Effective Learning Support Research Articles

From reflective observation to active learning: A mobile experiential learning approach for environmental science education

AbstractSeveral previous studies have emphasized the importance of situating students in authentic learning or problem‐solving contexts to enhance their learning performances. However, some challenges of situated learning have been stated, such as the lack of effective learning support or concrete objective design to improve students’ learning engagement, problem‐solving competences and their active thinking. In this study, a mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system was developed to improve students’ problem‐solving competences as well as their learning performances, attitudes and collective efficacy. Moreover, an experiment was conducted on an environmental science course in an elementary school to compare the effects of this method with those of the conventional situated mobile learning approach on students’ learning effectiveness. The experimental results display that the implemented approach can significantly enhance students’ learning achievements, environmental attitudes and collective efficacy; furthermore, the students who learned with the implemented approach showed higher problem‐solving competence than those who learned with the conventional situated mobile learning approach, implying a noticeable reference for conducting experiential learning activities in environmental science education. Furthermore, the promotion of students’ active thinking in the mobile technology‐supported experiential learning is discussed. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic The importance of situating students in authentic learning or problem‐solving contexts to enhance their learning performances has been emphasized. Some challenges of situated learning have been stated, such as the lack of effective learning support or concrete objective design to improve students’ learning engagement, problem‐solving competences and active thinking. Properly integrating technology into instruction is most effective in an authentic learning context. What this paper adds A mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system was designed to conduct an authentic learning activity. The proposed approach can significantly enhance students’ learning achievements, environmental attitudes and collective efficacy. The students who learned with the proposed approach showed higher problem‐solving competence than those who learned with the conventional situated mobile learning approach. The promotion of students’ active thinking while learning with the mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system is discussed. Implications for practice and/or policy The mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system is beneficial to students in an authentic learning environment as it triggers their active thinking. Such an approach can be designed with authentic learning activities in other courses by replacing the authentic objects and learning materials. It would be interesting to probe students’ social interactions and learning patterns in an experiential collective learning activity.

COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION: HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM FOR BLENDED LEARNING?

Nowadays education has been significantly transformed by the widespread use of digital solutions. This has made it popular to carry out the new approaches to educational processes, which cannot be easily implemented before. Оne of such forms is blended learning, and it becomes possible everywhere thanks to the global distribution and convergence of telecommunication technologies and to the appearance of cloud-based educational software. At the same time digital technologies have brought the apparent profit for the routines automatization and have become the reason of rethinking as in casual teaching and learning processes as in the modern educational management. This paper focuses on how to support educational processes with technologies. It is also answers several significant questions about effective blended learning support, especially at the administration level.

The Effective Factors of Professional Learning : Study on Accounting Firms in Korea

The purpose of this study is to substantiate the affecting factors of informal learning outcomes for professions in various dimensions of an individual and organization. In specific, the study analyzed the effects of learning motivation, job characteristics, and a supportive learning environment which have on task-related knowledge acquisition, adapting to organization and understanding contexts, relationship formation, and improving self-development-ability. The participants of the study were 261 professionals working at four major accounting firms in South Korea. Multiple regression models were applied step by step for analysis. In this study, the informal learning of professionals working at four major accounting firms is influenced by various factors of learning motivation, job characteristics, and a supportive learning environment. The detailed analysis results were as follows. Firstly, peer-support showed the most positive effect on task-related knowledge acquisition. Secondly, for adapting to organization and understanding contexts, task autonomy showed the greatest effect. Thirdly, peer-support was found to be the most important factor for relationship formation. Fourthly, for improving self-development ability, learning goal orientation showed to be the most important factor. The various factors facilitated the professional learning by empirical identification. The study presented practical implications for creating an effective informal learning support environment.

Textbook availability and use in Rwandan basic education: A mixed-methods study

Textbooks and related learning materials, such as workbooks and teacher guides, are widely assumed to be key inputs in effective schooling systems. Some recent statistical analyses have challenged the validity of such assumptions and highlighted the tendency for textbook availability to be used as a proxy for textbook use. However, few studies have explored whether textbooks are actually used, and if not, why not. This article aims to address this gap in the literature by presenting the findings from a nationwide survey of textbook use in Rwandan basic education and providing a detailed analysis of current use of textbooks in a range of Rwandan classroom settings and an exploration of the barriers to their effective use. Findings show that textbooks are infrequently used because of inconsistencies in the availability of textbooks for all learners and perceptions of the quality and accessibility of those books that are available. Conclusions suggest the implications for textbook development, distribution and use in Rwanda and point to the need for greater understanding of the complexities of the ways that textbooks can be used as effective learning support materials for all learners.

Facilitation of learning: part 2.

