In-class Use Research Articles

Teachers' competence: How to protect teachers' mental health from the burden caused by students' private in-class use of technical devices?

The current study investigated how students' private in-class use of technical devices is associated with teachers' mental health. Data of 361 teachers from primary and secondary schools in Germany were assessed via online surveys. The present cross-sectional results show a positive association between burden caused by the students' private in-class use of technical devices and teachers' depression symptoms. Both were negatively linked to teachers' positive mental health (PMH) and teachers' competence in handling students' private in-class use of technical devices. In a moderated mediation analysis, the association between burden and depression symptoms was mediated by PMH. Teachers' competence moderated the link between PMH and depression symptoms. Specifically, the higher the competence, the weaker the relationship between both variables. Thus, the protective effect of teachers' competence could be especially important in persons with low PMH. Competence training in handling students' use of technical devices is discussed as a potential step that could protect teachers' mental health.

Sideffect GamePlan: Development of an alcohol and other drug serious game for high school students using a systematic and iterative user-centred game development framework

Serious games have shown to be effective in improving motivation to learn, knowledge and retention, thus are being increasingly used for alcohol and other drug (AOD) education. This paper outlines the development of an online AOD serious game for in-class use by Australian secondary school teachers for students in Years 9–10. Adapted from Edwards et al. (2018), the seven-step systematic and iterative user-centred development framework included: (1) Forming an expert multidisciplinary design team, (2) Defining the problem and establishing user preferences, (3) Incorporating the evidence base, (4) Serious game design, (5) Incorporating behavioural and psychological theory, (6) Developing a logic model and investigating causal pathways, and (7) User testing. High school students (n = 8), health and physical education teachers (n = 7), and parents (n = 8) were engaged throughout different stages of the development process to inform development and provide feedback on considerations for promoting engagement, acceptability, and usability of the game amongst both students and teachers. Overall, participants rated game acceptability and usability favourably and would recommend the game for learning about AOD. Constructive feedback and suggestions for improvements from user testing sessions were implemented to form the final version of the game and module. The next step is to test Sideffect GamePlan in a simulated classroom environment before piloting in school settings.

Integrating Communication Skills, Awareness of Self and Others, and Reflective Feedback into One Inclusive Anatomical Representation of Relationship-Centered Health Care.

The American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education mandates in standard 11 that all accredited colleges of veterinary medicine must develop and deliver formal processes by which students are observed and assessed in nine competencies. The eighth competency combines clinical communication and sensitivity toward soliciting and understanding individual narratives across a diverse clientele to facilitate health care delivery. Several frameworks have been designed to structure health care consultations for teaching and coaching purposes. The Calgary-Cambridge guide (CCG) provides an evidence-based approach to outlining the flow of consultations, incorporating foundational communication skills and elements of relationship-centered care into a series of sequential tasks. Although the CCG was intended for use as a flexible tool kit, it lacks visible connections between concrete experiences (e.g., the consultation) and reflective observation (e.g., the feedback). This teaching tip describes the development of a novel anatomical representation of the consultation that integrates process elements of the CCG with other core curricular concepts. By combining knowledge, technical skills, critical thinking, reflection, cultural humility, and self-awareness into a skeletal consultation model, linkages are established between communication and intergroup dialogue skills and diversity and inclusion (D&I). This model has been further adapted as feline, caprine, porcine, equine, avian, and reptilian versions for in-class use as strategic visual aids that highlight key areas of focus for Professional Skills class sessions. Future developments by the authors will explore how to link species-specific consultation models to assessment rubrics to reinforce the connection between content (what) and process (how).

