Facilitating Student Learning Through Multisensory Tools That Engage and Foster Collaboration

<p>Recent advancements in instructional technology and interactive learning space designs have transformed how undergraduate classrooms are envisioned and conducted today. Large number of research studies have documented the impact of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces on elevated student learning gains, positive attitudes, and increased student engagement in undergraduate classrooms across nation. These research findings combined with the movement towards student-centered instructional strategies have motivated college professors to explore the unfamiliar territories of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces. Only a limited number of research studies that explored college professors’ perspective on instructional technology and interactive learning space use in undergraduate classrooms exist in the education research literature. Since college professors are an essential factor in undergraduate students’ academic success, investigating how college professors perceive and utilize instructional technology and interactive learning environments can provide insights into designing effective professional development programs for college professors across undergraduate institutions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate college professors’ pedagogical reasoning behind incorporating different types of instructional technologies and teaching strategies to foster student learning in technology-infused interactive learning environments. Furthermore, this study explored the extent to which college professors’ instructional decisions and practices are affected by teaching in an interactive learning space along with their overall perception of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces.</p> <p>Four college professors from a large public Midwestern university who taught undergraduate science courses in a classroom based on the ‘SCALE-UP model’ participated in this study. Major data sources included classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. An enumerative approach and the constant comparative method were utilized to analyze the data. According to the results obtained, all the participating college professors of this study employed a variety of instructional technologies and learning space features to actively engage their students in classroom activities. Participants were largely influenced by the instructional technology and the learning space features at lesson planning and execution stages whereas this influence was less notable at the student assessment stage. Overall, college professors perceive technology-infused interactive learning environments to be advantageous in terms of enabling flexibility and creativity along with easy facilitation of classroom activities. However, they felt challenged when designing effective classroom activities and preferred continuous professional development support. Overall, college professors’ pedagogical decision making process, their perceived benefits and challenges seemed to be interrelated and centered on the learners and the learning process.</p> <p>Primary implication of this study is to implement effective professional development programs for college professors which enable them to familiarize themselves with student-centered pedagogy and effective classroom activity design along with the novel trends in learning space design and instructional technologies. Furthermore, higher education institutions need to devise incentives and recognition measures to appreciate college professors’ contributions to advance scholarship of teaching and learning.</p>

In Vietnam, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) is widely implemented in higher education institutions as a strategic approach to internationalise institutions and improve graduates’ employability in the globalised labour market. However, implementation of EMI has been beset with challenges: the incompatibility between macro-policies and institutional capacities, teachers’ and students’ insufficient English language competence, and pedagogical conflict with traditional education. There is currently little information about successful EMI pedagogies to support learning and student engagement in Vietnamese higher education, and this chapter therefore reports an exploratory study on classroom EMI practices carried out at one multidisciplinary university. Data derives from eight classroom observations, survey questionnaires with 275 students and one-to-one interviews with eight teachers and eight representative students. Data presentation highlights strategies facilitative to student learning and engagement, such as grouping techniques; providing detailed self-study guidance; judiciously using students’ first language; employing diagrams, short video clips, and drawings; integrating practical exercises within theoretical lessons; frequently reviewing previous lessons and recapping at the end of lessons. The chapter offers a detailed explanation of the teachers’ practices for moving forward educationally with EMI and a full account of students’ reflections on the usefulness of the practices to their learning.

Online learning has become an essential part of acquiring academic and professional qualifications in higher education. Online learning recently gained attention as an effective instructional approach to enhance learning engagement, causing many universities to implement it. To promote learning engagement in online learning environments in higher education, this study collected data from 354 full-time undergraduate students in a large public Chinese university and examined the effects of teacher–student interaction, student–student interaction, and social presence on learning engagement. The research findings indicated that teacher–student and student–student interaction directly affected social presence and learning engagement in online environments. And social presence also directly affected learning engagement. Meanwhile, social presence also mediated the relationship between teacher–student interaction and learning engagement and student–student interaction and learning engagement. This study confirmed the significant effects of teacher–student interaction, student–student and social presence on students’ learning engagement in online environments. The findings of this study have significant practical implications for teaching practices.

