views on learning analytics utilisation to support study success. Our main research question was to investigate how ready higher education institutions are to adopt learning analytics. We derived policy guidelines from an international systematic review of the last five years of learning analytics research. Due to the lack of rigorous learning analytics research and adoption, this study examines how ready university stakeholders are to adopt learning analytics. In order to validate the guidelines, we conducted an interview study with 37 higher education stakeholders. The majority of participants stated that their institutions required further resources in order to adopt learning analytics but were able to identify what these resources were in order for successful implementation. Overall, stakeholders agree that learning analytics show much promise to support study success at higher education institutions.

    Read article: Higher Education Stakeholders’ Views on Guiding the Implementation of Learning Analytics for Study Success

  • A Proposal for Enhancing Students’ Evaluations through an Adaptive and Progressive Digital Feedback System

    Meena Jha, Sanjay Jha, Michael Cowling, Damien Clark, James Picton

    Students enrolled in a course are asked to complete an anonymous Student Evaluation Survey (SES) towards the end of the term that will provide the university with student feedback. The aim of the SES is to collect and use student feedback to enhance the overall design, delivery and outcomes as part course quality and enhancement processes. However, this traditional SES model is not without limitations. It has been observed that there has been a decline in response rate of SESs across universities risking insufficient sample sizes for meaningful and valid analysis. This coupled with their infrequent deployment, limited duration and inability to capture informal, time-sensitive feedback suggests that exploration into new ways of facilitating surveys is necessary. In this paper we present a work-in-progress collaborative project that proposes to augment traditional SES methods in a way that responds to the afore mentioned limitations, reimagining SESs to include regular informal weekly engagement with students.

    Read article: A Proposal for Enhancing Students’ Evaluations through an Adaptive and Progressive Digital Feedback System

  • Diverse Goals but One Heart with Mixed Reality in Information Systems

    Blooma John, Emily Rutherford

    The use of Mixed Reality (MR) in Information Systems learning and teaching pedagogies is becoming more widely accepted as providing a reflection of possible realities. The aim of using MR in learning design is to extend the student experience by helping them not only to ‘see the unseen’ through the capacity of MR but also to visualise and interact with complex and abstract concepts. This study expands on the current literature by applying design science to use, survey and evaluate Microsoft HoloLens, a MR device, in an Information Systems classroom. The significance of this study is the use of MR in an Information Systems class to understand and learn the technology and provide an authentic learning experience to prepare the students for technological disruption and the future of work. Student survey responses were positive, with high student satisfaction in the classroom, demonstrating critical and creative engagement with the technological limitations and challenges with the user experience. This paper concludes with suggestions of specific pedagogical models that could be used in Information Systems education.

    Read article: Diverse Goals but One Heart with Mixed Reality in Information Systems

  • Analysing student interactions in a flipped engineering course

    Elaine Khoo, Gareth Ranger, Jonathan Scott, Mira Peter

    Flipped classrooms can support more open, flexible and collaborative student-centred learning. There is evidence that flipping learning can result in more effective learning processes and outcomes. However, not much is known about students’ learning process in terms of their interactions while working collaboratively in a flipped class context. This understanding is essential to inform lecturers’ timely and relevant facilitation of student learning. This paper reports on the findings from a study focused on the interactions, specifically types of talk, first- year undergraduate engineering students engaged in while collaboratively solving problem tasks in their practical lab sessions as part of a flipped class learning approach in a New Zealand university. Data were collected from a six-week video observation of student interactions. Herrington and Oliver’s (1999) analytical framework on higher order, lower order, procedural, and social talk was used to analyse the video data. Findings revealed that the highest proportion of student interactions were procedural in nature followed by higher order, lower order, and finally, social talk types. These indicate the potential of the flipped class approach in fostering higher order talk in support of learning. Implications for practice are offered.

    Read article: Analysing student interactions in a flipped engineering course

  • A Learning Analytics Approach to Model and Predict Learners’ Success in Digital Learning

    Ean Teng Khor, Chee Kit Looi

    Learning analytics methods are widely applied in the educational field to gain insights on hidden patterns from educational data. Methods like predictive learning analytics are used to identify and measure patterns in learning data and extrapolate future behaviours. It can be used to enable the learners to be more self-aware of their learning behaviours and to enable the instructor to take appropriate actions informed by the trace of data. Thus such methods can empower learners as they progress through online training, and allows them to be self-regulated in order to solidify their learning and develop positive habits that will enhance their learning experiences. This paper reports on the use of a popular decision tree classification algorithm using behavioural features from a public domain dataset to develop a predictive model for predicting learning performance. Among the five behavioural features, we find that the measure of visited resources provides the most discriminating rules in the classifier.

    Read article: A Learning Analytics Approach to Model and Predict Learners’ Success in Digital Learning

  • Evaluating the implementation of an active learning platform in a team-based learning postgraduate Medical Program

    Irene Lee, Helen Wilcox

    “Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing” (Prince, 2004). Basing his definition on foundational work done by Bonwell and Eison (Bonwell, 2000 and Eison, 2010), this definition of active learning has been widely accepted. In the first decade of the 21st century, notwithstanding educational technological tools were not as ubiquitous as it is now, strategies for active learning have already been developed to help direct teachers to better plan their lesson to incorporate such style of learning. The advancement of technology vis-a?-vis the proliferation of student response applications have revolutionized the way such learning is captured in the classroom. This paper presents a context of a Medical School in the Faculty of Health, Medical Sciences (FHMS) of the University of Western Australia (UWA) undergoing changes to its cased-based learning (CBL) curriculum to a more time-efficient Team-based (TBL) one. At about the same time, there was an institution-wide implementation of an active learning platform in the institution. Juxtaposing the two elements led to this preliminary study of capturing student’s active learning in a Team-based context using the Analytic Dashboard from the active learning platform. Student engagement scores captured in the dashboard were very positive and the use of Eric Mazur Concept Testing Model helped achieve the active learning goals of the TBL sessions. Moving forward, future iterations of team-based learning sessions with the active learning platform could be deployed in other schools within FHMS that have case-based studies (CBL) in their curriculum and compared them to the TBL practice in Medical School.