The previous article in this series of 11, Facilitation of learning: part 1, reviewed learning theories and how they relate to clinical practice. Developing an understanding of these theories is essential for mentors and practice teachers to enable them to deliver evidence-based learning support. This is important given that effective learning support is dependent on an educator who possesses knowledge of their specialist area as well as the relevent tools and methods to support learning. The second domain of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice relates to the facilitation of learning. To fulfil this domain, mentors and practice teachers are required to demonstrate their ability to recognise the needs of learners and provide appropriate support to meet those needs. This article expands on some of the discussions from part 1 of this article and considers these from a practical perspective, in addition to introducing some of the tools that can be used to support learning.

Why are we here? An Investigation of Academic, Employability and Social Facets of Business Undergraduates’ Motivation Using Thurstone Scaling

In the UK employability is a key university performance measure. This reflects both the tightening graduate employment market and the demands on the sector for greater accountability. The literature on employability considers the implications for institutions and the student motivation literature examines students’ intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientations. This exploratory study complements both areas of work by considering employability, currently deemed an all-pervasive extrinsic goal, as far as students’ motivation is concerned relative to the more conventional drivers of decisions to enter higher education; achieving academic success and social fulfilment. It aims to establish both the significance of employability as a motivating factor and ascertain the degree of association with the academic and social factors as well as profile variables. The research design applies Thurstone attitude scaling. Several hundred business undergraduates were asked to encapsulate why they were on their course. The responses were collated and scored by a set of judges against scales of academic, employability and social motivation. The judges’ scores were used to determine the most appropriate statements to use in the research instrument, which was then used to survey the attitudes of 75 students. The results suggest that employability is a significant aspect of students’ motivation and is associated with the academic and social aspects of motivation. This significance of employability suggests effective learning support strategies are likely to be those that are based on experiential and skill-driven learning alongside more tightly drawn cognitive approaches. The balance of motivational aspects can also inform institutions’ student recruitment.

Museum audios for design students: Auditory wallpaper or effective learning support?

This research explores a model for the design of learning resources on MP3 players for Higher Education (HE) design students in museums. Four downloadable audio files were developed, containing commentaries on permanent galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) by curators, design tutors, art and design practitioners, design students, and others. The audios were trialled with 21 students, who reported a wide range of ways in which the audios had affected their visit to the museum, mainly positive. This indicates that the use of multiple perspectives in the interpretation of museum objects and architecture, accessed on MP3 players, can form pedagogically effective learning materials for design students, which are technologically functional and easy to use. This model is adaptable to other contexts in art and design education.

Provision of Learning Support for University Students with Learning, Mental Health, and Other Forms of Hidden Disabilities

Much of the research on the topic of tertiary students with hidden disabilities has focused on attempting to understand the nature of these disabilities and their impact on students' academic performance. Very few studies have explored how effective learning support addresses the commonly reported problem of poor academic outcomes. Studies of the latter kind, however, are important in promoting not only learning at all levels - from the level of the students and their instructors, to those of institutional management and government policy makers - but also the development of effective institutional support mechanisms. This paper describes the support provisions of a university program that aims to facilitate better learning in students with hidden disabilities. Several indicators suggest that the program is achieving this aim. The increasing number of students using the program shows, among other things, that its support provisions are appropriate and are also viewed this way by students and referring agencies. An increasing proportion of students seeking not only assessment and accommodations, but also skills training, suggests that the program is succeeding in promoting student aspirations toward self-development and independent learning. Furthermore, student retention and pass rates indicate parity with other students, therefore addressing the issue of poorer academic performance of students with hidden disabilities. Three case studies illustrate the means by which Learning Advisors from the program assist students with hidden disabilities in meeting these students' learning development needs.

Forecasting of traffic origin NO and NO 2 concentrations by Support Vector Machines and neural networks using Principal Component Analysis

The main aim of this paper is to predict NO and NO 2 concentrations four days in advance comparing two artificial intelligence learning methods, namely, Multi-Layer Perceptron and Support Vector Machines on two kinds of spatial embedding of the temporal time series. Hourly values of NO and NO 2 concentrations, as well as meteorological variables were recorded in a cross-road monitoring station with heavy traffic in Szeged in order to build a model for predicting NO and NO 2 concentrations several hours in advance. The prediction of NO and NO 2 concentrations was performed partly on the basis of their past values, and partly on the basis of temperature, humidity and wind speed data. Since NO can be predicted more accurately, its values were considered primarily when forecasting NO 2. Time series prediction can be interpreted in a way that is suitable for artificial intelligence learning. Two effective learning methods, namely, Multi-Layer Perceptron and Support Vector Regression are used to provide efficient non-linear models for NO and NO 2 times series predictions. Multi-Layer Perceptron is widely used to predict these time series, but Support Vector Regression has not yet been applied for predicting NO and NO 2 concentrations. Grid search is applied to select the best parameters for the learners. To get rid of the curse of dimensionality of the spatial embedding of the time series Principal Component Analysis is taken to reduce the dimension of the embedded data. Three commonly used linear algorithms were considered as references: one-day persistence, average of several-day persistence and linear regression. Based on the good results of the average of several-day persistence, a prediction scheme was introduced, which forms weighted averages instead of simple ones. The optimization of these weights was performed with linear regression in linear case and with the learning methods mentioned in non-linear case. Concerning the NO predictions, the non-linear learning methods give significantly better predictions than the reference linear methods. In the case of NO 2 the improvement of the prediction is considerable; however, it is less notable than for NO.

