Learning-related Activity Research Articles

The Future of Design Studio Education: Student Experience and Perception of Blended Learning and Teaching during the Global Pandemic

Urban design studio education aims to prepare future urban designers to more effectively understand how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention in the built environment. A design studio is an appropriate setting where this can take place. This paper details the design and delivery of a postgraduate urban design studio subject in the MA Urban Design programme at Cardiff University during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. We particularly investigate the capacities and challenges of blended learning and teaching, with a primary focus on the experience and perception of students in the context of design studio pedagogy. To this end, we discuss the findings from an online survey of postgraduate urban design students and reflect on their experience and perception of the related learning and teaching activities, assessment, feedback, field study visits, workshops, and digital platforms during the subject delivery period in the 2021–2022 academic year. The outcomes of this paper can inform future practices of blended learning and teaching incorporating a mix of face-to-face and online modes of delivery in relation to design studio education, particularly in the context of unprecedented global health challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

TAFFIES: Tailored Automated Feedback Framework for Developing Integrated and Extensible Feedback Systems.

Delivering high-quality, timely and formative feedback for students’ code-based coursework submissions is a problem faced by Computer Science (CS) educators. Automated Feedback Systems (AFSs) can provide immediate feedback on students’ work, without requiring students to be physically present in the classroom—an increasingly important consideration for education in the context of COVID-19 lockdowns. There are concerns, however, surrounding the quality of the feedback provided by existing AFSs, with many systems simply presenting a score, a binary classification (pass/fail), or a basic error identification (“The program could not run”). Such feedback, with little guidance for how to rectify the problem, raises doubts as to whether or not these systems can stimulate deep engagement with the related knowledge or learning activities. In this paper, we propose TAFFIES, a framework to scaffold the development of AFSs that promote high-quality, tailored feedback for student’s solutions. We tested our framework by applying it to develop an AFS to mark and provide feedback to 160 CS students in an introductory databases class. In contrast to most introductory-level coursework feedback and marking, which typically generate significant student reaction and change requests, our AFS deployment resulted in zero grade challenges. There were also no identified marking errors, or suggested inconsistencies or unfairness. Student feedback on the AFS was universally positive, with comments indicating an AFS-related increase in student motivation. The experience of designing, deploying, and evolving the AFS using TAFFIES is examined through reflective practice, student evaluation, and focus group (involving peer teachers) analysis.

Development of affective learning in dietetics graduates: A qualitative longitudinal study.

BackgroundThe development of affective learning during healthcare student education is essential for professional practice. Current studies are limited to short‐term studies with medicine and nursing students. Longitudinal studies are emerging; however, the research within allied health students remains scant. The present study investigates the value of simulation‐based learning activities in relation to affective learning among dietetic students.MethodsA double hermeneutic, interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) approach was employed, followed by an analysis of the trajectory of participants' affective learning across three‐interview time points via the application of Krathwohl's affective learning levels.ResultsThe simulation developed affective learning in four of the six participants, specifically in relation to their view of themselves as practitioners and their understanding of their future responsibilities to patient care. Three key themes were identified in the participants: (1) feeling of workforce readiness, (2) valuing lifelong learning and (3) attitudes towards interprofessional teamwork.ConclusionsThis IPA methodology described dietetic students' affective learning development as they transitioned to practice as graduate health professionals. Simulation‐based learning is one activity that enhances students' learning in the affective domain and educators should consider its value within their programs

Tending the nurseries of democracy: Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. and the future of student speech rights

ABSTRACT In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), the Supreme Court held a public school could not discipline a student for posting offensive snaps about her cheer team on social media. In an 8-to-1 decision siding with the student, the Justices reaffirmed Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), a landmark decision by the Warren Court that extended speech rights to public school students. The majority in Mahanoy was, however, unwilling to “set forth a broad, highly general First Amendment rule stating just what counts as ‘off-campus’ speech and whether First Amendment standards must give way off-campus to the school’s desire to prevent … disruption of learning-related activities.” Instead, Justice Breyer offered a narrow opinion confined to the facts of the case that provides little practical guidance to students, school officials, and lower courts dealing with thorny issues related to off-campus speech. Further compounding matters, the “three features of off-campus speech” identified in his majority opinion will likely lead to more restrictions governing what students may say on their own time and using their own equipment.