    Read article: Evaluating the implementation of an active learning platform in a team-based learning postgraduate Medical Program

  • Using social annotations to support collaborative learning in a Life Sciences module

    Seow Chong Lee, Zheng-Wei Lee, Foong May Yeong

    We used an online social annotation platform for Life Sciences undergraduates to develop self- efficacy in their own learning and to leverage on collaborative learning while annotating in groups. In particular, we were interested in supporting students in a large-class setting as they learn to read research articles as a means of integrating concepts with critical thinking. Students were tasked to post annotations based on their reading of two research articles. A graded quiz based on each article was administered after each reading. We used content analysis to analyse students’ annotations based on the ICAP framework as a proxy measure of cognitive engagement. Students actively participated in the assignment, with most annotations classified as constructive and interactive. However, the percentage of interactive annotations was low, suggesting that students do not perceive the need for interaction to understand the research article. The interactive annotations were further examined for quality of writing using the SOLO taxonomy. The quality of interactive annotations were high, with majority of the annotations at the “Relational” level. We propose that the use of social annotations provided a student-centered environment for individual learning, but scaffolds could be incorporated to foster interactions and collaborative learning among students.

    Read article: Using social annotations to support collaborative learning in a Life Sciences module

  • Basic competence in online teaching: Preliminary lessons learned from a university's approach to assure faculty readiness in teaching online

    Li Siong Lim, May Lim, Karin Avnit, Ong Chee Ming

    While there have been studies into the roles and competencies of faculty in online learning environments, scholarly literature in the context of faculty accreditation is limited. This paper reports on the implementation of Technology Enhanced Learning framework in a university that aims at empowering the faculty members to use the best appropriate technology that enhance students’ learning outcomes. We present the process of overcoming multi-faceted challenges of designing and implementation of a work-in-progress initiative intended to ensure its faculty will be ready to teach online (and remotely) on their own. The initiative was designed to identify the most essential competencies of teaching online at a university, help faculty understand these competencies, evaluate their current skill level in relation to these competencies, and close any gaps in skills. Change management strategies of challenging current teaching and learning regime, sharing common vision, motivating for actions are used. Preliminary observations from the pilot indicate that this approach allowed faculty to measure their current skills and take steps to address skill deficiency, though various challenges in ensuring the entire faculty population is prepared for online teaching still exist.

    Read article: Basic competence in online teaching: Preliminary lessons learned from a university's approach to assure faculty readiness in teaching online

  • Back to Basics: combining analytics and early assessment with personalised contact to improve student progress

    Kelly Linden, Lucy Webster

    Student progression, attrition and completion are key metrics for all Universities. Subject level progress rates can be a useful lead indicator of these metrics; thus allowing quality improvement activities to be piloted and evaluated in shorter timeframes. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the effect of a series of pre-census interventions on subject progress rates. In 2018, twenty five subjects from the Faculty of Science at Charles Sturt University were selected to participate in the pilot based on a history of poor subject progress rates. Approximately 700 disengaged students were identified via learning analytics and emailed in week 2. In weeks 3 and 4 a range of “triggers” were used to identify 425 students who remained disengaged and contact was made via phone and/or email. Overall average subject progress rates increased from 66% in 2017 to 80% in 2018 (p<0.05) with a significant reduction in the average number of fail and fail withdrawn grades (from 42 to 26 per subject, p<0.05). Overall, we demonstrated that significant improvements in subject progress rates can be achieved when academics and Divisional support staff work collaboratively to identify, contact and support disengaged students prior to the HECS census date.

    Read article: Back to Basics: combining analytics and early assessment with personalised contact to improve student progress

  • Augmenting learning of immunology through an online learning package and a digital game – what’s next?

    Pey Yng Low, Chun Ming Teoh, Gaik Bee Lim

    Immunology, the study of the immune system, is a subject taken by tertiary life sciences students. It is perceived as difficult due to its technical terminologies and abstract concepts that are interlinked. To address these learning challenges, learning technologies were embedded into the curriculum of an immunology module. This paper describes the design, development and deployment of a digital game as well as an online learning package to enhance the learning of immunology. Key considerations in the incorporation of technology-enhanced learning into the curriculum are described. Student learning was enhanced, mainly through the animations and quizzes for the learning package, and the interaction and visuals for the game. However, not all students found the game engaging. Reflections on the effect of the learning technologies on student learning, sustainability and possible future directions will be discussed.

    Read article: Augmenting learning of immunology through an online learning package and a digital game – what’s next?

  • Educational Technologists, Universal Design and Transforming Higher Education

    Larry McNutt

    The field of educational technology continues to develop and grow in an era of unprecedented demand for the fruits of the higher education orchard. However, the persistent inequalities in relation to access and transfer opportunities remain. In parallel the field of universal design has evolved as a framework that allows us to reframe the ambition of enabling full participation for all citizens by adopting a whole systems approach. Educational technologists have articulated their desire to have an impact on all aspects of the higher education system – however current HE structures often relegate their work to marginalised or subsidiary roles with the HE hierarchy. Previous research capturing the values and beliefs of educational technologists resonates strongly with the emerging universal design for learning agenda. This paper will propose that personal and collective ambitions of educational technologists can be further realised by adopting the principles of universal design.

    Read article: Educational Technologists, Universal Design and Transforming Higher Education

Showing 53–65 of 86 articles