Innovative Learning Experiences Research Articles

Discussing culturally relevant education and its connection to cultural aspects of mathematics through ethnomathematics

Nesse artigo, discutimos a Educação Culturalmente Relevante, as Escolas Culturalmente Relevantes, a Pedagogia Culturalmente Relevante e os aspectos culturais da Matemática. A base teórica comum desses campos de conhecimento está inter-relacionada no tocante ao desenvolvimento da Etnomatemática. Nesse contexto, os educadores respeitam os alunos provenientes de diversas culturas, propiciando esforços contínuos e genuínos para entender as suas perspectivas sociais e culturais, a fim de acolher experiências inovadoras de aprendizado e ações pedagógicas, abordando alunos com atitudes e posturas flexíveis em relação aos entendimentos interculturais. Portanto, é imperativo utilizar políticas e práticas que valorizem os educadores, os professores e os alunos com o objetivo de possibilitar a sua interação efetiva em um ambiente culturalmente diverso.

“Solvitur Ambulando” (It Is Solved by Walking): Learning Business Leadership on the Camino De Santiago

Undergraduate students enrolled in a large research university walked 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago (Camino) as a culminating experience of a course designed to foster high-impact learning, specifically learning about themselves as leaders and global citizens. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore undergraduate students’ perspectives about the impact of the experience on their leadership development. The course design incorporated leadership theory and high-impact learning practices to provide students with an innovative and in-depth learning experience unique from a classroom setting. A thematic analysis of student post-Camino metareflections gave insight as to how students perceived their development as leaders and what elements of the experience students perceived to be most impactful. Interpretation of the findings was informed by leadership development literature identifying the metacompetencies and competencies of a leader. Other business schools could incorporate the findings regarding leadership development and the effectiveness of the specific course experience to implement their own programs. We provide recommendations and outline resources other universities would need for structuring similar innovative, high-impact learning experiences designed to enhance students’ leadership competencies.

Learning and Doing Together: Student Outcomes from an Interdisciplinary, Community-Based Research Course on Homelessness in a Local Community

Colleges and universities continue to work toward innovative high-impact learning experiences to promote informed citizenship. Pedagogical research highlights the value of both interdisciplinary teaching and community-based participatory research (CBPR) in undergraduate civic development. Yet, research is limited in examining undergraduate student learning outcomes employing both pedagogical approaches. Utilizing mixed methods (i.e. surveys, concept maps, and focus groups) this study investigates the student learning outcomes of an interdisciplinary course (political science and criminal justice, community psychology, and social work) consisting of a CBPR project to inform local policy surrounding homelessness. Findings highlight student growth in the domains of: 1) interdisciplinary collaboration (applying an interdisciplinary lens and resolving diverse perspectives), 2) transference of course knowledge to real-world application, 3) critical consciousness building (specifically, critical reflection), 4) civic development, and 5) increased self-awareness. Finally, this paper highlights implications regarding course development, lessons learned, and future assessment.

Curriculum Design: Difficulties and Realities in Introducing Innovative Teaching and Learning Experience

The 20th century legal education system is said to have failedto teach students practical legal skills, critical analysis anddecision-making methods, as it did not give studentssystematic training in effective techniques for learning the lawfrom the experience of the legal practice. At the end of thecentury, a pedagogic method known as the clinical legaleducation was developed which broadens legal education inall of these dimensions. It is important for a member of a lawschool academic to examine this pedagogical approachtowards enhancing students’ knowledge and skills in meetingthe needs of the changing time. Law schools in Malaysia andto some extent in Brunei Darussalam have some or limitedautonomy in introducing Innovative Teaching and Learningmethods into the curriculum design, but no true success couldbe lauded either as difficulties and realities in the study of lawwithin the common law jurisdictional context requires strongcognitive elements before a student could really delve inpractical legal skill exercises. The realities cover two main areasof development: (1) the components of legal studies, and (2)the outcomes of the studies. The difficulties may be associatedwith (1) the governing educational policies; (2) qualificationand quality of students admitted to law school, (3) theexperience of the law teachers; and (4) the learningenvironment. The traditional method could not simply beblamed or ignored, if there ever be a failure in the system, onthe one hand, and the much ushered innovative learningmethods may not necessarily be the success factor, on theother.