To integrate or not to integrate? A matter of choice for universities

What is the right location for a university campus? Universities have a preponderant role in today’s societal models. They have been in the core of development — economic, social, sustainable, inter alia — and their role within urban context has changed in order to respond to the university mission — that nowadays includes of civic engagement as well as a stronger participation in economies, through the development of startups and innovation ecosystems. This paper relies on the premise that, even in a post-pandemic world, the Campus is still a window to the world, it can shape the perception people have of the University, can be used as a branding asset and, most of all, impacts the lives of everyone living, learning, and working there. The Campus is a very powerful tool, one that universities worldwide have been using as a way of positioning themselves, of attracting students and faculty, and also creating synergies and relationships with companies. It shapes the relationships created inside and outside of it. As such, this research argues that universities can be key elements in generating and enabling dynamic synergies, promoting the presence of students, academics, and learning spaces in urban contexts. To accomplish this, universities should preserve their spatial identity and uniqueness, while guaranteeing the existence of adequate places for all learning related activities and embodying inclusion and sustainable development, promoting encounters and interaction. These two needs, for inclusion and livelihood while safeguarding some privacy coexist creating some tension for all campus users. With this issue in mind, this paper explores an analytical framework for university campuses within urban fabrics, understanding the different types of urban insertion and connections established with local and regional players, and exploring the dichotomy between closeness centrality and betweenness centrality, as variables than can be used to balance the tension between integration and privacy that affects university campuses and academic communities worldwide. Four compact university campuses that host similar functions are used to test the methodology: Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada; Aalto University in Espoo, Finland; MIT in Cambridge, MA, USA; and Yale University, in New Haven, USA. This paper relies on syntactic analysis to provide deeper information and some clarification on the university location and accessibility within the urban fabrics.

P.118 Curriculum mapping can facilitate transition to Competence by Design

Background: Curriculum maps outline the content of an educational program identifying links between targeted outcomes, educational opportunities, and assessments. The transition to Competence by Design (CBD) in Canadian specialty residency programs requires thoughtful reorganization of educational programming. A curriculum map may assist with understanding the existing curriculum and thereby facilitate planning for CBD. Methods: A map of the pediatric neurology residency curriculum at the University of Calgary was constructed by linking objectives with related learning activities and assessments. Qualitative line-by-line analysis was then conducted to identify gaps in the existing curriculum. The map was used as a framework to plot CBD outcomes and curricular structure as these were established. Results: Generating the traditional curriculum map was time-consuming, requiring 48 hours. Careful review identified several objectives that did not link to formal learning activities or assessments. Many such gaps were recognized to link to non-clinical activities. Using the scaffold of the traditional curriculum reduced the time required for mapping the planned CBD curriculum to 4 hours. Conclusions: The creation of a curriculum map prior to transition to CBD improved understanding of the existing curriculum and will facilitate transition to CBD. Ongoing evaluation of the fit of our predicted CBD map will support effective implementation.

TSMG: A Deep Learning Framework for Recognizing Human Learning Style Using EEG Signals.

Educational theory claims that integrating learning style into learning-related activities can improve academic performance. Traditional methods to recognize learning styles are mostly based on questionnaires and online behavior analyses. These methods are highly subjective and inaccurate in terms of recognition. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals have significant potential for use in the measurement of learning style. This study uses EEG signals to design a deep-learning-based model of recognition to recognize people’s learning styles with EEG features by using a non-overlapping sliding window, one-dimensional spatio-temporal convolutions, multi-scale feature extraction, global average pooling, and the group voting mechanism; this model is named the TSMG model (Temporal-Spatial-Multiscale-Global model). It solves the problem of processing EEG data of variable length, and improves the accuracy of recognition of the learning style by nearly 5% compared with prevalent methods, while reducing the cost of calculation by 41.93%. The proposed TSMG model can also recognize variable-length data in other fields. The authors also formulated a dataset of EEG signals (called the LSEEG dataset) containing features of the learning style processing dimension that can be used to test and compare models of recognition. This dataset is also conducive to the application and further development of EEG technology to recognize people’s learning styles.

