Global Learning Environment Research Articles

Exploring a Vision for a Global Literacy and Learning Environment: Addressing the Needs of Economically and Culturally Diverse Student Populations Through the Arts

Exploring a Vision for a Global Literacy and Learning Environment: Addressing the Needs of Economically and Culturally Diverse Student Populations Through the Arts

Designing a Global Learning Environment

The increase in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other “in-the-moment” learning opportunities suggests the need for an understanding of how to effectively design the global learning environment, which includes more than the content, but also includes the modes of delivery or instructional design, as well as the environment in which the learner receives the content. Therefore, not only must the learning environment match the learning content, but also the technologies used and the characteristics of the learners (e.g., engagement, self-regulated learning). Additionally, the likelihood that online learners are multitasking while interacting with the learning material makes it important to understand other aspects of the learners’ selected environment. Unfortunately, there is little research on the learners’ environment in which the student interacts with the online materials. The purpose of this panel is to address and highlight these issues and offer suggestions for designing effective global learning environments.

Adaptive Global Innovative Learning Environment for Glioblastoma: GBM AGILE.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a deadly disease with few effective therapies. Although much has been learned about the molecular characteristics of the disease, this knowledge has not been translated into clinical improvements for patients. At the same time, many new therapies are being developed. Many of these therapies have potential biomarkers to identify responders. The result is an enormous amount of testable clinical questions that must be answered efficiently. The GBM Adaptive Global Innovative Learning Environment (GBM AGILE) is a novel, multi-arm, platform trial designed to address these challenges. It is the result of the collective work of over 130 oncologists, statisticians, pathologists, neurosurgeons, imagers, and translational and basic scientists from around the world. GBM AGILE is composed of two stages. The first stage is a Bayesian adaptively randomized screening stage to identify effective therapies based on impact on overall survival compared with a common control. This stage also finds the population in which the therapy shows the most promise based on clinical indication and biomarker status. Highly effective therapies transition in an inferentially seamless manner in the identified population to a second confirmatory stage. The second stage uses fixed randomization to confirm the findings from the first stage to support registration. Therapeutic arms with biomarkers may be added to the trial over time, while others complete testing. The design of GBM AGILE enables rapid clinical testing of new therapies and biomarkers to speed highly effective therapies to clinical practice. Clin Cancer Res; 24(4); 737-43. ©2017 AACR.

Highlighting Advances in the Treatment of Gliomas

Highlighting Advances in the Treatment of Gliomas

Global informal learning environments and the making of Chinese middle class

This paper engages with the ways in which formal learning environments increasingly have to compete with informal ones, where such informal learning environments can be seen as penetrations from global ‘scapes’ into local conditions of circulation and uptake of semiotic resources. The study is based on close observation of a group of upwardly mobile Chinese consumers who have access to informal learning environments and acquire discourses to express their tastes in cultural goods. As effects of their access to the informal learning environments, the informants expand their identity repertoires and bind one space to another through their sociocultural practices. Such identity effects are the outcome of scaled forms of access to globally circulating semiotic resources whose indexical value needs to be enacted, renegotiated, and learned. In explaining the rescaling of the informants, access to informal global learning environments is as important as their access to advanced formal education, and the combination of such scaled resources informs their emergence as a globally recognizable middle class.

Profiling medical school learning environments in Malaysia: a validation study of the Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale.