Distance learning with MOODLE system: theoretical and practical aspects

The urgency of the issue, considered in the article, is determined by the world process of transition from industrial to information society and by social and economic evolution of Ukraine that demand essential changes in many spheres of the State activity. In order to achieve positive results, particularly in education, it is required to develop system of distance learning at a quick pace. This article considers and analyses distance learning system requirements in conditions of the educational institution and the choice of the most effective distance learning support system is grounded.

The behaviour of the multi-layer perceptron and the support vector regression learning methods in the prediction of NO and NO2 concentrations in Szeged, Hungary

The main aim of this paper is to predict NO and NO2 concentrations 4 days in advance by comparing two artificial intelligence learning methods, namely, multi-layer perceptron and support vector machines, on two kinds of spatial embedding of the temporal time series. Hourly values of NO and NO2 concentrations, as well as meteorological variables were recorded in a cross-road monitoring station with heavy traffic in Szeged, in order to build a model for predicting NO and NO2 concentrations several hours in advance. The prediction of NO and NO2 concentrations was performed partly on the basis of their past values, and partly on the basis of temperature, humidity and wind speed data. Since NO can be predicted more accurately, its values were considered primarily when forecasting NO2. Time series prediction can be interpreted in a way that is suitable for artificial intelligence learning. Two effective learning methods, namely, multi-layer perceptron and support vector regression are used to provide efficient non-linear models for NO and NO2 time series predictions. Multi-layer perceptron is widely used to predict these time series, but support vector regression has not yet been applied for predicting NO and NO2 concentrations. Three commonly used linear algorithms were considered as references: 1-day persistence, average of several day persistence and linear regression. Based on the good results of the average of several day persistence, a prediction scheme was introduced, which forms weighted averages instead of simple ones. The optimization of these weights was performed with linear regression in linear case and with the learning methods mentioned in non-linear case. Concerning the NO predictions, the non-linear learning methods give significantly better predictions than the reference linear methods. In the case of NO2, the improvement of the prediction is considerable, however, it is less notable than for NO.

Supporting off‐shore students: a preliminary study

This paper reports on the first part of a recent research study into current initiatives to support the learning of non‐English speaking background (NESB) transnational students in Asia who are studying off‐shore at Australian universities. Learning support and development staff in 12 universities were surveyed using a questionnaire. The survey yielded data on the varied modes of learning support for transnational students, many of which are Web‐based; their perceived effectiveness; their evaluation status and the number and nature of those with a focus on assisting students to avoid plagiarism. The questionnaire elicited responses about future plans, challenges and barriers in relation to the effective learning support of transnational students. Critical themes to emerge were: the importance of person‐to‐person contact; embedding of learning resources into course delivery; interventions to assist students to avoid plagiarism that acknowledge cultural factors; the need for planning, professional development; adequate resources and attitudinal change.

PROVISION OF STUDENT LEARNING SUPPORT SERVICES IN A LARGE-SCALE DISTANCE EDUCATION SYSTEM AT UNIVERSITAS TERBUKA, INDONESIA

This paper addresses the practice and experience of Universitas Terbuka (UT) in the provision of learning support services for students in a large-scale distance education system. The UT, which has a network of 37 regional offices and participating institutions, has challenges to provide and manage effective learning support system for more than 340,000 students, residing in various locations of Indonesia, a country with diverse level of the quality in terms of transportation, communication and technological infrastructure and facilities. UT has developed a systematic learning support system for distance students on the considerations that students’ independent and autonomous learning effort have to be enhanced with institutional support, which is managed centrally from the Headquarters as well as regionally by each of the Regional Offices throughout the country. UT student learning support system includes services such as tutorial, academic advising and counselling, study group activity, academic administration services for students, and organisation of student activities. Regional Offices has central roles in managing, implementing and networking with local partners to ensure the effectiveness of learning support at frontline level, even though policies are set at the Head Office. The aim of systematic learning support in distance education is to facilitate quality student learning process suited to students’ learning needs and flexibility, and ensure that students proceed their learning activities through access to various means of learning support.