The Impact of Spelling-related Language Learning Strategies on Improving Dictation Abilities of Young Iranian EFL Learners, Teacher and Students Perspective

Generating a range of various functions, spelling and dictation have both been used as a technique to help improve language skills. Dictation is extensively different from spelling, although their similarities cannot be denied. The purpose of this study was to explore whether spelling-related language learning strategies affect dictation abilities of young Iranian EFL learners. After selecting thirty-five learners out of forty-six participants through an online Cambridge Key English Test (KET) during Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, the experimental and control groups were randomly formed. Kristin-F Anderson’s questionnaire was implemented along with Kimura’s six-minute partial dictation test as pretest and posttest for the two groups. The treatment included teaching the same course book for both groups by means of a special program for the experimental group to be involved more in spelling- related learning activities. The findings through the independent-samples t-test, and repeated measures ANOVA run on the data collected in this study revealed that all null hypotheses were rejected and consequently the spelling strategies significantly affected the improvement of learners’ dictation ability.

Age group differences in learning-related activity reflect task stage, not learning stage

Healthy aging is accompanied by declines in the ability to learn associations between events, even when their relationship cannot be described. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have attributed these implicit associative learning (IAL) deficits to differential engagement of the hippocampus and basal ganglia in older relative to younger adults in early and late stages of the task, respectively. However, these task stages have been confounded with age group differences in learning performance that emerge later and to a lesser degree in older adults. To disentangle the effects of task stage from learning stage (i.e., when there is significant evidence of learning) on age group differences in the neural substrates of IAL, we acquired fMRI data while 28 younger (20.8 ± 2.3 years) and 22 older (73.6 ± 6.8 years) healthy adults completed the Triplets Learning Task, in which the location of two cues predicted the location of a target with high (HF) or low (LF) frequency. When matched for task stage, results revealed worse learning performance and increased IAL-related activity in the hippocampus during the early stage and in the globus pallidum during the late stage in older relative to younger adults. However, when matched for learning stage, there were no significant age group differences in learning performance or IAL-related activity. Thus, although learning emerges later for older adults, they are engaging similar brain regions as younger adults when learning the associations, suggesting that previous reports of age group differences reflect effects of age on task stage, but not learning stage.

An Analysis on Sex Education Contents in the Area of ‘Human Development and Family’ of the 2015 Practical Arts Education Textbooks for Elementary Education Level based on Korean National Standards of Sex Education.

