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2020: ASCILITE 2020 Conference Proceedings: ASCILITE's First Virtual Conference

The 2020 ASCILITE annual conference was hosted by the University of New England, 30th November to 1st December.

Editors: S. Gregory, S. Warburton, and M. Parkes

Published: 30 November 2020

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • How do we value academic time?

    Mark A Schier

    The extent of technology usage for managing teaching workloads is not completely known, but often extrapolated or inferred by academics’ use of other technologies. This paper explores technology adoption, and attitudes toward use of technology by Australian university academics. We expected that academics would be familiar with general teaching technology tools and have some appreciation of other tools that may assist with their work and allow them to manage their time. We also expected that they would use these to identify and manage assignment work to free up time for other academic activities. To establish their usage of technology, responses to a series of questions about types and familiarity with technology tools, were collected via an online anonymous survey. It also asked for their understanding of a hypothetical assessment scenario and subsequent use of any time gained through using technology. The results from 75 Australian academics indicated that academics were familiar with and used standard teaching technology. Academics expressed a commitment to utilise any time saved for research, scholarship or teaching and learning related activities.

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  • Rapid response to supporting learning and teaching: A whole of university approach

    Chris Campbell, Simone Poulsen

    One university responded rapidly to the changing landscape of higher education to support staff during this time. There are seven support mechanisms that have been put into place across the university to assist staff. Results show data that reports on these mechanisms and that they are seemingly successful, except for the Support Line which has since been reconfigured to still provide support for the small number accessing it. The results also show that a rapid response, if targeted, is able to provide just in time support and training to staff when moving rapidly online. Through the use of the online engagement framework it can be seen that by supporting staff through the seven mechanisms, staff are in a better place to ensure that students are engaged while learning online.

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  • Writing analytics across essay tasks with different cognitive load demands

    Eduardo Araujo Oliveira, Rianne Conijn, Paula De Barba, Kelly Trezise, Menno van Zaanen, Gregor Kennedy

    Essay tasks are a widely used form of assessment in higher education. Writing analytics can assist with challenges related to using essay tasks at scale and to identifying different issues in academic integrity. In this paper, we combined two techniques to investigate how students’ writing analytics varied across essay tasks with different cognitive load, considering both their typing behavior (i.e., writing process) and writing style (i.e., writing product). We also examined their relationship across these essay tasks. Findings showed that writing processes change across tasks with different cognitive load: when cognitive load increases, the interword intervals (indicator of planning and/or reviewing processes) increased, the burst length (indicator of translation processes) decreased, and the number of revisions per minute (indicator of reviewing processes) decreased. In contrast to the relation between the writing process and cognitive load, the relation between the writing product and cognitive load was found less clear. The results showed small and mixed effects of the tasks differing in cognitive load on the different writing product metrics. Hence, although the writing product follows from the writing process, the relation between cognitive load and the writing product and process appears to be less straightforward.

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  • Promoting student engagement and preparation in flipped learning’s pre-class activities: A systematic review

    Jessica Shan Mei Yang

    Flipped learning is an instructional model with core features of pre-class learning followed by in- class practice of knowledge through active and collaborative learning. However, non-compliance with pre-class activities is a commonly cited challenge in flipped learning, where a lack of student engagement leads to insufficient pre-class preparation, diminishing flipped learning’s intended benefits significantly as the students will then not participate well in the in-class activities. It lends consideration to the potential obstacles and solutions in increasing students’ engagement in pre-class learning, paving the way to pre-class learning compliance to achieve the full potential of flipped learning in improving students’ learning outcomes. This study uses systematic literature review with qualitative content analysis to identify three main areas, namely technological, pedagogical, and student perceptions, to instil optimal conditions to promote pre- class engagement and preparation.

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  • Bend me, stretch me: Connecting learning design to choice

    Carmen Vallis, Courtney Shalavin

    Active and interactive learning approaches in course design are widely supported as increasing student engagement and learning outcomes in blended or technology-enhanced environments. As such, designing for student engagement in self-paced distance and online learning environments is a growing area of research. However, learning is increasingly developed and delivered via the institutional LMS where the design and sequencing of content is linear and has an inherent directional flow. Learner choice in navigation and activity in online learning environments may also impact learner engagement but there is less research on these factors. In this research project, we evaluate the redesign and prototype of one week of a first-year business subject that offers learner choice in navigating the online environment and choice of activity. Insights into the innovative educational design and implementation of non-linear and interactive learning are presented within an Australian higher education business context, where flexibility and choice emerge as key design affordances.

