Authentic Learning Situations Research Articles

Students’ perceived authenticity and understanding of authentic research while experimenting in a non-formal learning setting

AbstractNon-formal learning settings like out-of-school labs provide students with insights into authentic learning situations. For example, in physics, students are engaged in experimenting as an authentic method. However, increasing the authenticity in experimentation can lead to overwhelming demands and hinder concept development and does not even need to be perceived as more authentic. We investigated the role of authenticity in experimenting in an out-of-school lab. Specifically, we explored (a) what influence the level of guidance has on students’ perceived authenticity (RQ1), (b) which references students use in their assessment judging perceived authenticity (RQ2), and (c) to what extent perceived authenticity predicts students’ learning outcomes (RQ3). To address these issues, a mixed methods study was carried out. One hundred forty-two students of seventh and eighth grade experimented in small groups and investigated the pattern that occurs when different apertures are placed between various light sources and a screen. Students were randomly assigned to one of two variants of the learning setting. In the guided experimentation group, students performed five pre-designed experiments and one freely chosen experiment, while the self-determined experimenting students freely designed all six experiments. A questionnaire was administered for perceived authenticity and interviews were conducted about the experimentation process. The learning outcome was measured with a pre- and post-test. We found no significant difference in perceived authenticity and learning outcomes of the two groups. To explain this, we conducted and analyzed interviews in terms of students’ understandings of authentic research to determine the views their authenticity judgments were based on.

Akademische Lesekompetenz in der L2 Deutsch

Given that reading German scientific texts is an essential skill for international students in German-language degree programs, one would not expect that this key competence for academic success is hardly promoted at German universities. That is why the question arises of how international students can achieve the level of academic reading competence required in German-language degree programs. This paper focuses on findings from a study using educational design research to investigate the academic reading competence in L2 German of international students in humanities and social sciences. Through the development and implementation of an academic reading program for international students, valuable insights into the acquisition of this key competence were gained in authentic learning situations.

Perceptions of Blended Learning in Undergraduate Medical Education in Bangladesh: Medical teachers’ Views

Background: Medical education exposes students to authentic learning situations and need epistemological access to tacit knowledge, skills and practice in order to interpret patient problems. Adopting a new teaching-learning approach is daunting task. Blended learning offers opportunities for the complexity of learning by integrating face-to-face and online interaction. However, this growing demand for blended learning possesses problems and challenges that are noteworthy to investigate, specifically in medical education. Method: This descriptive type of cross-sectional study was conducted to reflect different lenses of experiences by the medical teachers on views of blended leaning in undergraduate medical education in Bangladesh. Data collected from eight medical colleges of Bangladesh. Convenient sampling technique adopted for selection of medical college and the respondents were selected from the medical college purposively. Self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was administered to collect data from 70 medical teachers to gain more details insight related with this research issue. Results: This study revealed out that most teachers owned digital equipments, from smartphones (100%) to laptops (91.4% of teachers), had optimum knowledge and skill in ICT (88.6% of teachers), were using social networking (91.4% of teachers). All (100%) respondents stated that they did not have established e-library facilities and no established Information Technology (IT) laboratory facilities as opined by 43% of teachers in their medical colleges. The data analysis ascertained that the teachers were in affirmative consensus on the components of teaching learning process. By mean scores of 5-point likret scale, satisfying prominent components were listed as organizing teaching process by the teachers (4.3 for teachers) and well design curriculum (4.3 for teachers). In this study, maximum 55.1% of teachers respondents preferred 20-40% of overall online class. Conclusion: The study recommended that a proper framework that integrate policies, curriculum contents alone with technological and electronic innovation matching with blended learning format to stimulate teaching and learning process in the path for successful introduction of blended learning in undergraduate medical education in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.14(2) July 2023: 23-32

The impact of an integrated PBL curriculum on clinical thinking in undergraduate medical students prior to clinical practice