본 연구는 초등학교 실과 교과 성교육의 특성을 알아보기 위하여 학교 성교육 표준안(교육부, 2015)에 근거하여 2015 개정 초등 실과 6종 교과서에서 성교육 관련 단원을 분석하였다. 이를 위한 연구문제는 첫째, 2015 개정 초등 실과 교과 ‘인간 발달과 가족’ 영역 단원의 외형체제와 구성의 특징은 어떠한가? 둘째, 2015 개정 초등 실과 6종 교과서 ‘인간 발달과 가족’ 영역 단원에서 2015 성교육 표준안의 5대 영역이 어떻게 드러나고 있는가? 이다. 이를 위해 2015 개정 초등 실과 교과서 6종의 ‘인간 발달과 가족’ 영역 단원을 대상으로 총 99차시, 49개의 주요 관련 학습활동이 분석되었다. 이에 대한 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 성교육 관련 단원은 5학년과 6학년의 1단원에 배치되어 있고, 그 할애 쪽수의 비중에 있어서 학년별 차이는 크지 않으나, 교과서별 차이는 큰 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 성교육 관련 단원에서 성교육 표준안이 제시한 5대 영역 중 4개(인간발달, 인간관계, 성건강, 사회와 문화)의 영역이 직간접적으로 다루어지고 있었으며, 1개(대처기술) 영역은 다루어지지 않고 있었다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 학교 성교육에 있어서 현재 초등학교 고학년 아이들의 현실적인 필요와 사회변화에 따라 요구되는 ‘이성교제’, ‘대중 매체와 성’ 등 일련의 내용들이 향후 교육과정의 개정과 교과서 집필에 반영되어야 하며, 이 내용들이 이미 친밀한 관계를 형성하고 있는 가족관계 안에서 학교와 가정의 연계성을 강화하여 보다 실천적으로 다루어질 필요가 있음을 제언하였다.This study analyzed the sex education-related units from the six practical arts education textbooks, published for the 2015 revised elementary school curriculum, based on the national sex education standards (Ministry of Education, 2015b) in order to find out the characteristics of sex education in elementary school practical arts subjects. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, the sex education-related units are arranged in the first unit of the 5th and 6th grades, and the difference between the grades is not large in terms of the proportion of the number of pages devoted to the unit, but the difference between the textbooks is large. Second, in the unit related to sex education, four of the five areas suggested by the sex education standards (human development, human relations, sexual health, society and culture) were explicitly or implicitly dealt with, and one area (coping skills) was not covered. Therefore, this study suggests that a series of topics such as ‘dating’ and ‘public media and sex’, which are required according to the realistic needs and social changes of the current elementary school sex education, should be reflected in the revision of the practical arts curriculum and the writing of textbooks in the future. It is suggested that related learning activities that are indirectly dealt with in relation to family need to be dealt with more practically by strengthening the connection between the school and the family within the family relationship that has already formed an intimate relationship.

How Do We Value Academic Time?

The extent of technology usage for managing teaching workloads is not completely known, but often inferred by academics’ use of other technologies. This paper explores technology adoption, and attitudes toward technology use by Australian university academics. We expected that academics would be familiar with general teaching technology tools and have some appreciation of other tools that may assist their work and allow them to manage their time. We also expected they would use these to identify and manage assignment work to free-up time for other academic activities. To establish their technology usage, responses to a series of questions about types and familiarity with technology tools, were collected via an online anonymous survey. It also asked for their understanding of a hypothetical assessment scenario and subsequent use of any time gained through using technology. The results from 75 Australian academics indicated that academics were familiar with and used standard teaching technology. Academics expressed a commitment to utilize any time saved for research, scholarship or teaching and learning related activities.

Football Juggling Learning Alters the Working Memory and White Matter Integrity in Early Adulthood: A Randomized Controlled Study

Cross-sectional studies suggest that motor skill learning is associated with working memory (WM) and white matter integrity (WMI). However, it has not been established whether motor skill learning improves WM performance, and information on its neural mechanisms have not been clearly elucidated. Therefore, this study compared WM and WMI across time points prior to and following football juggling learning, in early adulthood (18–20 years old), relative to a control group. Study participants in the experimental group were subjected to football juggling for 10 weeks while participants in the control category went on with their routine life activities for the same period of time and were not involved in the learning-related activities. Data on cognitive measurements and that from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were collected before and after learning. There was a significant improvement in WM performance of the experimental group after motor learning, although no improvement was observed in the control group. Additionally, after learning, DTI data revealed a significant increase in functional anisotropy (FA) in the genu of corpus callosum (GOCC) and the right anterior corona radiata (R.ACR) in the experimental group. Moreover, the better WM associated with football juggling learning was correlated to a higher FA. Mediation analysis suggested that FA in the GOCC acts as a mediation variable between football juggling learning and WM. These findings show that motor skill learning improves the WM and remodels WMI in early adulthood. With a particular emphasis on the importance of WMI in motor skill learning and WM, this study also revealed the possible neural mechanisms mediated by WMI.