Purpose:While a strong learning environment is critical to medical student education, the assessment of medical school learning environments has confounded researchers. Our goal was to assess the validity and utility of the Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES) for preclinical students at three Malaysian medical schools with distinct educational and institutional models. Two schools were new international partnerships, and the third was school leaver program established without international partnership. Methods:First- and second-year students responded anonymously to surveys at the end of the academic year. The surveys included the JHLES, a 28-item survey using five-point Likert scale response options, the Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM), the most widely used method to assess learning environments internationally, a personal growth scale, and single-item global learning environment assessment variables.Results:The overall response rate was 369/429 (86%). After adjusting for the medical school year, gender, and ethnicity of the respondents, the JHLES detected differences across institutions in four out of seven domains (57%), with each school having a unique domain profile. The DREEM detected differences in one out of five categories (20%). The JHLES was more strongly correlated than the DREEM to two thirds of the single-item variables and the personal growth scale. The JHLES showed high internal reliability for the total score (α=0.92) and the seven domains (α, 0.56-0.85). Conclusion:The JHLES detected variation between learning environment domains across three educational settings, thereby creating unique learning environment profiles. Interpretation of these profiles may allow schools to understand how they are currently supporting trainees and identify areas needing attention.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Self-Regulated Learning in Massive Open Online Courses on Non-Native English Speakers

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are expanding the scope of online distance learning in the creation of a cross-country global learning environment. For learners worldwide, MOOCs offer a wealth of online learning resources. However, such a diversified environment makes the learning process complicated and challenging. To achieve their objectives, learners need to adapt regulation strategies based on different situations in the process, which is called self-regulated learning. Previous research findings emphasize that self-efficacy is one of the key factors that influences self-regulated learning. Currently MOOCs are primarily offered in English, but many students are non-native English speakers. For these learners, English serves as a cross-language and cross-cultural communication medium, and English self-efficacy is a defining element affecting this language application. To further examine the impact of English self-efficacy on self-regulated learning, this study uses non-native English learners in MOOCs as test subjects. It is evident that there is a positive and significant correlation between non-English learners' self-efficacy and self-regulated learning in MOOCs; the higher the English self-efficacy, the better use of self-regulated learning strategies. This study aims to offer some insight into self-regulated learning strategies of non-native English speakers taking MOOCs, so relevant instructors can subsequently provide more suitable and effective learning methods.

Learning environment assessments of a single curriculum being taught at two medical schools 10,000 miles apart.

BackgroundPerdana University Graduate School of Medicine (PUGSOM), the first graduate-entry medical school in Malaysia, was established in 2011 in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), an American medical school. This study compared learning environments (LE) at these two schools, which shared the same overarching curriculum, along with a comparator Malaysian medical school, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences (CUCMS). As a secondary aim, we compared 2 LE assessment tools - the widely-used Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) and the newer Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES).MethodsStudents responded anonymously at the end of their first year of medical school to surveys which included DREEM, JHLES, single-item global LE assessment variables, and demographics questions.ResultsRespondents included 24/24 (100 %) students at PUGSOM, 100/120 (83 %) at JHUSOM, and 79/83 (95 %) at CUCMS. PUGSOM had the highest overall LE ratings (p < 0.05) [DREEM 155.3 (SD 21.3); JHLES 116.5 (SD 12.2)], followed by JHUSOM [DREEM 143.3 (SD 22.5); JHLES 111.7 (SD 12.0)] and CUCMS [DREEM 138.5 (SD 22.4); JHLES 106.4 (SD 14.5)]. PUGSOM’s overall high LE ratings were driven by responses in “perception of teaching,” “meaningful engagement,” and “acceptance and safety” domains. JHLES detected significant differences across schools in 5/7 domains and had stronger correlations than DREEM to each global LE assessment variable.ConclusionsThe inaugural class of medical students at PUGSOM rated their LE exceptionally highly, providing evidence that transporting a medical school curriculum may be successful. The JHLES showed promise as a LE assessment tool for use in international settings.

Psicologia da educação e as tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação

O objetivo deste estudo é discutir repercussões das Tecnologias Digitais de Informação e Comunicação (TDICs) no campo da Psicologia da Educação. O estudo é teórico e está amparado numa revisão narrativa da literatura científica que analisou diferentes fontes de evidência presentes em livros, artigos e simpósios. As publicações destacam a flexibilização de espaços como as salas de aula, a ocorrência dos processos de ensino-aprendizagem em diferentes locais e situações e a assunção de ambientes globais de aprendizagem, em que o desenvolvimento das tecnologias móveis e das redes sem fio amplia as possibilidades da prática pedagógica. Ressalta-se a importância do papel do professor na assimilação das TDICs pela Educação e no seu uso de modo reflexivo. Conclui-se que o escopo da Psicologia da Educação é suficientemente amplo para abarcar essas mudanças, mas ela deve produzir conhecimentos que possam contribuir no diálogo entre os saberes psicológicos, práticas educacionais e tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação.