This chapter addresses common concerns related to teaching online courses with laboratory components. The concerns align with three types of interactions central to student learning and engagement: student interactions with their instructor, student interactions with course content, and student interactions with their peers. Drawing on observations from instructors, strategies from an instructional designer, and student data from an online, asynchronous chemistry lab course for nonmajors, this chapter provides recommendations that promote student engagement and learning in online chemistry courses. These findings and recommendations may translate to other online and hybrid science courses. Specific suggestions for transitions back to in-person classes also are highlighted.

Online, distance, and eLearning (ODeL) continue to gain recognition as a mandatory component of delivery of education in institutions of higher learning (IHL) around the world following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This paradigm shift is informed by the need to ensure uninterrupted, valuable, and safe learning experiences for learners during the pandemic. However, governments ordered the closure of schools and colleges following the declaration of COVID-19 as a world pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). A report by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization revealed that there was a significant loss of schooling time following the closure of educational facilities which affected over 1.5 billion learners in 194 nations globally. This study explored the use of online approaches to intensify online learning efficacy in IHL. Data collection was conducted using qualitative methods and data analysis done using themes and sub-themes. Findings from this study indicate that students’ engagements on discussion forums are consistent with collaborative learning. Results further support the view that regular, prompt, and meaningful feedback is critical in promoting constructive learning and reflection among students. Based on the findings of this study, practical implications are discussed for stakeholders interested in establishing and strengthening effective delivery of online learning content to enhance students’ learning experiences.

Understanding the effects of professors' pedagogical development with Clicker Assessment and Feedback technologies and the impact on students' engagement and learning in higher education

Most instructors at one point or another in their careersduring office hours, in the laboratory setting, or as a tutorhave had the luxury of sitting down one-on-one with a student to help him or her learn.For many, the reward of watching the proverbial lightbulb go on over a student's head was a first, addictive step into a career that involved teaching.Now imagine-or for many of us, remember-standing in front of 30, 60, 100, 150, 200, 300, 700, or even 1000 students in a traditional college or university lecture setting.Did you sometimes wish you could just sit down and talk with students from your large lecture individually, and then they would finally get it?What is similar and different about your instructional choices in a large lecture versus a one-onone situation?To what extent can we translate what is known about effective tutoring to a large lecture setting?One-on-one human tutoring has been extensively studied.Insights into what makes it effective is of great interest in a variety of fields, including computer-based tutoring program development, general education research, and training of future teachers.It is well accepted that one-on-one tutoring promotes both greater student learning and increased student motivation to learn compared with traditional, formal classroom teaching and learning settings (Slavin, 1987).However, examination of the research literature on effective tutoring would suggest that this mode of instruction and our approaches to fostering student understanding in large biology lecture classrooms need not be as dramatically different as one might assume.In fact, the differences in what instructors choose to say and do, as well as what they choose not

Many previous studies have shown that students' learning strategies and engagement are both important factors affecting students' learning outcome. We want to know whether the engagement of students who use different learning strategies is different, so that we can proxy measure students' engagement according to the learning strategies used by students. Different from the past methods of using questionnaires or interviews, this research used education data mining technology to directly analyze the learning logs of online learning system to extract students' learning strategies. We collected the learning logs of 56 students, and extracted the learning strategies of the students using sequence clustering. We classified four learning strategies and performed Pearson correlation analysis with students' learning outcome and engagement, and discussed the key strategies that affect students' learning outcome. We also found that students who use different learning strategies have different levels of engagement.

