Alternative Modes Of Learning Research Articles

An exploration of students’ use of digital resources for self-study in anatomy: a survey study

BackgroundThe development of technology has provided new ways for active engagement and for visualizing structures in anatomy education including digital resources that may be used outside of the classroom. To support students’ learning, there is a need to better understand students’ experiences of using digital resources. This study aimed to identify which resources students use, their preferences, the purpose of using them, and barriers to adopting tools for self-study of anatomy.MethodsA mixed -methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative data was used to collect and analyse data. Two consecutive cohorts of first-semester medical students (n = 278) were invited to complete an anonymized survey. The survey consisted of itemized questions, free-text space for comments, and one open-ended question. Descriptive statistics were used for demographics and itemized answers. Comments and free-text answers were analysed qualitatively using abductive inference.ResultsOne hundred and twenty-seven students completed the survey (response rate 45%). Most students (46%) reported that they spend more than 30 h/per week on self-study. They used a variety of digital resources for different purposes. Most students used digital resources to prepare for examinations, when they encountered difficulties and after going through a section. Students reported that they would use digital resources to a greater extent if they were offered an introduction, if resources were more accessible, and if they could interact with a tutor. The free-text responses revealed that digital resources helped students understand anatomy, allowed them to make active choices, provided tools for repetition and memorization, accelerated and simplified the learning process, and complemented other learning resources.ConclusionsDigital resources may support the understanding of anatomy by offering alternative modes of learning and providing a valuable complement to other learning resources. Educators should consider how digital resources are introduced and offer support and feedback.

School learning modes during the COVID-19 response and pre- to during pandemic mental health changes in a prospective cohort of Canadian adolescents

PurposeConsiderable debate centered on the impact of school closures and shifts to virtual learning on adolescent mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluated whether mental health changes differed by school learning modes during the pandemic response among Canadian adolescents and whether associations varied by gender and perceived home life.MethodsWe used prospective survey data from 7270 adolescents attending 41 Canadian secondary schools. Conditional change linear mixed effects models were used to examine learning mode (virtual optional, virtual mandated, in-person, and blended) as a predictor of change in mental health scores (depression [Centre for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression], anxiety [Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7], and psychosocial well-being [Flourishing scale]), adjusting for baseline mental health and covariates. Gender and home life happiness were tested as moderators. Least square means were calculated across interaction groups.ResultsStudents learning in a blended learning mode had greater anxiety increases relative to their peers in other learning modes. Females learning fully in-person and males learning virtually when optional reported less of an increase in depression scores relative to their gender counterparts in other learning modes. Learning virtually when optional was associated with greater declines in psychosocial well-being in students without happy home lives relative to other learning modes.ConclusionFindings demonstrate the importance of considering gender and home environments as determinants of mental health over the pandemic response and when considering alternative learning modes. Further research is advised before implementing virtual and blended learning modes. Potential risks and benefits must be weighed in the context of a pandemic.

Duality of roles: understanding the work performance of teaching mothers on modular distance learning in the first Districtof City Division of Santa Rosa, Laguna

Teaching is hard to perform specially during this trying time of the COVID 19 pandemic. Much more if the teachers themselves as performing dual roles as both teacher and mothers. This qualitative phenomenological study determined how teachers who are also mothers hurdle their dual roles and the factors that affect performance as a mother and teacher. Fifteen (15) purposely selected participants comprised the sample for this study. The participants were selected along the following inclusion criteria namely, an elementary school teachers in Santa Rosa Laguna, mothers with or without husbands or partners, have children of school-age and also attending home-schooling through virtual learning and other alternative learning modes, have expressed difficulties in coping with stressors in performing roles due to several factors of economic and psychosocial in nature and with teaching experience of not less than three (3) years; and under the implementation of modular distance learning. From the interpreted meanings nine (9) themes emerged as follows: (1) The Need to be Creative and Innovative; (2) Positive and Negative Sides of Technology; (3) Adapting to new Emerged Teaching Strategies is not easy; (4) Own Children need not be Sacrifice; (5) Compliance with the School Requirements; (6) Economic Condition and Teacher-Mothers Challenges; (7) Performing Dual Roles is Stressful; (8) Balancing Role as Teachers and as Mothers; and (9) Teaching is more difficult to Perform. On the whole, the results of this study can serve as basis for finding alternative solutions to unburden the mothers in their situation; provision of support to teachers in maintaining their effective professional qualities; consideration in upgrading salary of teachers; creation of stress management program; enhancement of teacher’s self-worth; and improvement in teachers’ practice and time management.