From homogeneity to heterogeneity: the multicultural future of higher education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for educators when adapting their pedagogy to suit the increasingly diverse international student body. Design/methodology/approach – Archival analysis was conducted at three levels: students’ teaching style preference; epistemology of the students’ home culture; and national sociocultural dimensions. Findings – The study elucidates the importance of recognizing heterogeneity rather than homogeneity of the increasingly international student body. It extends understanding of sociocultural underpinnings of different student learning styles and encourages educators to increase their cultural empathy to adapt their pedagogy. Originality/value – This paper helps forge the way to a truly global learning environment. Understanding, adapting to and celebrating the differences among international students helps to create more inclusive learning about our global community.

Global Climate Exchange: Peer collaboration in a “Global classroom”

This paper reports on student peer collaboration in an online environment in an international shared curriculum, the Global Climate Exchange. Four cohorts of students (age 16 -19) from Canada, China, Norway and Sweden (n=157) were engaged in four wiki-based activities where they collaborated with peers locally and internationally. Previously, impact from Global Climate Exchange on students’ conceptual understanding was analysed, indicating a positive impact which might be explained by the amount of interactions with peers and international peer collaboration. This paper looks further into the details of the students’ peer interactions in terms of how they communicate in the online Global Climate Exchange learning environment. The study revealed that communication between international peers might be more constructive than when communication is limited to national peers. This might be a possible explanation for our previously findings indicating that international peer collaboration may well be an approach to enhance students’ conceptual understanding of climate change.

Nursing Students in a Global Learning Environment

Two tools were created to help international students to better understand culture by becoming more astute observers of nonverbal behaviors, particularly behaviors depicting emotions among Norwegian students. The two tools were a trilingual list of words illustrating emotions and an exercise with images to practice verbalizing their observations of emotional expression. Students compared the subdued behaviors of Norwegians to the Israelis' very vivid behaviors. The intense emotional expression of Israelis influenced their interpretations. By making comparisons and through the experiences with Israelis, they learned more about culture and their own emotional expression. Creative strategies can contribute to students understanding and reflection of patients in a different culture. Encouraging students to grasp the nuances of emotional expression is part of understanding a different culture. Students, like faculty, learn that self-exploration is an evolving process that requires checking out one's assumptions and interpretations.

Place Existing Online Business Communication Classes into the International Context: Social Presence from Potential Learners' Perspectives

Recent scholarship on global online courses points to the need to examine the issue of social context in an online global learning environment. To explore global learners' cultural perspectives on the social climate of an online class, we first review the social presence theory—which can be used to examine the social climate in an online classroom, and explain factors that contribute to learners' social presence. Then we report findings of a survey conducted among a group of Chinese business students and discuss specific aspects of an online business communication class which might contribute to enhancing global learners' sense of social presence in an online environment. We conclude the study by explaining the present study's implications for delivering effective online business and technical communication courses with global learners and recommending strategies for increasing global audiences' social presence in an online class created by the instructor and the online community.

Two frameworks for preparing teachers for the shift from local to global educational environments

The research outlined in this paper is based on the convergence of two conceptual frameworks that guide the transfer of knowledge and skills from traditional teacher education, which focused on teaching in single classrooms, to open networked learning environments that include both inter-institutional teaching and learning and local and global community engagement. Through these frameworks, schools can be extended in terms of time, space, organisation, and capacity. This will be demonstrated on the basis of New Zealand research in inner-city urban environments and Canadian research in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. There are implications for the professional education of teachers from schools that have the capacity to engage with global learning environments including new ways of relating to learners, learners’ parents, networks and communities. Several of these implications will be analysed in the conclusion of the paper and should generate discussion that will inform current and future research.