The impact of intelligent personal assistants on learners’ autonomous learning of second language listening and speaking

ABSTRACT Research has revealed the positive impact of intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) on L2 learners’ oral development and learning attitude. These studies, however, focused mostly on the in-class use of IPAs, with existing research on the out-of-class use being exploratory. To fill the gap of lacking empirical investigations on IPA-based autonomous second language learning (ASLL), this study recruited 34 college EFL learners to use Google Assistant (GA) in their respective homes for six weeks and examined their listening and speaking development afterwards. Each week, participants received an email about the new commands for them to explore, and half of them were additionally given sustained teacher guidance (i.e. weekly evaluation forms) on the usefulness of each command to better enhance their participation. Statistical analysis on the participants’ learning gains demonstrated that participants receiving weekly evaluation forms made significant improvement in both listening and speaking skills, and they even outperformed those without weekly evaluation forms in their oral development. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference in the two groups’ listening gains. These findings demonstrate that, with sustained teacher guidance, IPAs have great potential in L2 oral development in ASLL context, but more long-term studies on IPAs’ impact for L2 listening should be conducted.

Technology in ELT contexts: does Google Classroom provide satisfactory online classrooms climate for university students?

For more than two decades, online learning has been employed to replace f2f instructions. GC has widely recognized to manage digital learning environment. While extensive research has investigated digital classroom mediated by GoogleClassroom (GC), there is paucity of research exploring participants’ views about GC-mediated online learning situated in Indonesian higher education (HE) contexts. We employed a sequential-explanatory research (Creswell, 2018; 2014) intended to explore in-depth the undergraduate students’ perceptions about the in-class use of Google Classroom in EFL settings. There were six (N=6) undergraduate students from private Indonesia university consented to participate in this study. We administered a web-based five point Likert scale questionnaire to collect any necessary data. Also, a semi-structured interview was conducted to explore their in-depth feelings to the selected participants. The results indicated that GC offered enormous potential benefits for organizing online teaching-learning processes. Implications, conclusions, limitations, and recommendations were then discussed.

The Student Self-Accommodation Strategy for Students With Visual Impairments

Introduction Accommodations are essential for the successful participation of individuals with visual impairments in post-secondary education and employment. Passive experiences with accommodations in school, plus a complex advocacy process warrant the need to support students to engage in the accommodations process. Methods Four high school students with visual impairments were taught the Student Self-Accommodation Strategy. A parallel multiple-case design was used to determine how and how well the participants learned and used the strategy and to investigate their development of metacognitive knowledge and self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. Results The participants all learned the strategy to varying extents. The cross-case analysis revealed that recall and understanding the purpose of the strategy supported strategy performance but were not associated with in-class use of the strategy. Additionally, participants did not experience changes with metacognition or SRL; however, they did demonstrate metacognitive knowledge on multiple data sources, with few demonstrations of SRL. Discussion Findings indicate that the Student Self-Accommodation Strategy is accessible to students with visual impairments. Three factors seemed to be associated with the learning and use of the strategy: verbal and reasoning skills, achievement, and emotional-behavioral regulation. Metacognition and SRL can positively affect students with visual impairments. Implications Future work with the Student Self-Accommodation Strategy should incorporate in-class strategy coaching and an explicit investigation of the factors that seemed to influence strategy learning and performance. Research and practice should give greater attention to metacognition and SRL for students with visual impairments.

Formative Feedback with In-Class Question Bank Utilization Improves Resident Satisfaction with General Surgery Didactics.

BackgroundFormative feedback provides low-stakes opportunities for educational improvement. To enrich our basic science didactics, formative feedback measures were incorporated into our didactics using mobile devices.Materials and MethodsLecture changes included institutional paid access to a commercial question bank, a 5-item in-class pre-didactic quiz curated from the question bank and taken on the resident’s mobile device, and group discussion of quiz topics. An anonymous survey was sent to participating residents.ResultsOverall response rate was 71% among residents. All reported that the new lecture format was a valuable addition to the basic science curriculum (100% Agree/Strongly Agree), and formative assessments provided valuable feedback about the progress of their learning (Strongly Agree = 42%, Agree =58%). All residents reported that in-class use of their mobile device for quizzes was convenient, with majority (84%) preferring it over paper printouts. Residents were more motivated to study before lecture (Strongly Agree = 42%, Agree =42%), with majority also reporting the new format helped identify weaknesses in their knowledgebase (Strongly Agree = 58%, Agree =33%). While majority of residents agreed that quizzes motivated them to study more after lecture, a large portion disagreed (42%). Majority of senior residents reported that the process of composing quizzes prior to lecture enriched their own learning (57%) and helped them find gaps in their knowledge (71%).ConclusionIncorporating a commercial question bank within didactics gives general surgery residents formative feedback and encourages learning outside the classroom, leading to improved satisfaction with basic science didactics.