Effects of BOPPPS combined with TBL in surgical nursing for nursing undergraduates: a mixed-method study

BackgroundSurgical Nursing is a core subject for nursing undergraduates that requires active and effective learning strategies to cultivate students’ autonomous learning competencies and critical thinking. The effects of BOPPPS (Bridge-in, Objectives, Pretest, Participatory Learning, Post-test and Summary) model combined with team-based learning (TBL) have rarely been explored in Surgical Nursing courses.ObjectiveTo explore the effects of BOPPPS combined with TBL in Surgical Nursing for nursing undergraduates.MethodsA mixed research method of quasi-experimental study design and descriptive qualitative research was used. The control group included 27 nursing undergraduates who had finished the Surgical Nursing course using traditional learning. The experimental group included 36 nursing undergraduates were enrolled in to receive the Surgical Nursing course in the teaching mode of BOPPPS combined with TBL. The quantitative data of students’ Surgical Nursing final scores, autonomous learning competencies and critical thinking ability of the two groups were collected and compared by t-test. Qualitative results were obtained through semi-structured interviews and data were analyzed by thematic analysis method.ResultsCompared with the traditional learning mode, BOPPPS combined with TBL significantly improved nursing students’ final examination scores, autonomous learning competencies and critical thinking ability (p < 0.05). Qualitative results from 14 undergraduate nursing students’ interviews were summarized into five themes: (1) stimulating learning interest; (2) improving autonomous learning ability; (3) improving the sense of teamwork; (4) exercising critical thinking; and (5) suggestions for improvement.ConclusionsThe combination of BOPPPS and TBL positively impacted nursing students by improving their autonomous learning competencies and critical thinking ability. The study suggests BOPPPS combined with TBL learning as an effective, alternative learning mode.

Students’ Perception of Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Vietnam: Empirical Evidence and Implications for Face-to-Face and Alternative Modes of Learning

Students are considered the most essential internal stakeholders in the higher education sector. They play a significant role in quality assurance processes. This study aims to investigate students’ engagement with and perceptions of Vietnamese higher education quality assurance. The study conducted an online survey questionnaire for undergraduate students in five major cities across Vietnam. The researchers utilised convenience sampling method to draw a representative sample from the target population. The 1,323 valid responses were collected and analysed using IBM’s SPSS Statistical Tool. The results show that most of the Vietnamese students were aware of quality policy and quality assurance models implemented at their institutions. The purposes of quality assurance and the focus level of quality assurance were also reported on by the majority of respondents. However, the positive change as to the results of quality assurance implementation was not clearly observed by the students. The paper concludes that Vietnamese students were involved in several major quality assurance processes, and they were aware of only important quality assurance tools implemented at their university.

Development of Blended Learning Activities Based on 3CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningful) to Support Creativity and Good Character Students

Good character and creativity are two of the ten determining factors of a person's success. These two things are important to form in educational activities, especially in elementary schools. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this became a tough challenge to achieve. The new normal period is beginning, and a good and effective learning preparation is needed. The purpose of this study is to develop blended learning activities with the 3CM model to increase students' creativity and good character. Blended learning is one of the alternative learning modes that can be done. It requires appropriate design and learning activities. Blended learning that gives students the opportunity to develop critical, creative, meaning-ful thinking skills in a fun and challenging way. One of them is a blended learning design based on 3CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningful). Learning activities with blended learning can be done with full online or a combination of face-to-face and online. This research is RnD re-search with ASSURE design in 6 stages of development activity. The results of the development of blended learning activities based on 3CM learning are carried out in 4 activities, namely 1) it's time to play and challenge (cool), 2) it's time to criticize (critical), 3) it's time to be creative, 4) it's time to reflect and take meaning (meaningful). The results of the assessment of blended learning activities aspects of ease of access to learning score 4.48 (excellent), aspects of content, media and teaching materials score 4.57 (excellent) from the assessment of 45 teachers. Student response to aspects of ease of access to learning score 4.72 (excellent), aspects of content, media and teaching materials score 4.72 (excellent). The results of this study are proven to increase students' creativity and good character.