Student uses of technology in learning: two lenses

PurposeIn their 2007 article, “Miranda in the brave new world: learning in a Web 2.0 millennium”, Barnes and Tynan tell the story of an imaginary British student who uses technology seamlessly to stay connected almost 24×7 with friends, peers and teachers in a global learning environment. Whether she is representative of the majority of university students is a topic of debate in the literature. This paper aims to explore how students use technologies in their everyday lives, whether on‐ or off‐campus, to support their learning.Design/methodology/approachThere were two phases of the study; a photo ethnography to enable a detailed exploration of ten students' technology uses and then a university‐wide survey in which 1,104 student responses were gathered.FindingsThe findings of both phases of the study suggest that students' use of technologies for their learning and in other facets of their lives is largely conservative, with a predominance of familiar and easy‐to‐use tools such as e‐mail, text and mobile phone. For their learning, their preference is for tools to provide access, efficiency and connectedness.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the development of a better understanding of student issues in the context of their overall IT experience at the university, suggesting a more holistic approach to designing technology infrastructure. There are also insights into the power of mixed methodologies in research, with significant parallels between the qualitative and quantitative results.

`What Price Respect` - Exploring The Notion Of Respect In A 21st Century Global Learning Environment

This paper evaluates the meaning of respect in a 21st century global learning environment, with a view to exploring the implications for promoting harmonious working relationships among students of culturally diverse ethnic backgrounds in the classroom. Research conducted since 2005 that investigates the understanding, meaning and experience of respect between final-year undergraduate students on a consulting to business module, provides the context for this paper. The methodology consists of the following four consulting teams of volunteer focus groups, comprising of between four and seven students each, over a two year period of the study that includes two phases (based on two focus groups per phase). Each team is made-up of students from different ethnic minorities and cultures and of mixed genders, aged between 22 and 43 years. The focus group sessions are conducted weekly or fortnightly over a 28 week period (the life of a module in an academic year) with each session lasting 30 minutes or an hour, which are also videoed. These focus groups are facilitated using a collaborative dialogue research approach which as acknowledged by Kitzinger 1995 who stated that “although group interviews are often used simply as a quick and convenient way to collect data from several people simultaneously, focus groups explicitly use group interaction as part of the method” and share stories of respect and disrespect as they emerge and affect them. I draw on the work of Prado (2006), Cohen (2001), Langdon (2007) and Noddings (2005) to explore definitions of respect research and provide a framework for discussion and analysis. I intend to disseminate findings from this research that reviews perceptions and attitudes to respect and their impact on beliefs and behaviour of the students in the study. The aim is to improve interaction and dialogue while promoting a positive approach to cultural difference. A review of historical concepts of respect is conducted to determine its influence in today’s 21st century global age. An exploration of key factors regarding the notion of respect will also be discussed. Langdon (2007) intimates that research evidence indicates that whilst acknowledgement of respect is frequently reputed to be the driving force in improving situations where there is conflict or a need for dialogue, there is limited evidence to show that its relevance and effects have been assessed. This is something I intend to do in this paper. Findings to date indicate that respect is an important shared value for members from culturally diverse learning environments. The research findings also show that respect has a common meaning for those with similar cultural upbringing. That is, those students from collectivist societies (using Hofstede 2001, `Three levels of Human Mental Programming` Values and Culture mode model). According to Hofstede, (ibid) “at the collective level, most or all of our mental programming is learned, which is shown by the fact that we share it with people who have gone through the same learning processes but who do not have the same genetic makeup”. Those from collectivist societies are therefore likely to exhibit the same or similar attitudes and behaviour towards respect such as, respect for extended family members and for members from their minority ethnic group. Initial findings suggest that these behavioural characteristics remain fairly consistent over different generations though marginal change is evident amongst second generations. This suggests that perceptions of respect are culturally situated and reinforced and can make behavioural change problematic. However, an awareness of difference based on facts, qualitative experience, rather than fiction or stereotypes are possible drivers for a positive approach to respect that can shift behaviours and mental models which Senge (2006) refers to as “internal pictures of how the world work” (pp. 163). The significance of respect from a global educational perspective is therefore crucial in society today.