Motivating Students to Learn STEM via Engaging Flight Simulation Activities

Aviation is an interdisciplinary subject that has influenced human development over the last century. Learning about aviation exposes students to principles of flight, language, earth science, aeronautical engineering, flight training and airmanship. In K-12 education, educators have started to encourage children to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects via aviation-themed activities to develop future scientists and engineers. This study investigated upper primary students’ motivations to learn STEM via engaging in flight simulation experiences. The sample consisted of 345 10- to 13-year-old Hong Kong students from 8 primary schools. A modified version of the 31-item Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II) with four subscales with a focus on aviation was used. The relationships between intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy and peer support across gender and performance were examined. The data obtained were analysed using factor analysis and a regression model. According to our model, students are most strongly motivated by peer support, followed by intrinsic motivation, and they are least motivated by self-efficacy. As expected, our results indicate that a gender gap exists in aviation-themed STEM learning. These findings can help educators to better understand students’ perceptions of aviation science and further develop related learning activities.

“I just stand around and look friendly” – Comparing medical students’ and physicians’ ward round scripts

Background Even though ward rounds are important learning opportunities for medical students, unfavourable ward round scripts of students and physicians may hinder learning in such situations. We investigated medical students’ and physicians’ ward round scripts with respect to (a) the content focus of ward round activities, and (b) the potential of these activities for knowledge construction. Methods We conducted standardized interviews with 50 medical students and physicians in internal medicine at different expertise stages. Activities participants labelled as typical for ward rounds were coded with respect to their content focus and their potential with regard to knowledge construction. Results Regarding content focus, especially residents mainly named activities bound to patient care. Teaching- and learning-related activities were very rare, but more frequently mentioned by students and more experienced physicians. With respect to potential for knowledge construction, students regarded significantly more passive activities (= low potential for knowledge construction) as typical for ward rounds, especially when they described their own role. Conclusions Medical students should be supported in their development of conceiving ward rounds as valuable learning opportunities. Residents should be asked to take their teaching responsibility seriously, for example by demanding an active engagement of the students during ward rounds.

The effect of realistic mathematics education on student achievement in 8th grades geometric objects teaching

The purpose of this study is to answer if there is a reasonable difference on academical success of students who get education with traditional and RME approach question on “Teaching geometrical objects to 8th grade students” subject. Study group consists of 47 students which contains 21 experimental and 16 control group from “Ordu Anadolu İmam Hatip High School Project School” in Altinordu, Ordu. Experimental and control group have same academical success level, as the school which this study has runned is a school which accepts students with an exam only. After the experimental and control groups were created, a 25 question pre-test was performed to understand the level of knowledge of the group regarding geometrical objects. The same test was performed on the same groups 8 weeks later as retention test. To determine opinions of the students in experimental group regarding RME and related learning activities, semi-structured interviews are conducted. The data obtained from the pretest, posttest and retention tests were analyzed with t-test for independent samples and t-test for dependent samples and variance analysis for mixed measurements with 0.05 significance level. According to the results, it is seen that learning activities prepared according to RME approach are much more effective than learning activities prepared according to the traditional approach on students’ academic success.

Cortical plasticity elicited by acoustically cued monetary losses: an ERP study

Both human and animal studies have demonstrated remarkable findings of experience-induced plasticity in the cortex. Here, we investigated whether the widely used monetary incentive delay (MID) task changes the neural processing of incentive cues that code expected monetary outcomes. We used a novel auditory version of the MID task, where participants responded to acoustic cues that coded expected monetary losses. To investigate task-induced brain plasticity, we presented incentive cues as deviants during passive oddball tasks before and after two sessions of the MID task. During the oddball task, we recorded the mismatch-related negativity (MMN) as an index of cortical plasticity. We found that two sessions of the MID task evoked a significant enhancement of MMN for incentive cues that predicted large monetary losses, specifically when monetary cue discrimination was essential for maximising monetary outcomes. The task-induced plasticity correlated with the learning-related neural activity recorded during the MID task. Thus, our results confirm that the processing of (loss)incentive auditory cues is dynamically modulated by previously learned monetary outcomes.