Learning challenges in Physical Therapy, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, and Occupational Therapy undergraduate programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 posed numerous challenges to educational programs that had to quickly adapt to remote online learning (ROL) to ensure the continuity of health professional training over the pandemic. We aimed to assess the students' and professors' perceptions of the teaching-learning process in the Physical Therapy, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, and Occupational Therapy undergraduate programs at a Brazilian public university. We used an electronic self-reported questionnaire with multiple-choice questions on a Likert scale ranged 1-5; higher the score, higher the level of agreement/importance/satisfaction. Most of undergraduate students and teachers had previous experience using information and communication technologies, and 85% stated their preference for in-person learning. Students expressed their appreciation for more active learning methodologies with clear objectives, accessible content, and visualization of abstract concepts. Regarding benefits and barriers, some similar perceptions were observed between students and teachers with ROL favoring time management, benefits in the teaching-learning process, satisfaction and motivation with the course content, and low attendance rates to general academic activities due to absent or poor access to technological resources. ROL is an alternative learning mode when the in-person classes cannot be carried out, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. ROL is believed to be unfit to replace in-person learning, although it can complement the traditional classroom-based education in a hybrid model, respecting the nature of each program in the field of health that requires in-person practical training.

University Lecturers and Students Preparedness for Online Teaching and Learning in Zimbabwe

The outbreak of COVID 19, which disrupted the normal lecture delivery system in universities, profoundly impacted Zimbabwe as a nation. This study investigated on university lecturers and students’ preparedness to online teaching and learning at the outbreak of COVID 19 in the country. The study also looked at how these two groups adjusted and what still need to be done to effect e-learning. The researcher carried out massive interviews to both lecturers and students. The study employed the thematic data processing approach. Findings showed that university lecturers and students were caught unaware and unprepared for alternative learning modes though they did their best to rise above the challenges. Lecturers from very few well-to-do universities got either or both data bundles and gadgets. Universities experienced the following challenges: limited accessibility to internet, limited mobile networks, unreliable electricity supply, lack of appropriate technological gadgets, lack of technical know-how, high levels of stress and low performance level for both lecturers and students. The study concluded that the e-learning that was introduced as a mitigating measure, left a lot to be desired and this needs to be ‘fixed’ in preparation for future similar calamities and general technological advancement. The study recommended national and university funding of necessary electronic gadgets, e-learning infrastructure and data bundles for smooth running of e-learning programs.

Multi-scale virtual field experience: sedimentology and stratigraphy of Grand Ledge, Michigan, USA

Abstract. Field experiences are a critical component of undergraduate geoscience education; however, traditional onsite field experiences are not always practical due to accessibility, and the popularity of alternative modes of learning in higher education is increasing. One way to support student access to field experiences is through virtual field trips, implemented either independently or in conjunction with in-person field trips. We created a virtual field trip (VFT) to Grand Ledge, a regionally important suite of sedimentary outcrops in central lower Michigan, USA. This VFT undertakes all stages of a field project, from question development and detailed observation through data collection to interpretation. The VFT was implemented in undergraduate sedimentation and stratigraphy courses at two different liberal arts institutions, with one version of the VFT conducted in-person and the other online. The VFT was presented from a locally hosted website and distributed through an online learning platform. Students completed a series of activities using field data in the form of outcrop photos, virtual 3D models of outcrops and hand samples, and photos of thin sections. Student products included annotated field notes, a stratigraphic column, a collaborative stratigraphic correlation, and a final written reflection. VFT assessment demonstrated that students successfully achieved the inquiry-oriented student learning outcomes, and student reflection responses provide anecdotal evidence that the field experience was comparable to field geology onsite. This VFT is an example of successful student learning in an upper-level sedimentation and stratigraphy course via virtual field experience with an emphasis on local geology.