BackgroundProblem-based learning (PBL) is a widely adopted educational approach in medical education that aims to promote critical thinking and problem-solving in authentic learning situations. However, the impact of PBL educational mode on undergraduate medical students’ clinical thinking ability has been limitedly investigated. This study aimed to assess the influence of an integrated PBL curriculum on clinical thinking ability of medical students prior to clinical practice.MethodsTwo hundred and sixty-seven third-year undergraduate medical students at Nantong University were recruited in this study and were independently assigned to either the PBL or control group. The Chinese version of the Clinical Thinking Ability Evaluation Scale was used to assess clinical thinking ability, and the students’ performance in the PBL tutorials was assessed by tutors. All participants in both groups were required to complete the pre-test and post-test questionnaires to self-report their clinical thinking ability. A paired sample t-test, independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance test (ANOVA) were used to compare the difference in clinical thinking scores among different groups. Multiple linear regression was conducted to analyze the influencing factors correlated with clinical thinking ability.ResultsThe clinical thinking ability of most third-year undergraduate medical students at Nantong University was at a high level. The PBL group had a higher proportion of students with high-level clinical thinking ability in the post-test compared to the control group. The pre-test scores of clinical thinking ability were similar between the PBL and control groups, but the post-test scores of clinical thinking ability in the PBL group were significantly higher than those in the control group. Additionally, there was a significant difference in clinical thinking ability between the pre-test and post-test in the PBL group. The post-test scores of sub-scales of critical thinking ability were significantly higher than the pre-test in the PBL group. Furthermore, the frequency of reading literature, time of PBL self-directed learning, and PBL performance score ranking were influencing factors on the clinical thinking ability of medical students in the PBL group. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between clinical thinking ability and the frequency of reading literature, as well as the scores of the PBL performance.ConclusionsThe integrated PBL curriculum model has an active impact on improving undergraduate medical students' clinical thinking ability. This improvement in clinical thinking ability may be correlated with the frequency of reading literature, as well as the performance of the PBL curriculum.

Cognitive and Motivational Person Characteristics as Predictors of Diagnostic Performance: Combined Effects on Pre-Service Teachers\u2019 Diagnostic Task Selection and Accuracy

The acquisition of diagnostic competences is an essential goal of teacher education. Thus, evidence on how learning environments facilitate pre-service teachers’ acquisition of corresponding competences is important. In teacher education, approximations of practice (such as simulations) are discussed as being learning environments that can support learners in activating acquired knowledge in authentic situations. Simulated diagnostic interviews are recommended to foster teachers’ diagnostic competences.The conceptualization of diagnostic competences highlights the importance of cognitive and motivational characteristics. Motivational learning theories predict that the activation of acquired knowledge in learning situations may be influenced by motivational characteristics such as individual interest. Although teachers’ diagnostic competences constitute an increasing research focus, how cognitive and motivational characteristics interact when shaping the diagnostic process and accuracy in authentic learning situations remains an open question.To address this question, we report on data from 126 simulated diagnostic one-on-one interviews conducted by 63 pre-service secondary school mathematics teachers (students simulated by research assistants), studying the combined effects of interest and professional knowledge on the diagnostic process and accuracy. In addition to the main effect of content knowledge, interaction effects indicate that participants’ interest plays the role of a “door-opener” for the activation of knowledge during simulation-based learning. Thus, the results highlight the importance of both, cognitive and motivational characteristics. This implies that simulation-based learning environments should be designed to arouse participants’ interest to support their learning or to support less interested learners in activating relevant knowledge.