Linear and Nonlinear Schemes in the Prediction of Urban NO and NO2 Concentrations

ISEE-105 Objective: Because of the harmful effects of the traffic-induced nitric oxide on human health, it is important to have reliable methods enabling the prediction of its concentrations several hours in advance, so that the public authorities could avoid the harmful consequences of severe air pollution episodes. The aim of the paper was to predict NO and NO2 concentrations 4 days in advance comparing 2 artificial intelligence learning methods, namely, multilayer perceptron (MLP) and support vector machines (SVM) on 2 kinds of spatial embedding of the temporal time series. Material and Methods: Hourly values of NO and NO2 concentrations, as well as meteorological variables were recorded in a cross-road monitoring station with heavy traffic in Szeged to build a model for predicting NO and NO2 concentrations several hours in advance. Two effective learning methods, namely, MLP and Support Vector Regression (SVR), were used to provide efficient nonlinear models for NO and NO2 time-series predictions. MLP is widely used to predict these time series, but SVR has not yet been applied for predicting NO and NO2 concentrations. Results: According to the experiments, the applied forecasting techniques can perform well for the prediction of NO and NO2 concentrations. Although MLP improved the results of the best reference algorithms by 5% to 11% for NO prediction, it could not improve those for NO2 prediction. SVR showed 20% to 30% improvement for NO prediction and 2% to 14% for NO2 prediction. Conclusions: Undoubtedly, the application of machine-learning techniques mentioned above can be relatively simple and is worth using. Concerning the NO predictions, the nonlinear learning methods give significantly better predictions than the reference linear methods. In the case of NO2 the improvement of the prediction is considerable; however, it is less notable than for NO.

Enabling organizational learning

It is clear from studies of organizations and a considerable body of anecdotal evidence that organizational life is strongly influenced by organizational leaders. In particular, the vision, style of leadership and motivation that enables them to “make things happen” and inspire others to follow their direction. Reviews recent contributions to the literature on aspects of organizational learning and considers how organizational processes might encompass effective learning support for individuals and groups of learners. Draws from articles published between 1994‐1996 in seven journals: Executive Development; Journal of Organizational Change Management; Journal of Management Development; Leadership & Organization Development Journal; Management Development Review; The Journal of Workplace Learning; The Learning Organization. Concentrates on three areas: organizational vision; leadership and motivation; organizational change and performance. Concludes with a summary of the implications for organizational learning.

Are integrated learning systems effective learning support tools?

The following summary presents the key findings of an evaluation of a 6 month trial of one Integrated Learning System (ILS) in nine U.K. Schools, conducted by the School of Education, Leicester University. The pupils in the target population ranged from 8 to 13 years of age. The evaluation design was based on the comparison of outcome performance in mathematics (basic numeracy) and reading for designated experimental and control groups in five schools, although additional data from all nine schools enriched this central core of data. In addition the evaluators monitored pupil behaviour. There were significant learning gains in the ILS treatment group for mathematics (basic numeracy) compared to the Control group. However, no such gains were recorded for reading. There were no discernible differences in patterns of attendance at school for ILS and Control groups. In general, behaviour was good when using the ILS with higher time on task and a calmer working atmosphere than in the standard classroom. There was some indication that this improved behaviour transferred to the standard classroom over time.

CAL in music designed for use with a companion text

In America today computer-assisted learning programs in music are few, consist entirely of subject matter related to the most fundamental elements of music, and represent a fragmented and disorganized group of isolated studies. Since several published music theory and ear training texts are comprehensive in scope, incorporate all necessary expository material, and already contain student assignments ideally suited to the computer, two such texts (one for theory and one for ear training) were selected as the basis for an extensive project aimed at the 2-year college-level theory course for professional musicians and music educators. A 2-year experimental period (1979–1981) comprising considerable student input, thorough research, and frequent failures, culminated in a series of 120 theory and 93 ear-training programs to accompany the texts, Music in Theory and Practice, volumes 1 and 2, and Ear Training, a Technique for Listening. With a standard Apple II and a music synthesizer board, capable of playing and displaying up to four simultaneous voices on the screen, the programs are created from the objective assignments in the texts and incorporate features students found most desirable. Tutorial assistance was the single element considered most important by students, so considerable research time was expended to insure substantial and effective learning support. Completed in the summer of 1982 these programs were instituted that fall at the University of Wisconsin School of Music. A full-scale statistical analysis is scheduled for September 1983, but some indicators are already emerging: 1. (1) Since the computer tutorials have proven very effective, instructors find relief in the much-reduced tasks of hand-grading weekly assignments and providing individual “help” sessions. 2. (2) Students learn faster, thus permitting greater in-depth concentration. 3. (3) Desirable features most often mentioned by students:are: (1) instant feedback, (2) extended tutorials, (3) 14-h daily availability of CAL and (4) the opportunity to retake failed ear-training tests on the computer. Similar (but not the same) tests were provided.