Tales on Soles: driving design via Design Activism

ABSTRACT Studio, a breeding ground for curiosity and wonder, has become more of a confined space for innovation lately. Infrastructure shortage also has triggered a somewhat impersonal attitude to studio learning. Can Design-Activism mitigate such stresses on the studio by becoming an alternative mode of driving studio processes? Reflectively, this study reports on upskilling students via alternative modes of learning to overcome infrastructure dependency. Participants of Tales on Soles (ToS) student design competition, embarked on an exploratory excursion to turn the studio into a place to adventure in a different way: emancipation of studio via activism. Narrated via reflective accounts of the author and the stakeholders, ToS delves into intricacies of innate nuances of a pertinent pedagogy: studio. The improvised studio infrastructure via transformed didactic models demonstrated Design-Activism's ability to harness alternate modes of driving studio. The themes deduced from the process demonstrate activism as an emancipation tool for studio innovations.

Higher Education Students’ Challenges on Flexible Online Learning Implementation in the Rural Areas: A Philippine Case

The COVID-19 Pandemic has led Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines to replace on-campus learning with flexible learning. This paper explores the students' challenges on flexible online learning implementation of the university in the rural area based on their background and experience. This employed quantitative and qualitative methods through a survey and an interview respectively sought to gather data from 639 university students. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and narrative analysis. Results revealed that most mothers are high school graduates, while fathers enjoy an elementary-level and belong to under low-income families. Most students possess just mobile phones and use mobile data as their primary internet access source, ranging from moderate to poor connection. Also, the majority are not fully equipped with enough skills in digital media. For challenges, students experienced the unavailability of a network, economic instability, digital divide, the shortage of digital devices, distractive learning environment, expensive internet data, health-related problems, lack of resources, lack of digital literacy skills, and loss of motivation .Hence, even if flexible online learning is the best solution for the university to replace face-to-face classes, it is not best applicable and suitable to all students living in rural areas or other places with an unstable network and students who belong to financially unstable families. Administrators and educators have to consider alternative learning modes that suit students' backgrounds during the pandemic, like using non-digital technologies.

English Teaching Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Teacher Issues and Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the globe and every strata of community. Effects can be seen in almost all sectors, education being one of the sectors which was greatly impacted. UNICEF cited a number of 1.6 billion children of schooling age affected by the pandemic. Countries all over the world including Malaysia started working on alternatives to ensure that the learning of schooling children continues throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach chosen by the Malaysian Ministry of Education was to disseminate classes and lessons via online platforms otherwise known as the practice of e-learning. With existing issues of access and gaps in achievement between the rural and urban communities it was a point of interest to investigate how teachers in different contexts dealt with the e-learning initiative. In this study, the aim was to measure the attitude of the teacher, their level of technological literacy and the challenges that they face despite of their context. The study was conducted as an online survey involving all the English Teachers in the Limbang district with the total population of English teachers amounting to 103. The return rate of the survey generated 50 responses and the gaps in the research were bridged with a protocoled focus group discussion with 5 teachers. This study echoed the findings of previous studies and highlights pertinent issues which must be dealt with before e-learning can be a strong and viable alternative learning mode for Malaysians.