Radical transparency: Open access as a key concept in wiki pedagogy

&lt;span&gt;Educators have just started to use wikis and most of the educational research to date has focused primarily on the use of local wikis with access limitations. There seems to be little research related to how students can contribute in global, transparent wiki communities such as&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt; and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wikibooks&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt;. The purpose of this article is to argue that we need to extend our understanding of transparency as a pedagogical concept if we want to use these open, global wiki communities in an educational setting. By describing one wiki based course in detail, I argue that these kinds of radically transparent learning environments in tertiary education challenge traditional pedagogy and our ordinary perceptions of what a class and working assignment is. The course data in this article include a course description and teacher and student reflections on assessed group projects which produced "student written, collaboratively edited textbooks" on &lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wikibooks&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt;. Student perceptions indicate positive attitudes towards global learning environments, if the didactical design is carefully planned. In the article I suggest that "outsiders" and "former and future students" should be included as categories in a pedagogical definition of transparency. These categories represent a radical expansion of course space and course availability.&lt;/span&gt;

An Investigation on Semantic Web-based Business Support: Ontology development and inference framework for the course recommendation

As a fundamental knowledge source in a global learning environment, it is feasible to apply the relational database management systems (RDBMS), object-oriented database management systems (OODBMS), and other traditional DBMS. However, the traditional DBMSs are not feasible in semantic knowledge/ontology representation and inference. One of the reasonable ways to overcome the limitations is the semantic web-based business support framework. Especially, in this study, we focused on the development of semantic web ontology and natural language (NL)-based inference framework. To validate the efficiency of the proposed framework, we considered a reasonable scenario for course recommendation in a university.

Crossing Global Boundaries: Beyond Intercultural Communication

This article analyzes the benefits of experiential learning in cross-disciplinary global learning environments by recounting work in the Global Classroom Project, which electronically links students and professors from Russia and America. The author asserts that students learn by experience what cannot be taught and claims that they benefit from synthesizing the viewpoints, ideologies, and frames of reference of diverse co-participants. In doing so, students prepare for a future in which synthetic thinking that leads to innovative, imaginative problem solving and invention will be desirable and necessary.

Students’ perception of the learning environment in a distributed medical programme

Background: The learning environment of a medical school has a significant impact on students’ achievements and learning outcomes. The importance of equitable learning environments across programme sites is implicit in distributed undergraduate medical programmes being developed and implemented.Purpose: To study the learning environment and its equity across two classes and three geographically separate sites of a distributed medical programme at the University of British Columbia Medical School that commenced in 2004.Method: The validated Dundee Ready Educational Environment Survey was sent to all students in their 2nd and 3rd year (classes graduating in 2009 and 2008) of the programme. The domains of the learning environment surveyed were: students’ perceptions of learning, students’ perceptions of teachers, students’ academic self-perceptions, students’ perceptions of the atmosphere, and students’ social self-perceptions. Mean scores, frequency distribution of responses, and inter- and intrasite differences were calculated.Results: The perception of the global learning environment at all sites was more positive than negative. It was characterised by a strongly positive perception of teachers. The work load and emphasis on factual learning were perceived negatively. Intersite differences within domains of the learning environment were more evident in the pioneer class (2008) of the programme. Intersite differences consistent across classes were largely related to on-site support for students.Conclusions: Shared strengths and weaknesses in the learning environment at UBC sites were evident in areas that were managed by the parent institution, such as the attributes of shared faculty and curriculum. A greater divergence in the perception of the learning environment was found in domains dependent on local arrangements and social factors that are less amenable to central regulation. This study underlines the need for ongoing comparative evaluation of the learning environment at the distributed sites and interaction between leaders of these sites.