Learning through collaboration between vocational teacher training institutions and workplaces: Barriers and contradictions

In vocational education and training, the acquisition of relevant skills by learners is vital for their employability. It has been argued that institution–workplace collaboration facilitates this acquisition of relevant skills through availing authentic real-life learning situations. This study used the cultural–historical activity theory to identify and characterise challenges to learning through collaboration between a masters of vocational pedagogy (MVP) programme, vocational teacher training institutions and workplaces in Uganda. Data were obtained using in-depth individual interviews with purposively sampled actors in collaborative activities. The findings revealed that challenges manifesting as discursive contradictions occurred in different phases of implementing collaborative activities. In the planning and implementation phase, contradictions were linked to short time frames for collaborative activities, unsynchronised activity plans and contradictory working cultures. In the supervision of learning, contradictions arose from a lack of a common understanding of the objectives and work methods of the collaborative activities. A lack of feedback to actors, an absence of a collaboration focal person, and a lack of government policy limited participation in collaborative activities. These challenges were observed to lessen the focus on the MVP students’ learning, which ultimately affected the quality of work produced and interfered with the implementation of collaborative activities.

GAMIFICATION STRATEGY OF ACTIVE LEARNING IN MENTORING AMONG MILINEAL STUDENTS

Active learning allows students to control their learning style by relating it to their actual experiences. This learning model can increase student motivation and engagement in an interactive environment. However, mentoring has not been actively implemented even though mentoring is one of the important agendas for the next 20 years and in line with education 4.0, which encourages students towards active learning. The study's findings found that the gamification approach is an effective method to increase the level of involvement and motivation of students in active learning. However, gamification becomes less effective when in-depth learning is carried out, and the learning process cannot provide satisfaction to students with high levels of confidence. This group only participates for fun but does not want to socialize with other students because the core of gamification is competitive-oriented. Therefore, the objective of this study is to produce a mentoring-style gamification strategy that has collaborative and social mechanics in a soft skill learning environment to increase the participation level of less sociable students. The hypothesis of this study is to introduce learning as a more motivating experience for all levels, not just outstanding students. Student involvement in the play experience can be translated into an educational context to facilitate learning while influencing personality and behavior, including communication skills, problem-solving, self-motivation, decision-making, and time management. The methodology of this study is through exploratory research, namely, observation, activity development, and effectiveness testing to relate students' experiences in authentic learning situations. The result from this study is a mentoring-style gamification strategy that is a guide for mentors to carry out active learning mentoring activities that involve soft skills with students.

There is more than ‘I’ in self-directed learning: An exploration of self-directed learning in teams of undergraduate students

Preparing future professionals for highly dynamic settings require self-directed learning in authentic learning situations. Authentic learning situations imply teamwork. Therefore, designing education for future professionals requires an understanding of how self-directed learning develops in teams. We followed (bio-)medical sciences students (n = 15) during an 8-month period in which they worked on an innovation project in teams of 4–6 students. Template analysis of 39 transcripts of audio-recorded group meetings revealed three mechanisms along which group dynamics influenced self-directed learning behaviour. First, if expressions of emotions were met with an inquisitive response, this resulted in self-monitoring or feelings of responsibility. Second, openness in the group towards creativity or idea exploration stimulated critical thinking. Third, disputational talk frustrated learning, because it adversely affected group cohesion. We conclude that emotions, openness, and relatedness are important drivers of self-directed learning in teams and hence should be given explicit attention in designing collaborative learning for future professionals.

Review of Related literature on Problem-based Learning and Cognitive Apprenticeship for Instruction in Agriculture as Vocational Education

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered, enabling approach for fostering student’s collaboration, self-directed learning, and critical reasoning skills. This paper discussed the previous literature on how components of problem-based learning (PBL) integrates Cognitive apprenticeship (CA) learning principle, considering Scaffolding could benefit vocational learning in the field of Agriculture. These are elements employed to expose students to real-world problem solving, critical thinking skills as well as effective knowledge transfer through active engagement. Results indicate that undertaking on the role of a more specialist as an instructor can take a dynamic role in the problem-based learning strategy, providing the necessary resources to build learners who could address ill-structured problems to use the application of real-life experience and specialist-level strategies to address the cognitive task. This complex skill that cannot be acquired through the traditional teaching, but rather skills that are acquired through the scaffolding of progressive and more stimulating learning opportunities, through guidance and routine exercise, collaborative, and self-reflection. Solving real-world problems entails active collaboration and exploiting the potentials of technologies available for us, and thus instructors need to be contentedas facilitators of a learning situation that is often a complex and challenging environment. Thus, it is established that the PBL and Scaffolding have the potentials to enhance student's critical thinking skills but with a careful structure of authentic learning situations.