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  • Rising to the occasion: Exploring the changing emphasis on educational design during COVID-19

    Amanda Bellaby, Michael Sankey, Louis Albert

    With the advent of COVID-19, the majority of universities in Australasia have had to adjust quickly to provide the bulk of their learning and teaching activities online. To a great extent this involved learning/educational designers (and titles similar to this) needing to provide a range of tasks (some new) associated with supporting many teaching staff unfamiliar with teaching online. In some cases, this has meant a change in role, while for others it was transitioning to new and higher levels of responsibility. Regardless, the emotional impact of this should not be understated, or at least should understood. This paper explores these concepts based on the feedback from 90 educational designers, mainly from the Australasian higher education sector. It presents details of the results of a semi-structured qualitative study of those working in the field of educational design at universities. These designers were asked to consider how COVID-19 has impacted the ways in which they undertook their work, the types of issues they are dealing with, and the solutions they were proposing and contributing. Their accounts document the changing nature of their roles and their emotions in the face of potentially unalterable changes.

    Read article: Rising to the occasion: Exploring the changing emphasis on educational design during COVID-19

  • Excellence in design for online business education

    Annora Eyt-Dessus, Leonard Houx

    The Business School is one of the UK’s top ranked business schools, renowned for its expertise in Finance in particular, and its location in the heart of London. The School has been steadily expanding for more than a decade but was reaching the limits of its physical campus space. However, there remained the desire to develop innovative learning, expand and reach new audiences. Developing a new distance program, that built on the School’s existing reputation for Finance, showcased its world-class faculty and had a global reach was identified as the ideal opportunity to explore a new strategic direction. We built a fully online program with a high rate of engagement, satisfaction and achievement. Its enrolment continues to grow, increasing our international diversity. Online learning is now embedded as a core part of the School’s strategy and is seen as key to future expansion. Beyond this, our organisation cultivated far more expertise and best practice to draw on in a time of crisis than if we had outsourced. This shows the high impact an excellent learning design can make to the culture and capacity of an organisation.

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  • Next generation technology for learning practical skills online

    Elise Crawford, Frank Bogna, Aldo Raineri, Ryan L. Kift

    This paper presents a rationale and research approach for a pilot study that examines next generation solutions for enhancing online learning of practical skills required of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) university students. The study explores instructional technology that has been designed through a constructivist lens. Open source interactive capability and immersive experiences are created using static and 360-degree panoramic photography to encourage greater engagement with the learning resources and to enhance practical skill development at distance. This design research pilot is founded on pedagogy before technology principles and follows the pedagogical model of the cognitive apprenticeship. Survey data, and learning analytics from the University Learning Management System will be interrogated to appraise the education outcomes using the Kirkpatrick Training Evaluation Framework. Expected benefits include improved engagement with learning resources, improved overall OHS skill development, and greater accessibility to workplaces without personal concerns for health and safety.

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  • Role of social interactions during digital game-based learning in Science Education: A systematic review

    Pey-Yng Low

    Digital games have been used for teaching science subjects; however, merely playing games does not guarantee that learning will take place. Educators need to scaffold the gameplay experience and integrate other instructional methods into the process to enhance and ensure learning. Social constructivism is one such approach. Although there are a number of studies on game-based learning, they focus more on the effectiveness of learning or the classification of learning outcomes rather than the mode of social interactions in game-based learning. A systematic review was carried out to identify the different modes of social interactions and their impact on digital game-based learning in science education. Five modes of social interactions were identified; face-to-face conversation between students, group discussion, online/virtual collaboration, teacher-facilitated classroom discussion and answering of questions by teachers. Social interactions enhanced learning through collaborative sense making, promoting learner motivation, enabling scientific reasoning and providing instructional support. These form a basis for educators to design productive social interactions for digital game-based learning in science education.