Engaging with indigenous knowledge to shape a bicultural counselling programme in A otearoa N ew Z ealand

This paper is an account of the rationale behind the authors’ efforts to create a Masters in Counselling programme, centred on a poststructuralist approach known as narrative therapy, that might be deserving of the designation “bicultural”. In developing the new degree, the goal was to bring the knowledge, language and values of the indigenous Māori people of Aotearoa New Zealand alongside and into a dialogue with international, Eurocentric, non-Māori counselling theories and practices. Our hypothesis was that this dialogue might result in an innovative and transformational learning experience that could prepare counselling practitioners to work for more equitable outcomes with diverse client groups. We share this account of our narrative and the reflections stemming from our programme development work believing they offer a contribution to thinking about how counsellor education can engage well with cultural diversity. Beyond the question of how counselling practitioners are to engage with culturally diverse clients, which risks falling into essentialising models of diversity, we argue that the engagement with biculturalism, as suggested by the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi), provides a powerful lens for thinking about creating a socially just and inclusive counselling practice.

Online Training and Reporting: Natural Resource Governance Institute

<p class="0abstract">Winner of the IELA E-Learning Award Business Division 2019, Petronia is an innovative game-based learning experience designed by Saffron Interactive for the Natural Resource Governance Institute.</p>

Accounting students' perceptions: Internal control theory moves outside the classroom and online

Many have argued that faculty should transform the way accounting programmes are presented to undergraduate students. Changes in student expectations, professional qualifications and employer demands have driven innovative experiential learning interventions. Students want to learn collaboratively, inside and outside of the classroom, they want to use information technology and have fun. In response, this article reports on an auditing assignment where students were required to identify control weaknesses in everyday life, record it and report back using Facebook. A Facebook group was created where students posted photos or videos of the control weakness they identified. Other students could “like,” comment and share posts. This was the first assignment of this nature. This research presents the accounting students’ perceptions of the assignment as a whole, the pervasive skills applied and the use of Facebook. These were generally positive and should encourage educators to keep integrating technology and real life into learning.

E-Collaboration among Students of Two Regions: Impacts on English Language Learning through Peer Learning

Over the years, e-collaborative learning is increasingly acknowledged among educators in higher learning institutions. Apart from holding the potential to promote innovative learning experience in language teaching and learning, this teaching technique also provides opportunities for language learners to improve their global intercultural communication. This study is part of a larger study which examines the impact of e-collaborative learning on second and foreign language learners. The e-collaborative learning was conducted between 10 students of one university in Malaysia and 10 students of one university in France. These students communicated with each other through Skype, WhatsApp and Google document to produce a video project. This paper presents the finding on students' perceptions of e-collaborative learning from the perspective of the Malaysian students. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The finding shows that e-collaborative learning between second and foreign language learners of two regions encourages positive language learning, reduces language anxiety and increases the confidence level in using the language. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.9.11

Relação entre o Uso da Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) e Aspectos Acadêmicos: Percepções de Estudantes Brasileiros de Contabilidade

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between accounting students’ perception on the use of ICT as a teaching strategy (ICT) and six academic aspects: (i) teaching methodology (TME), (ii) innovative learning experiences (EXP), (iii) capacity to think critically and reflect about solution to problems of society (CAP), (iv) development of communication skills (COM), (v) access to up-to-date/contemporary knowledge (KNO), and (vi) higher education institutions’ infrastructure conditions (INF). I collected data from 2015 ENADE’s student survey and obtained a final sample of 51,269 observations. In general, descriptive statistics showed that students are satisfied with the accounting program regarding the six academic aspects analyzed and the use of ICT. Spearman’s correlation matrix indicated significant relationships among the variables. Positive correlation between the use of ICT and innovative learning experiences suggests that educational institutions could adopt ICT to promote a more attractive learning process. Use of ICT and teaching methodology were also positively correlated, indicating that ICT could be useful for designing or improving teaching methods. As implications, I support from evidence that ICT could be adopted aiming to obtain competitive advantage and student motivation.

Interprofessional education: A disaster response simulation activity for military medics, nursing, & paramedic science students

Health care providers need to be able to function and react appropriately and efficiently during a community-wide disaster situation. Traditional health care education is not adequately structured to provide realistic experiences with respect to high-risk or infrequently encountered events such as a disaster. As a result, many healthcare providers graduate into practice with inadequate exposure or skills to intervene in a disastrous event. Previous studies validate that active participation by students during a simulation can translate into positive, meaningful learning applicable to practice. This paper describes how a disaster response simulation can be utilized as an innovative experiential learning technique. Additionally, interprofessional collaboration and positive learning experiences were fostered between military trainees and health care students in nursing and paramedic sciences. The constructivist framework utilized enabled educators to incorporate interprofessional collaboration, clinical reasoning, and technical skills in the safe learning environment of a simulation.