Flowers with powers – conception and evaluation of an ‘educational seed mix’

ABSTRACT Plant blindness has been widely examined in plant education research. However, practical attempts to counteract the common disregard of plants are rare, especially in standard school contexts. We developed and evaluated a teaching concept based upon an ‘Educational Seed Mix’ comprising eight annual species from six different plant families. With it, students aged 10 to 15 can experience plant diversity, connect to their own plant, observe its growth from seed to flower and learn about flower biology in an authentic learning situation. In our evaluation study with secondary school students from Germany (N = 109), we found interest in the project beforehand and feelings of success and high enthusiasm for plant growing afterwards. Further, we found improved performances in tasks concerning taxonomy and flower biology and students showed enhanced concepts of the lifecycle of flowering plants. The project appealed to students as well as teachers. Overall, the Educational Seed Mix is easy to use in school contexts, engages students with plants, and is thus an approach to counteract plant blindness.

An entrepreneurship education taxonomy based on authenticity

ABSTRACT The future engineer is labelled an entrepreneurial engineer, having networking, teamwork, opportunity recognition, creativity, risk management, and discipline-specific skills. Therefore, entrepreneurship education is being increasingly introduced in engineering education. The various educational designs used to introduce entrepreneurship education have been discussed extensively, but a clear scheme for the classification of such methods is not available. In this study, a classification scheme for entrepreneurship education is introduced by building on prior frameworks and authentic learning situations to differentiate educational approaches and learning contexts. We explore and combine different models of entrepreneurship education offered at 10 technical universities in the Nordic countries. Through this exploration, we identify three categories of learning contexts, which we label ‘imitation’, ‘pretence’, and ‘real,’ adding to the three classes of educational conceptions identified in the literature and verified through empirical data: ‘teacher-directed’, ‘participatory’, and ‘self-directed’. This leads to a six-class taxonomy for entrepreneurship education approaches.

Apprenticing the jazz performer through ensemble collaboration: A qualitative enquiry

The one-to-one teacher–student relationship is a common learning configuration within jazz education. However, opportunities to learn through engagement in ensemble performances and industry-level recording opportunities with esteemed jazz performers are rare classroom environments the tertiary jazz music institutions offer. This qualitative study examines ‘real-world’ jazz performance contexts within an Australian tertiary music course, exploring students’ learning experience spanning three diverse collaborative projects. Bandura’s Social Cognition Theory is utilized to elucidate an ecological system of musical development, where learning occurs in a social context within dynamic, reciprocal interactions between learners, environment and students’ adaptive behaviours that are bounded by context, culture and learner history. Findings from pre- and post-participation interviews reveal student and educator perspectives of engaging in authentic experiential learning situations. A stratum of positive influences impacting students included metacognitive, behavioural, emotional affordances, as well as the cultivation of a wider social, environmental and cultural/creative confidence and an expanding collaborative community influencing individuals’ learning decisions. Students and educator participants expressed professional-level expectations, real-world outcomes, and a deeper musical connection and understanding by students of the guest artist/composers’ intention, musical aesthetic and expert band direction. The authors maintain that inclusion of experience-based education and embedding of authentic professional industry experience and creative music-making contexts within educational settings enhance the learning of students and potentially enculturate richer musicianship in students and their developing creative communities.