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  • Investigating the characteristics of MOOCs according to eight critical dimensions: A case study

    Jennifer W.M. Lai, Matt Bower, Yvonne Breyer, John De Nobile

    Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a popular trend in the online learning landscape. However, MOOC learners have expressed their dissatisfaction with the courses or problems with course management. To develop a widely accepted MOOC, the main aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of MOOCs by using eight themes: learning outcomes, affective elements, behaviours, design, technology elements, pedagogy, presence and institutional environment. Using the case study approach, we explored the practices of four MOOCs in an Excel specialisation by using student unsolicited feedback, the literature and the analysis of the MOOCs by researchers. We analysed the learners’ posts on the official forums with auto-code sentiment and text search functions in Nvivo 12 Plus. The results of this study showed that high-rated MOOCs had approximately 74.7% of positive sentiments on discussion forums, with 1.2% negative and 24.1% neutral. The results indicated that MOOCs helped learners improve their level of knowledge in the subject area. Teachers/instructors also play a very significant role, and they have to provide clear explanations in different concepts. To conclude, this study intends to offer guidelines to researchers, educators, and MOOC designers to create successful MOOCs by focusing on the eight dimensions.

    Read article: Investigating the characteristics of MOOCs according to eight critical dimensions: A case study

  • Revisiting the intelligent book: Towards seamless intelligent content and continuously deployed courses

    William Billingsley

    In the early 2000s, colleagues and I developed The Intelligent Book – a suite of technologies for adaptive materials, that let students work with smart graphical exercises as if the AI was their partner rather than their marker. We envisaged a future where online content would be brimming with interactive models, lettings students explore and tinker with problems alongside AI that would guide students in their thinking. The browsers of the day were technically limited, but since then, the technological landscape of the web has transformed. Meanwhile, online education (especially during the Covid-19 pandemic) has grown the need for interactive materials that “understand what they teach” and can make explanations explorable and “proddable”. In online education, physical group activities (e.g., programming robots) are not available to us, and we see a growing need for digital experiences and models to replace the responsiveness that comes from tangible interaction with a device or experiment. Over the last two years, I have begun revisiting the ideas of the Intelligent Book for the modern technology landscape. This paper gives an early overview of the project, working once again towards infrastructure for self-publishable courses that can be full to overflowing with proddable and explorable models.

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  • Dealing with Diversity: Factors discouraging participation of M?ori and Pacifica females in ICT education

    Scott Morton, Petrea Redmond, Peter Albion

    The availability of ICT job opportunities within New Zealand is continuing to grow year on year. However, there has been a decrease in the proportion of females, especially Ma?ori and Pacifica, entering into ICT study and pursuing ICT careers. This paper explores factors that discourage participation of Ma?ori and Pacifica high school females in ICT. Semi-structured questions were created based on a STEM cell framework to interview Ma?ori and Pacifica females between the age of 15 and 17 years studying at high school. It was found that by year 11 Ma?ori and Pacifica females lost interest in ICT. This came down to many factors such as perception of the industry not being diverse in people and culture, the subject being dull or boring and the subject not catering for creativity. It was clear from the results that Ma?ori and Pacifica females were discouraged more than encouraged by perceptions and attitudes towards ICT. Ma?ori and Pacifica females had already made their minds up by year 11 that ICT was not the right career choice to follow. Schools need to recognise the students’ journey in ICT in this changing world and start promoting ICT as being creative and imaginative.

    Read article: Dealing with Diversity: Factors discouraging participation of M?ori and Pacifica females in ICT education

  • Active learning in the time of the pandemic: Report from the eye of the storm

    Iwona Czaplinski, Christine Devine, Martin Sillence, Andrew Fielding, Oliver Gaede, Christoph Schrank

    This study investigated second- and third-year science students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their learning practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focused on the concept of active learning, with special attention paid to self-regulation and self-direction. The data collected through mixed research methods provided evidence of students’ flexible adjustment to the exceptional circumstances. However, the data also revealed a relatively limited range of learning strategies reported by respondents. Thus, this paper identifies an important need for further investigation of students’ practices to enhance their awareness of learning strategies, as a way of becoming active learners. Finally, the study also made salient the need for teacher training in effective teaching strategies, as a complementary strategy to promote students’ active learning. The conclusions from the study reach beyond the current circumstances, as they suggest implications for learning design in terms of educators’ training and designing for active learning.

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Showing 1–13 of 48 articles