Transition to Nursing Practice: A Capstone Simulation for the Application of Leadership Skills in Nursing Practice

A large-scale capstone simulation was implemented to fully immerse nursing students into the authentic role of the professional nurse by giving them the autonomy to independently manage the care of multiple complex patients with competing priorities in a realistic hospital environment. This innovative learning experience gave students an opportunity to transfer theory into practice. Overwhelmingly positive feedback from students supports the implementation of a capstone simulation to promote a smoother transition into the nursing workforce.

Hands-on experiential learning of structural mechanics

ABSTRACTAn innovative and affordable table-top experiential learning platform, that aims to redress the lack of ‘hands on’ experimentation opportunities in engineering mechanics courses, is presented in this paper. Experiments developed for this platform are targeted for use by students working in pairs in practice class/tutorials sessions of subjects such as Statics, Mechanics of Solids/Materials/Structures, Introduction to Finite Element Modelling and Structural Dynamics. By blending hands-on experimentation in the practice class/tutorial classroom, student learning experience is enriched and retention of the basic principles of mechanics greatly enhanced. In addition, introducing on-line Smart Sparrow adaptive learning modules in combination with this platform enables students to pace and test their learning experience in mechanics to suit their own specific situation.

An innovative experiential and collaborative learning approach to an undergraduate marketing management course: A case of the Philippines

This paper proposes a collaborative approach with the Computer Science Department and Product Design Course to conducting Marketing Management (MM) in the undergraduate program to achieve the skills critical to the 21st-century. These skills are collaboration and teamwork, creativity, and critical thinking and problem-solving. This study aims to present a case of innovative experiential learning in teaching an advanced MM course by bringing in students from other programs (collaborative learning) and working with real-life clients (experiential learning). Instead of the traditional teacher-centric lecturing and the use of case studies, this proposed approach is student-centric learning (i.e., students were tasked to identify the needs of the real-life client and offer an innovative solution). Ninety five percent of the MM students found the new method to be effective in terms of: applying theory in real life situation, improving their ability to identify needs and opportunities, developing actual products/services based on the identified needs, working with an interdisciplinary team, enhancing their interpersonal skills, developing their leadership skills, improving their communication skills, and encouraging them to keep learning. Areas for improvement are also discussed in the paper.

Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Phillip Motley, William Moner

Team teaching can be a valuable means of enabling cross-disciplinary collaboration, interdisciplinary study, and pedagogical innovation, but the logistical and intellectual challenges can seem too daunting to overcome. In this essay, we share the story of how four faculty members from professional writing, communications, and computing sciences developed a team teaching “family” as we imagined, created, launched, and ran an innovative experiential learning program at our university. The Design Thinking Studio in Social Innovation is a semester-long program worth four full courses of credit which brought us together with 14 intrepid students from across the university to learn and apply design thinking, Scrum project management, and social innovation theories to a large-scale civic engagement project. Here we explore the faculty lived experience during the pilot semester and how our teach teaching family was crucial to our personal and professional success in this high-stress environment. We then offer tips for creating your own team teaching “family.”

Developing a Scale to Measure Students' Social Media Attitude and their Academic Performance

Information and Communication Technology has a clear impact on the students’ knowledge, attitude and skill sets. Apart from traditional classroom teaching, ICT provides a virtual learning experience as it would enable technology mediated learning among teachers and students. When multimedia teaching aids are used in classrooms, it elicits student’s attention, understanding capacity and memory. It helps them to understand the concept in depth and brings focus to the topic. Mobile phone and social media usage has become inevitable in today’s life. The ubiquity of smartphones made easy access of multimedia teaching aids as it user friendly and convenient (anytime, anywhere learning). The extensive popularity of social media like whatsapp, facebook, twitter, youtube, google+, linkedin, instagram and others among college students has brought a major shift in their academic performance. Apart from classroom learning, these social media provide a platform for innovative and collaborative learning experience. Students opt these technologies to assist their academic-oriented communication with their fellow learners and teachers. The aim of the present study is to develop and standardize a questionnaire to measure the college students’ attitude towards social media and their academic performance. List of 52 items were generated (with reference) from various studies and a survey was conducted among 119 respondents. Exploratory factorial analysis was performed and the result shows that there are four underlying factors—exposure, communication, addictiveness and accessibility in students’ attitude towards social media which influences their academic performance in college.