“Do You Think You Have What it Takes?” – Exploring Predictors of Pre-Service Teachers’ Prospective ICT Use

Despite extensive efforts to support teachers with the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into their classroom practice, current research reports that teachers face immense challenges when integrating ICT into their teaching. This issue has become even more relevant with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, forcing schools around the world to close for an indefinite period of time and thus to offer remote digital learning solutions. Against this background, this study focused on examining the predictors of pre-service teachers’ prospective ICT use and investigated the heterogeneous results of previous research related to ICT use and gender. Following the ‘will, skill, tool’ framework, the study examined relevant factors of pre-service teachers’ (N = 103) prospective ICT use for teaching and learning processes by means of multiple regression analyses. The analyses included pre-service teachers’ background characteristics, ICT profiles (attitudes and self-efficacy), digital competencies and use of digital tools in order to explore their role in future in-class use of ICT. They also show that there are no gender differences in pre-service teachers’ prospective ICT integration. However, male pre-service teachers hold more positive attitudes towards ICT use than their female counterparts. Additionally, the findings reveal that the two strongest predictors of pre-service teachers’ future ICT use are their attitudes and perceived competency to teach and implement technology in their teaching practices. Finally, the results provide important information about teachers’ training needs. Implications of the results and further research are discussed.

Links between in-class use of social media and school adjustment of high-school pupils

The present study was conducted to assess the links between in-class use of social media and academic and social school adjustment of high school students attending 9th and 10th grade in Lithuania. Participants included 216 girls and 103 boys aged 14 to 17 years (M = 15.60) attending high schools in the second largest city of Lithuania. Participants filled questionnaires concerning their use of social media during class time and social adjustment at school. Also, schools provided data on current academic adjustment of participants. The results indicated that more time spent using social networking sites during classes was linked to lower grade point average, more missed classes, and poorer relationships with peers.

Learning English mediated by Kahoot: Insights from the Indonesian EFL instructors

Now, EFL pedagogical practices have gradually transformed from traditional classrooms into digital learning. Within this context, mobile devices have now been considered as an auspicious medium for future learning. This study investigated how EFL instructors from different secondary education institutions viewed the in-class use of Kahoot in English-language classrooms. To this end, they were invited to fill a 13-items web-based questionnaire covering several categories: factual, behavioral, and attitudinal. Twenty-seven (n=27) Indonesian EFL instructors in secondary education at both public and private high schools mostly located in East Java, Indonesia, voluntarily participated in this present study by completing the online survey. The results indicated that participants mostly demonstrated positive feelings toward the utilization of Kahoot in EFL classrooms. It showed that Kahoot was perceived as a promising software application to enhance the English-language learning process. To explore the effectiveness of this online game-based platform, more future-related research with large-scale participants in broader geographic regions should be carried out in this area.

Improving English Learners’ Speaking through Mobile-assisted Peer Feedback

In this article, we report on an action case study on the use of mobile-assisted peer feedback to improve second language (L2) speakers’ English performance. Drawing on the learning-oriented assessment (LOA) framework (Carless, 2007), the study made in-class use of a newly developed mobile app with the provision of peer feedback. The study was conducted with 25 Business School students in an English for Specific Purposes course at a Hong Kong university. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, including a questionnaire survey, a focus group discussion after the class and a teacher journal. In addition to the participants’ general attitudes, two broad themes were found in relation to the participants’ learning experience, namely the use of peer feedback and the affordances and constraints of technology. Results showed that students generally agreed on the positive effects of mobile-assisted peer feedback (e.g. real-time and anonymous feedback), while they recognized some limitations such as the small screen size of their phones and the limited number of given rubrics. Finally, we discuss the implications from different perspectives based on the reported themes.