The current study is an approximate replication of Gray and DiLoreto’s (2016) study, which proposed a model predicting that course structure, learner interaction and instructor presence would influence students’ perceived learning and satisfaction in online learning, with student engagement acting as a mediator between two of the predictors and the outcome variables. Using mixed methods, the current study investigated whether Gray and DiLoreto’s model would be able to explain the relationships among the same variables in a computer-assisted language learning environment. A mediation analysis was conducted using survey responses from a sample of 215 college-level students, and qualitative analysis was conducted on the survey responses from a subsample of 50 students. Similar to Gray and DiLoreto’s study, positive correlational relationships emerged between the variables. However, the model proposed by Gray and DiLoreto did not fit our data well, leading us to suggest alternative path-analytic models with both student engagement and learner interaction as mediators. These models showed that the role of course organization and instructor presence were pivotal in explaining the variation in students’ perceived learning and satisfaction both directly and indirectly via student engagement and learner interaction. Moreover, qualitative analysis of students’ responses to open-ended questions suggested that from students’ perspectives, course structure was the most salient factor affecting their experiences within online language learning contexts, followed by learner interaction, and then by instructor presence.

This research explores the critical role of student interaction in enhancing engagement and satisfaction in the context of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) at the Open University in Indonesia. Amidst the increasing adoption of digital education platforms, this study examines how dynamic and effective student interactions and engagement influence educational satisfaction outcomes in online environments. Using a quantitative approach, this study employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyse responses from 120 students who participated in online tutorial sessions. The findings reveal that student interaction significantly increases student satisfaction and engagement, with engagement serving as a mediating factor that improves the overall educational experience. This study confirms that high-quality interactions are essential for student engagement and satisfaction and emphasises the need for educational platforms that support strong interactive features and prompt instructor feedback. This research contributes to the literature by emphasising the important role of interaction and engagement in ODL settings and suggests practical implications for educational practitioners and policy makers. Enhancing interactive experiences in online learning can facilitate higher levels of student engagement and satisfaction, thereby supporting the formation of a competitive and adaptive golden generation in Indonesia's digital era.

PurposeThe flipped classroom model is an emerging teaching pedagogy in universities, colleges and secondary schools. This model will likely be successful if students prepare and acquire basic knowledge before class hours. Pre-class video lectures are common for students to access knowledge before class hours. However, students often do not watch the pre-class videos or do so only immediately before class hours due to poor engagement and supporting strategies, which can have detrimental effects on their learning achievement. To address this issue, embedding quiz questions into pre-class recorded videos may increase the completion of pre-class activities, students' engagement and learning success. This study examines the effect of a quiz-based flipped classroom (QFC) model to improve students' learning achievement and engagement in a computer science course.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved 173 participants divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group consisted of 78 students who used the QFC model, while the control group consisted of 73 students who used the conventional flipped classroom (CFC) model.FindingsThe 10-week experiment showed that the QFC model effectively improved students' learning achievement and engagement (both behavioral and agentic) compared to the CFC model.Practical implicationsEmbedding quiz strategy into the pre-class video demonstrated the potential support to enhance the efficacy of the CFC model. Based on the results of this research, the authors recommended that flipped educators can use the quiz strategy to minimize pre-class issues (especially students' disengagement).Originality/valueThis research adds to the existing literature by evaluating the effect of the newly proposed model on students' learning outcomes and engagement. This study's results can guide colleges and universities intending to implement a blended learning or flipped learning model. The research also gives design, content and course implementation guidelines, which can help engage students to achieve their learning objectives.

Along with the growing popularity of the adaptive learning platform software in STEM education programs, further enhancing the ability of the adaptive learning platform to support learning effectiveness has become a priority. A common goal of all the adaptive learning platform software is to identify gaps in a student's knowledge, and provide relevant learning materials based on the result of the assessment of the student's exiting knowledge towards to the targeted subject, to increase the learning effectiveness. However, the student's existing knowledge is only one learning attribute, and it cannot reflect all the aspects that have an impact to the student's learning effectiveness. A natural solution to overcome this weakness is to make the adaptive learning decision making algorithm capable to process the dataset of multiple learning attributes of the student efficiently. This paper presents a machine learning algorithm to efficiently process the dataset of a student's multiple learning attributes. The main enabling foundation for this new algorithm is a data structure called “student learning attributes index” which represents every learning attribute as a tuple of three elements: the “learning-attribute-If)”, the “weight” of the learning attribute among all the learning attributes, and the “efficiency” of the contribution to the student's learning effectiveness made by the learning attribute. This study has applied unequal weight to each of the learning attributes, more accurately reflecting that different learning attributes will have different impacts on a student's learning effectiveness. This new algorithm enables various learning support applications to become more practical and accurate in supporting student learning.