Distance Education at the Grassroots and Assessment Procedures. The Case of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Distance education is an innovative learning experience which focuses on learning technology with the aim of creating human capital by using delivery of lessons from highly accredited source to the learner. At the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, individuals from diverse backgrounds and organizations embark on distance learning who under normal circumstances would not have had access to attend classes in the mainstream. The compelling need to determine their success in various centres is determined by effective assessment procedures and programme evaluation. This depends on types, structures, tools, mode of delivery and assessment records. This paper therefore examines the academic underpinnings of what precisely occurs at the University of Cape Coast. The paper instigates an inquiry to draw attention to learning outcomes of the “new” academic environment which stakeholders are benefitting from. The investigation was a case study from selected centres of the Eastern region. It adopted the mixed approach with sample selection which involved 50 students, 30 course tutors and 5 course coordinators. Semi-structured interview and group discussion were used as validation tools. Analytical processes were through sequencing and concurrent procedures using descriptive statistics and discursive method as basis for generating data. Respondents claimed that assessment procedures were superb. However, both students and course tutors complained about continuous assessment component of Teacher Made Test which is entirely ignored. The recommendation was to adopt well defined assessment and evaluation strategies.

Innovative experiential learning experience: Pedagogical adopting Kolb’s learning cycle at higher education in Hong Kong

General education constitutes a significant portion of undergraduate curriculum. However, students are not always keen on learning general education. Pedagogy of experiential learning is one of the...

Social media and students attitude: A study of accessibility, addictiveness, exposure and communication among college students in coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Information and Communication Technology has broadened the scope of communication, education and learning. ICT provides a virtual learning space and experience as it would enable technology mediated learning among teachers and students. Mobile phone and social media usage has become inevitable in today's life. The ubiquity of smartphones made easy access of multimedia teaching aids as it is user friendly and convenient (anytime, anywhere learning). Apart from classroom learning, social media provides a platform for innovative and collaborative learning experience. The aim of the present study is to measure and analyze Students’ attitude towards social media. The demographic variables are age, gender and educational qualification. The dependent variables—exposure, communication, addictiveness and accessibility. A survey was conducted among 507 college students from Coimbatore were chosen through multistage stratified random sampling technique. Results states that there is no difference with respect to their age, gender, educational qualification towards exposure, communication, addictiveness and accessibility with respect to social media usage.

Teaching social issues through cinema and teletandem

Teletandem is an innovative learning experience that helps to connect foreign language students with native or competent speakers in a virtual context. Through a Teletandem project, students have the opportunity to learn a language while developing a new cultural dimension. This paper presents the pedagogical experience of using Spanish cinema and a U.S. – Chilean Teletandem project designed to promote linguistic skills while addressing sociocultural issues related to the target culture. Using Web 2.0 tools, students had monthly synchronous conversations that focused on cultural, racial, gender, and social-political problems associated with the Hispanic culture. The Teletandem project allowed students to compare information learned in class with the material collected from their partners. This exchange of information helped students to form their own opinions and gain new perspectives of the target culture.

Students’ perspectives on different teaching methods: comparing innovative and traditional courses in a technology program

ABSTRACTBackground: A growing number of educators have started exploring student-centered approaches to improve students’ learning and satisfaction with courses and programs. While prior research shows a positive impact of such strategies on student learning, further exploration of the perceptions of traditional, lecture-based and other more inquiry-based active learning as experienced by students within the same university is needed.Purpose: To compare students’ perceptions of the learning environment in studio-type courses within an innovative pilot student-centered transdisciplinary learning experience to the environment in traditional lecture or lecture-and-lab courses.Program description: An innovative learning experience that employs student-centered teaching strategies to engage students in the transdisciplinary exploration of technology and liberal arts within a technology-focused college in a large land-grant university.Sample: At the end of the first semester, eight students who chose to leave the program were interviewed. At the end of the second semester, eight students who chose to remain in the program and four students who left after the first semester were interviewed.Design/Method: Student were interviewed individually during the end of either their Fall 2014 semester or Spring 2015 semester. A thematic analysis was conducted. Frequency of occurrence was counted and compared for each theme.Results: The most frequently mentioned differences between traditional courses and this learning experience regarded instruction, assessment, and uncertainty. Students enjoyed the flexibility of a more student-centered approach, but struggled with understanding assessment and time management within self-directed transdisciplinary coursework. Student learning preferences appeared to influence their perceptions of each teaching method.Conclusions: Although results seemed to be influenced by personal preferences, time management and dealing with uncertainty were sources of frustration across both groups of students. Scaffolding students in these two areas may help students make an easier transition toward more student-centered learning environments.