A Provocation

Most universities across the world have been offering what has come to be called ‘blended learning’ for a number of years now. However, this has largely been supplementing traditional, face to face, classroom teaching with varying degrees of online elements. The pandemic has done us all a favour by highlighting the fact that what universities have been doing with this ‘blended learning’ is no longer sufficient and arguably already passed its sell-by date. The pandemic has accelerated existing trends. But it has also moved us in new directions.&#x0D; &#x0D; In the medium term, university teachers know they are going to have to teach some students on campus and others remotely, and both alongside each other. Some have called this ‘dual mode’ or ‘dual track’ teaching. However, for many universities, and countries, this approach may not be feasible for any length of time as it is both resource-intensive and time-consuming. More importantly, it fails to recognise the limitations of our current model of educational provision for high participation societies – which privileges students who can access and afford the face-to-face campus experience and short-changes students with poor or restricted access to WiFi, computers or places to study or whose life circumstances require alternative learning modes. So let’s not waste this opportunity to rethink and redesign our online learning platforms, environments and technologies, and improve them, so that they are fit for purpose.&#x0D; &#x0D; Ultimately, however, the crises caused by the pandemic should encourage us to look beyond new platforms and technologies to the longer term, and rethink what we teach and what students learn, as well as how we teach and how we assess learning. Universities could be preparing students for a longer-term future and to solve some of the urgent global challenges of our time, including climate change and repair, poverty, inequality, poor health, food insecurity and cyber insecurity, to name a few of the most urgent. This should include developing learner’s abilities to manage their lives, careers, work-life balance and physical and mental health and not simply obtain their first graduate job.&#x0D; &#x0D; By doing so, universities could rediscover the public and collective purposes of higher education, as well as the private and individual benefits it offers. Universities need to not only help students be lifelong learners but open their doors in genuinely flexible ways to respond to the needs of learners of all ages and abilities. So, alongside the new modes of blended learning – or what might be called hybrid approaches to facilitating distributed learning communities – this pandemic-induced crisis is an opportunity for universities to also reconsider what is taught as well as how, the purposes of education in unpredictable times of rapid change and greater risk, and the new opportunities and broader possibilities opened up by this.&#x0D; &#x0D; There is a world of difference between remote teaching in an emergency and carefully designed and planned hybrid learning for the future.

Teaching Science Books Based on Bakpia Local-Potential to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking and Communication Skills

This study is aimed at determining the effectiveness of the use of a science textbook integrated with the local potentials of bakpia in improving the critical thinking and communication skills of the junior high school students. The study was a quasi-experiment with a pretest-posttest control group research design. The experiment and control groups were taken by cluster random sampling by considering the location of the school, which is within proximity of the local potentials in question. The study was conducted in the 7 th grade, at one of the junior high schools in Yogyakarta, both for the experiment and control classes. The research instruments were an open-reasoned multiple-choice test and observation sheets to obtain data on students’ critical thinking skills and communication skills. Data analysis was done by the Manova difference test assisted by the SPSS 2.0 computer program with a significance value lower than 0.05. Results showed that the value of the partial Eta squared from the Manova test was 0.981, indicating that the effectiveness of the science textbook integrated with the bakpia local potentials to improve students’ critical thinking and communication skills was in the “high” category. The test of between subject effects of the Manova test showed a significant value of students’ critical thinking and communication skills of less than 0.05. Therefore, it can be said that the science textbook was effective in increasing students’ critical thinking and communication skills, simultaneously. A limitation to the study can be in the fact that the study is not conducted directly in the bakpia factory and that it involves only 60 subjects for both the experiment and control groups. The integrated textbook of bakpia local potentials can be used as a reference for future researchers with other local potentials. The local potential integrated book can also become an alternative-learning mode, e.g.: based on STEM, with materials suitable for local potentials in other regions.

The Philippine Higher Education Sector in the Time of COVID-19

This paper reports the policy-responses of different Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs) to the novel coronavirus, COVD-19 pandemic. It compares these responses with those made by HEIs in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Publicly-available data and news reports were used to gauge the general public’s reaction to these policies and how the Philippines’ responses fare with its Southeast Asian neighbours. The paper observes that despite the innovations made by Philippine HEIs in terms of alternative learning modes and technologies for delivering education, there are still gaps and challenges in their responses. It recommends that policy-responses and learning innovations should be grounded on a deeper understanding of distance education and should be sensitive to the call of the times.