Many novel learning approaches in recent years have involved innovative technologies; however, other creative approaches can also be used to facilitate the learning of new or difficult concepts. In this article we explain how novelty and fun can be introduced into the learning experience without the need for advanced technologies. The novel activity described in this manuscript is grounded in the theory of instructional design and represents a form of experiential learning where knowledge acquisition results from peer interaction and feedback in an entertaining and low risk environment. Most importantly, student learning outcomes were enhanced by the introduction of this creative strategy.

the accommodation of diverse student learning approaches and maintenance of good academic outcomes are often difficult to achieve in university courses, particularly where large classes are concerned. These issues become even more significant when dealing with first-year students in science courses


 
 
 International student mobility has been increasingly subject to turbulences in politics, culture, economics, natural disasters, and public health. The new decade has witnessed an unprecedented disruption to international student flows and welfare as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 has laid bare how fragile the current transactional higher education model is, in Australia and in other major destination countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. This health crisis hitting international education presents a range of challenges for host universities. In such a fallout, the connection between university communities and international students is more critical than ever. This connection is vital not only to university’s operations and recovery but more importantly, to international students’ learning and wellbeing. This in turn will have longer term impacts on host countries’ and universities’ sustainable international recruitment and reputation as a study destination. Therefore, it is timely to reflect on how we view and conceptualize the way we engage and work with international students. This article presents a new frame for conceptualizing the teaching, learning, and engagement for international students, which emphasizes people-to-people empathy and people-to-people connections.
 
 
 
 Conceptualize Student Connection Through Formal and Informal Curriculum
 Dis/connection has been argued to play “an important role in shaping international students’ wellbeing, performance and life trajectories” (Tran & Gomes, 2017, p. 1). Therefore, it is important to frame international student connectedness not only within the context of formal teaching and learning on campus, but also in a broader setting, taking into account the dynamic, diverse, and fluid features of transnational mobility.
 Some of the primary dimensions of international student connection vital to their academic and social experience and wellbeing have been identified as:
 • Connection with the content and process of teaching and learning• Bonding between host teachers and international students• Engagement with the university communities• Interaction between domestic and international students and among international peers• Integration into relevant social and professional networks, the host community, and the host society• Connection with family and home communities• Online and digital connection
 Based on interviews with around 400 international students, teachers, and international student support staff across different research projects, I identified four main principles underpinning effective engagement and support for international students. Most participants stressed the importance of understanding international students’ study purposes, needs, expectations, and characteristics in the first place in order to meaningfully and productively engage with and cater for this cohort (Tran, 2013). Second, effective teaching of and engagement with international students is based on understanding not only their academic needs but also other aspects that are interlinked with their academic performance, including pastoral care needs, mental health, employment, accommodation, finance, life plans, and aspirations. Third, a sense of belonging to the content of teaching and learning and the pedagogy used by teachers is essential to international students’ engagement with the classroom community. In this regard, connection is intimately linked to international students being included and valued intellectually and culturally in teaching and learning, and in being treated as partners (Green, 2019; Tran, 2013) rather than ‘others’ in the curriculum. Fourth, to position international students as truly an integral component of campus communities, it is essential to develop explicit approaches to engage them not only academically and interculturally, but also mentally and emotionally, especially during hard-hitting crises in international education such as the 2019–2020 COVID-19 outbreak, the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the 2001 September 11 attacks.
 Productive Connectedness
 The lack of engagement between international and domestic students is often identified as a primary area for improvement for universities that host international students, especially in Anglophone countries (Leask, 2009). While international education is supposed to strengthen people-to-people connections and enrich human interactions, ironically it is this lack of connection with the local community, including local students, that international students feel most dissatisfied about in their international education experience. To support and optimize the learning and wellbeing of international students, productive connectedness is essential. Productive connectedness is not simply providing the mere conditions for interaction between domestic and international peers (Tran & Pham, 2016). These conditions alone cannot ensure meaningful and real connectedness but can just lead to artificial or surface engagement between international students and the host communities. Productive connectedness is centered around creating real opportunities for international and local students to not only increase their mutual understandings, but importantly also to reciprocally learn from the encounter of differences and share, negotiate, and contribute to building knowledge, cultural experiences, and skills on a more equal basis. In this regard, productive connectedness is integral to optimizing teaching and learning for international students.
 Teaching and Learning for International Students
 Over the past 15 years, I and my colleagues have undertaken various research on conceptualizing the teaching and learning process for international students, an evolving and dynamic field of scholarship (Tran, 2011; Tran, 2013a, 2013b; Tran & Nguyen, 2015; Tran & Gomes, 2017; Tran & Pham, 2016). Figure 1 summarizes the six interrelated dimensions of teaching and learning for international students emerging from our research: connecting, accommodating, reciprocating, integrating, “relationalizing,” and empathy.
 