Content learning opportunities, computer-based instruction, and students’ mathematics and science achievement

Employing data from TIMSS 2011, this study investigated the association among middle school students’ in-class computer use, content learning opportunities, and mathematics and science achievement. 3,398 students and 183 mathematics teachers and 3,989 students and 363 science teachers were included in the study. Structural equation modelling was used to analyze the data. The mathematics results suggested that in-class computer use was associated indirectly with mathematics achievement because teachers provide greater content learning opportunities. In contrast, the science results showed no significant relation between in-class computer use and students’ achievement. Further, our study found that using computers in class as an information tool moderated the socioeconomic status–science achievement association. Computer integration into mathematics and science classrooms is discussed.

In-class and after-class lecture note-taking strategies

There is a need to better understand note-taking in lectures. Specifically, how in-class and after-class note-taking strategies are used, whether the use of in-class and after-class note-taking strategies varies by gender, year of study and field of major/discipline and to explore the connection between the use of in-class note-taking strategies and after-class note-taking strategies. The study described in this article gathered data from 1072 undergraduate students. The results showed that during class, the most frequently employed strategy was key point selection, followed by comprehension-monitoring, organisation, copying and elaboration. After class, the strategy employed most frequently was elaboration, followed by organisation and help-seeking. It was revealed that females are more likely than males to employ copying, key point selection, organisation and comprehension-monitoring strategies during class as well as elaboration, organisation and help-seeking strategies after class. In addition, students majoring in humanities or social sciences are more likely than those majoring in the natural sciences to use key point selection strategy during class. Finally, students’ in-class note-taking strategies were correlated with their after-class note-taking strategies. Implications for practice are presented.

An interactive point pattern analysis web application and teaching exercise

ABSTRACTThis paper introduces a web-based, interactive point pattern analysis “game” that allows users to generate quickly and repeatedly a point pattern on screen and immediately learn whether the pattern is statistically different from random. It uses two point pattern analysis methods: quadrat analysis (QA) and nearest neighbor analysis (NNA). Studies have shown that gaming approaches, digital tools, and interactive instruction for teaching spatial thinking complement and enhance students’ geospatial skills. This game challenges students to achieve randomness, demonstrates the differences between QA and NNA, and easily permits in-class use by running in any web browser.

Use of Case Study Method in Primary School: A Teacher Training Process

This study aims to determine how the case study method is used in primary school Life Sciences courses in the classroom setting and the change occurred in the quality of in-class use of this method following the case study-based training provided for teachers. This is a qualitative study using the action research design. The study group was composed of 7 second- and third-grade classroom teachers selected from private and state schools under the body of Turkey Ministry of National Education and their 21 students (opinions of 3 students each selected from 7 classes). The data collection instruments used in the study are the observation form and the semi-structured interviews performed with the students. The data obtained were analyzed with the content analysis technique. The necessary steps were followed to achieve validity and reliability of the data analysis with the data collection instruments. In accordance with the findings achieved, it was seen that there was a positive change in the quality of how the teachers used the case study method in Life Sciences courses after the case study-based training. It was also concluded that the students liked the courses instructed after the training and thought that they became more active.

Gaming as pedagogy in the linguistics classroom

We explore how content-driven games may be utilized to enhance linguistics pedagogy in the classroom. We explore three games created by the authors for in-class play. The games involve semantics: Eventuality (about aspect/Aktionsart), f(x) (lambda-calculus); and syntax: Parameters. We discuss the major skills developed by the games and the best practices for designing games for in-class use. We focus on four elements in the talk: player interaction, randomization, process training, and entertainment.