A Review of Self-efficacy of Learners through Online Learning

E‐learning has been adopted as the alternative learning mode across the board during COVID‐ 19 pandemic to persist academic activities due to nationwide closures. Self-efficacy plays a mediated role in and is positively correlated with academic achievements of distance education. Objective factors (online connection, online learning experience and knowledge, online classroom environment, and others) and subjective factors (learning attitudes of students, interaction among students, online teaching capability of teachers, emotion and psychological states and others), influence by and large self-efficacy of learners who conduct online education. Additionally, different measurements of self-efficacy are discussed, with the result that Questionnaire of English Self-Efficacy (QESE) is a professional and valid tool to measure self-efficacy of English-major learners. There is such a paucity of studying learners’ self-efficacy via e-learning that this paper fills the gap to study the topic.

READINESS OF THE MARITIME INSTITUTION'S CADETS AND FACULTY TOWARDS THE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The Maritime Institutions is the only STCW program that caters to the Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation (BSMT) and Bachelor of Science in Marine in Engineering (BSMARE) Program. The impact of the current pandemic situation affected the normal operations of the institution by following the Government’s Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on COVID-19 guidelines, thus the academy is also facing challenges with the current situation like how our Faculty will deliver the same High quality of education to our cadets. The Commission on Higher Education sets a national advisory regarding the flexible learning that will address the current situation in all Higher Educational Institutions(HEI) in the Philippines. Maritime Institution’s task is to implement and deliver a new flexible learning mode or alternative learning mode which is the Learning Management Systems with the combination of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to the Cadets and Faculty, with this new approaches to the readiness of each Faculty and Cadets is now on the process of gearing up.

Marking gender studies: the (Radical) value of creative-critical assessment

ABSTRACT Feminist pedagogies have established the need to query power structures in terms of curriculum content and teaching praxis. However, the topic of student assessment poses difficulties: it is a means through which students’ performance is evaluated and quantified according to set institutionalised criteria that values particular forms of hegemonic knowledge. The following article presents a self-reflexive exploration of assessment within a Gender Studies module taught in the Autumn semesters of the 2017/18 and 2018/19 academic years at a UK university. The module was a core component of the institution’s MA in Gender Studies. This was an exciting opportunity to experiment with assessment styles corresponding to feminist pedagogies to help develop students’ and instructors’ disciplinary scope and explore the radical potential for creative-critical approaches to assessment. This article outlines some the challenges of employing alternative modes of learning and teaching from a feminist perspective and suggests some strategies to address these.

Mental effort detection using EEG data in E-learning contexts

E-learning becomes an alternative learning mode since the prevalence of the Internet. Especially, the advance of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) technology enables a course to enroll tens of thousands of online learners. How to improve learners' online learning experiences on MOOC platforms becomes a crucial task for platform providers. In this research, based on Cognitive Load Theory, we built a system to capture and tag a user's mental states while s/he is watching online videos with a commercial EEG device, and used different normalization schemes and time window lengths to process EEG signals recorded from the EEG device. Finally, we adopted different supervised learning algorithms to train and test the classifiers, and then evaluated their classification performance. The results show that the proposed approach can effectively process EEG data to train classifiers, which achieve high accuracy, precision and recall rates compared with those of previous studies. This system can effectively facilitate users' self-awareness of mental efforts in online learning contexts to enable the automatic feedback in synchronous and asynchronous learning contexts, especially taking MOOCs as an example.

Explaining the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship in emerging economies: The intermediate roles of absorptive capacity and improvisation

Research has established the relevance of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to firm performance but skepticism remains because of the ambiguity surrounding how EO might improve firm performance. We examine the key concepts of absorptive capacity and improvisation as two alternative learning modes serving as intermediate steps between EO and firm performance. Locating our study within manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia, we find that absorptive capacity enhances the EO–performance relationship, both as a moderator and a mediator. In contrast to expectations, however, improvisation showed no such effects but conferred its own separate benefits instead. We further discuss the different effects of these learning modes on high performance and low performance groups.