 Connecting
 It is critical in effective teaching and learning for international students that conditions are provided to engage them intellectually, culturally, socially, and affectively. Curriculum, pedagogies, and assessment activities should aim at supporting international students to make transnational knowledge, skills, experience, and culture, as well as people-to-people connections (Tran, 2013).
 Accommodating
 Effective teaching and learning for international students cannot be achieved without an effort to understand their purposes to undertake international education, their cultural and educational backgrounds, their characteristics, their identities, and their aspirations. Good teaching and learning practices in international education are often built on educators’ capacities to tailor their curriculum and pedagogies to cater to international students based on an understanding of their study purposes, backgrounds, and identities.
 Reciprocating
 Reciprocal learning and teaching is integral to international education (Tran, 2011). It is centered around positioning international students as co-constructors of knowledge and educators as reciprocal co-learners (Tran, 2013b). It refers to extending beyond mutual understanding and respect for diversity, to validate and reciprocally learn from diverse resources, experiences, and encounters of differences that international classrooms can offer. This is vital to making international students feel included and valued as an integral part of the curriculum and the university community.
 Integrating
 Integrating refers to the purposeful incorporation of international examples, case studies, materials, and perspectives into the curriculum. Strategies to diversify the teaching and learning content and pedagogies are closely connected with de- Westernizing the curriculum and moving away from Euro-centric content (Tran, 2013a). Integrating contributes to enriching students’ global awareness, world mindfulness, and intercultural competence, which are central to internationalizing student experience and outcomes.
 “Relationalizing”
 “Relationalizing” is crucial in assisting domestic and international students to develop open-minded and ethno-relative perspectives. Engaging students in a comparing–contrasting and reflexive process about professional practices, prior experiences, and cultural norms in different countries represents a critical step in assisting them to develop multiple frames of reference and build capacities to relationally learn from richly varied perspectives and experiences that an international classroom can offer.
 Empathy
 International students’ sense of belonging to the classroom and university community significantly depends on the empathy local teachers and students display toward them. Teachers can develop activities that enable students to develop an understanding and empathy toward what it feels like to be an international student in an unfamiliar academic and social environment, studying in a language that is not their mother tongue. One of the teacher-participants in our research shared an activity she used to help all students develop empathy:I asked for volunteers, I’d speak to them in English and they had to answer in their language. The group had to try and figure out from their body language and tone of voice what they were actually saying to me...But what I try and make them understand that part of the reason we’re doing that, not in English, is because it’s like excluding the local students and it’s making them look like foreigners and to understand the challenge.
 Conclusion
 Effective practices in engaging, teachin