An Infrastructure for Workplace Learning Analytics: Tracing Knowledge Creation with the Social Semantic Server

In this paper, we propose the Social Semantic Server (SSS) as a service-based infrastructure for workplace and professional learning analytics (LA). The design and development of the SSS have evolved over eight years, starting with an analysis of workplace learning inspired by knowledge creation theories and their application in different contexts. The SSS collects data from workplace learning tools, integrates it into a common data model based on a semantically enriched artifact-actor network, and offers it back for LA applications to exploit the data. Further, the SSS design’s flexibility enables it to be adapted to different workplace learning situations. This paper contributes by systematically deriving requirements for the SSS according to knowledge creation theories, and by offering support across a number of different learning tools and LA applications integrated into the SSS. We also show evidence for the usefulness of the SSS extracted from 4 authentic workplace learning situations involving 57 participants. The evaluation results indicate that the SSS satisfactorily supports decision making in diverse workplace learning situations and allow us to reflect on the importance of knowledge creation theories for this analysis.

Peer-Communication in Distance Education: Perspectives and Challenges

While distance education (DE) has burgeoned over the past twenty years and is permitting greater access to higher education (college and university), student persistence and quality of learning remain problematic. Promoting dialogue or work among peers is sometimes seen as a solution, but the techno-pedagogical devices for doing so are varied and their impacts poorly understood. This is what motivated this review and analysis of the techno-pedagogical devices introduced in Canadian colleges and universities to encourage distance interaction. Our systematic review examines sixty studies published between January 2005 and December 2014. It establishes a typology of research problems in the field that identifies four main research questions as well as a typology of techno-pedagogical devices based on their goals. These studies reveal that interaction and collaborative work are challenging for learners who are extremely concerned about the restraints relating to time flexibility, disregarding the opportunities offered. However, the studies also show that when students do interact and collaborate, which is the case in authentic learning situations targeting skills development, they derive satisfaction from social linkages with their peers and are likely to achieve deep learning.

Shedding the content: semantics of teaching burdened by didactic formalisms

ABSTRACTThe paper argues that what is left behind in the current era of accountability is the educational content. The authors present shedding the content as the great challenge of teaching and learning in today’s schools. They turn to the tradition of Bildung and outline the theoretical background for the content-focused approach to (research on) teaching and learning. Their approach is based on analyses of authentic (real-life) teaching and learning situations. The paper highlights how didactic case studies can be used to generalize the findings across individual cases. Within the multiple case studies, 44 didactic case studies were reanalysed to identify didactic formalisms, i.e. problems in the semantic and logical structure of educational content, which corrupt the quality of instruction. Two specific types of didactic formalism are described in detail; stolen cognition and concealed cognition. Stolen cognition prevents cognitive activation of students when the teacher over-reduces the space allowed for the students’ cognitive work with the content, concealed cognition are instances of purposeless cognitive activation of students due to their being disconnected from the content.

Becoming a Chemistry Teacher – Expectations for Chemistry Education Courses

The development of professional competence is of major importance for each teacher student and in the end for the entire education system. Therefore, optimising students’ learning processes is a central goal of professional development at the university level. Learning processes are influenced by an individual’s prior knowledge, beliefs, and expectations. Having insights into the beliefs and expectations of our students should give us the opportunity to optimize their university courses. To obtain a better understanding of these beliefs and expectations we used a questionnaire with open questions. All statements of feedback from 168 students in BA/MA programmes were categorised. For this purpose, we developed a category system based on the COACTIV model of professional competence. The results indicated that many students assume that the most important influence on their future profession is the possession of self-related ability cognitions, but they do not expect to develop such cognitions in their university courses. As a consequence of these findings, the Division of Chemistry Education has begun offering students authentic learning situations with real pupils. This approach offers the chance for the students to try out the teacher role and to reflect upon the first teaching experiences. They can revise their image of the teachers’ role and acquire a realistic view of their future profession.