Work Design: Rethinking How Technology Is Used In University Classrooms

Driven by perceived millennial student expectations, the in-class use of mobile technology is becoming increasingly popular in postsecondary institutions. Thus, it is important to gain insights into students’ self-competence and learning transferability when using these technologies within the learning environment. This study was undertaken to assess an iPad iLearn Program in a school of business after students had been provided with an on-loan tablet that would become their property after a pre-determined period of enrollment. In this study, comfort with technology, comfort with iPad, perceptions of iPad, and frequency of use were all significant predictors of learning transferability. The adjusted R2 explained 72% of the variance in the model. Moreover, this study found there were significant differences for these predictor variables depending on university support of the program and tablet ownership. This reinforces the point that when selectively targeting this generation by promoting in-class use of tablet technology, institutions must provide the needed resources.

Teachers\u2019 participation in professional development concerning the implementation of new technologies in class: a latent class analysis of teachers and the relationship with the use of computers, ICT self-efficacy and emphasis on teaching ICT skills

The increasing availability of new technologies in an ever more digitalized world has gained momentum in practically all spheres of life, making technology-related skills a key competence not only in professional settings. Thus, schools assume responsibility for imparting these skills to their students, and hence to future generations of professionals. In so doing, teachers play a key role with their competences in using new technologies constituting an essential prerequisite for the effective implementation of such skills. As models of school development and school effectiveness found teacher professionalization to be a key element with regards to student achievement as well as teachers’ in-class use of new technology, the present research project conducts secondary analyses using data from the IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2013 (ICILS 2013) regarding internal and external teacher professionalization. Particular emphasis is placed on the implementation of new technologies in class in a comparison between the education systems of Germany and the Czech Republic. A Latent Class Analysis serves the purpose of establishing a teacher typology with regards to technology-related professional development. This typology is subsequently used for further analyses of additional factors that show a correlation with the teachers’ use of computers in class. These include the teachers’ ICT self-efficacy and their emphasis on teaching ICT skills. The results show two different types of teachers across both countries. Teachers who participate in professional development use computers more frequently in class, put more emphasis on teaching ICT skills and have a stronger sense of ICT self-efficacy. When comparing teachers in Germany and the Czech Republic, teachers in Germany who participate in professional development consider themselves more ICT self-efficient, while teachers in the Czech Republic use computers more often and put more emphasis on teaching ICT skills compared with their colleagues in Germany.

The blend justifies the means: The relationships between lecturer use of online content in-class, student age, and student self-stated understanding, with students' use of online content out-of-class in a blended commerce course

With the increasing adoption of blended (flipped/ hybrid) learning year-by-year this century in higher education, the need for research on the learner experience in blended learning courses is an essential emerging body of literature, but it is one particularly under-represented in Asia. Furthermore, the assumptions emergent from a largely Western milieu investigating mostly Western students in Western University settings need to be tested in an Asian context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand whether relationships exist between three hitherto well-researched factors - lecturer use of online content in teaching, the students’ ages and students’ understanding of content – and the participation online of working adult students enrolled in a Higher Education Blended course, but crucially one in a Singaporean Higher Education setting. The methodology employs a survey of students (n=1,047) analyzed using the Pearson Chi-Square test of independence. The findings show relationships between all three and student online participation and challenges previously held views that students in high teacher-dependency cultures like Singapore find blended and online learning inferior to traditional modes.

In-class use of clickers and clicker tests improve learning and enable instant feedback and retests via automated grading

An audience response system (‘clickers’) was gradually incorporated into introductory physics courses at Worcester Polytechnic Institute during the years 2011–14. Clickers were used in lectures, as a means of preparing for labs, and for collection of exam data and grading. Average student grades were 13.5% greater, as measured by comparing exam results with a previous year. Student acceptance of clickers was high, ranging from 66% to 95%, and grading time for exams was markedly reduced, from a full day to a few hours for approximately 150 students. The streamlined grading allowed for a second test on the same material for the students who failed the first one. These improvements have the immediate effects of engagement, learning, and efficiency, and ideally, they will also provide an environment in which more students will succeed in college and their careers.