Project-based learning in metabolic biochemistry teaching

Biochemistry is a curricular component that is present in Chemistry and Biology Teacher Training Courses and students usually consider it complex. The use of active learning methodologies seeks to make the learning process of this component significant using real and authentic learning situations and placing the student at the center of the teaching-learning process. Project-Based Learning (PBL) was chosen to teach Biochemistry to 4th-year students of Teacher Training Course in Nature Sciences with Qualification in Chemistry of IFMT - Campus Confresa. The theme Metabolic was defined as the starting point for the execution of the projects and the following diseases were addressed: diabetes, hypothyroidism and lactose intolerance. PBL was an efficient strategy in the teaching of Biochemistry because it was able to gather the three dimensions for the development of competences: the construction of knowledge (through the content approach), the development of skills (teamwork, oral and written communication skills, the use of digital tools) and demonstration of attitudes (through awareness of current problems in society and the use of Biochemistry in the prevention or solution of these problems).

How sign language interpreters use multimodal actions to coordinate turn-taking in group work between deaf and hearing upper secondary school students

Abstract This study examines interpreted group work situations involving deaf and hearing senior high school students, using Norwegian Sign Language and spoken Norwegian. The research question is: how does the sign language interpreter explicitly coordinate turn-taking in group work dialogues among deaf and hearing students? Video recordings of authentic learning situations constitute the basis for analysis of how a sign language interpreter uses multimodal actions to convey information that is used by the deaf and hearing students in establishing a shared focus of attention and thus coordinating their turn-taking. Five types of actions were recurrently identified: construction of visual gestures; timing of the interpreter’s input; use of gaze to negotiate for the deaf students’ speaking turns; left-right shifts in body position to convey information about which of the hearing students is speaking; and backward-forward shifts in body position to negotiate for shared attention. The analysis draws mainly on concepts developed by Goffman (1959, 1981), Goodwin (1994, 2000, 2007) and Wadensjö (1998). The discussion examines implications for the educational interpreter’s role set (Sarangi 2010, 2011), and the dual responsibility s/he fulfils by not only interpreting the students’ utterances, but also explicitly coordinating their interaction.

La comunicación argumentativa en la Sociedad del Conocimiento, clave del liderazgo distribuido para un cambio educativo desde el desarrollo profesional

This article explores the power of creative and democratic feedback that employs the epistemic dimension of communication by teachers within the framework of the Knowledge Society. The educational benefit of semiosis is studied by which human intelligence makes arguments to construct hypothetical knowledge of action research and the assistance that artificial intelligence reports to its cognitive scaffolding with its computational technologies. This is consistent with the necessary consideration of teachers as apprentices of their own work through professional development projects in real contexts to promote social improvement from the empowerment of the educational community through a vision of distributed leadership. In this regard, in accordance with the recommendations of solidarity of UNESCO, we also study the illuminating theories of Peirce and Dewey on the hypothetical logic from which the inventions of thought emerge from meaningful testimony and open discursivity to the freedom of life. The communicative use of heuristic argumentation in authentic learning situations where shared research takes place reveals the dynamic and experimental condition of educational knowledge and, with community ethics, dialogically prevents the impostures of efficiencyist neobehaviorism.

The Students’ Perceptions of The Implementation of ICT-Supported Project Based Learning in English Teaching

The present study was aimed at investigating the students’ perceptions of the implementation of ICT-supported PBL (Project Based Learning) in English teaching at the school under the study. There were three issues covered in this study: (i) the students’ perceptions of the benefits of the implementation of ICT-supported PBL to their language skills and components, and (ii) the students’ perceptions of the benefits of the implementation of ICT- supported PBL to self-development. This study was a worth-conducting study since it was expected to help teachers see what the students’ perceptions of the implementation of ICT-supported PBL. This study was conducted on an intrinsic case study to attempt or emphasis on gaining a deep understanding of the students’ perceptions of the implementation of ICT-supported PBL at the school under the study. There were 44 students who were involved in this study. The data collected through the questionnaire and students’ reflective report. The findings were overall positive. They perceived self- development and language skills and components enhancement except the students’ perceptions of the grammar learning. To add, they felt the teaching and learning activities brought enjoyment in the classroom. There were three factors which led the students’ have positive perceptions of ICT-Supported PBL in English teaching; (a) authentic learning situations, (b) student-centered activities, and c) the involvement of ICT.