Career and College Readiness for Underserved Youth: Educator and Youth Perspectives

This study solicited perspectives of underserved youth and educators who serve them regarding college and career readiness. We defined underserved youth as adolescents who experience inequitable access to educational resources. Purposeful sampling was used to select 84 focus group participants including educators and students (9–12th grade). Utilizing grounded theory analysis, focus group data revealed findings in three key categories. First, student and educator participants defined readiness as specific career knowledge and skills to develop concrete postschool plans. Second, both educators and students perceived limited availability of career preparation experiences as a barrier, while educators also provided examples of challenging life circumstances which deter youth from fully realizing their college and career potential. Third, educators and students reported that providing a broad array of career related learning activities, coupled with the presence of trusted adults who serve as mentors and guides, can create capacity for young people to expand career options.

Beneficial effects of cerebellar tDCS on motor learning are associated with altered putamen-cerebellar connectivity: A simultaneous tDCS-fMRI study

Non-invasive transcranial stimulation of cerebellum and primary motor cortex (M1) has been shown to enhance motor learning. However, the mechanisms by which stimulation improves learning remain largely unknown. Here, we sought to shed light on the neural correlates of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) during motor learning by simultaneously recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that right cerebellar tDCS, but not left M1 tDCS, led to enhanced sequence learning in the serial reaction time task. Performance was also improved following cerebellar tDCS compared to sham in a sequence production task, reflecting superior training effects persisting into the post-training period. These behavioral effects were accompanied by increased learning-specific activity in right M1, left cerebellum lobule VI, left inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule during cerebellar tDCS compared to sham. Despite the lack of group-level changes comparing left M1 tDCS to sham, activity increase in right M1, supplementary motor area, and bilateral middle frontal cortex, under M1 tDCS, was associated with better sequence performance. This suggests that lack of group effects in M1 tDCS relate to inter-individual variability in learning-related activation patterns. We further investigated how tDCS modulates effective connectivity in the cortico-striato-cerebellar learning network. Using dynamic causal modelling, we found altered connectivity patterns during both M1 and cerebellar tDCS when compared to sham. Specifically, during cerebellar tDCS, negative modulation of a connection from putamen to cerebellum was decreased for sequence learning only, effectively leading to decreased inhibition of the cerebellum. These results show specific effects of cerebellar tDCS on functional activity and connectivity in the motor learning network and may facilitate the optimization of motor rehabilitation involving cerebellar non-invasive stimulation.

수학과 교육과정 성취기준에 대한 중학생의 숙달도 분석

The purpose of this study was to examine the outcomes of the National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA) 2015-2018 when the 2009 Revised National Curriculum was applied and suggested for future curriculum revisions. The characteristics of students’ academic achievement were analyzed based on the results of evaluating test items developed by the achievement standards of the 2009 Revised National Curriculum. The analysis showed that students’ academic achievement was low in the ‘Function’, ‘Probability and Statistics’, and ‘Geometry’ domain. In addition, many achievement standards could be mastered only by the above average group of students. Accordingly, it is necessary to reinforce customized teaching and learning activities in relation to achievement standards which were under achieved. To improve the achievement characteristics, it is necessary to specify detailed achievement standards and to strengthen the linkage between achievement standards.

Examining influences of science teachers' practices and beliefs about technology-based assessment on students’ performances: A hierarchical linear modeling approach

This study aimed at investigating how the factors across the student and school levels would influence students' performance on a technology-based assessment (TBA). TBAs not only enable teachers to evaluate their students' complex abilities, but have also been adopted by large-scale and international evaluation programs in recent years. Although some factors such as students' engagement or teachers' beliefs about assessments have been articulated, relatively little is understood about how the factors across levels affect students' performances on TBAs. This study thus collected data of 494 science teachers and 1774 eighth and 11th graders from 32 schools, and conducted a hierarchical linear modeling analysis to provide a more accurate estimation of the effects of the variables in each level on students' performances. The results indicated the importance of students' engagement in related learning activities and their computer experiences at both the individual and school levels. Additionally, although none of the teachers' variables at the school level such as the time teachers spent on the use of various types of TBAs or their intentions to use TBAs had significant main effects on students' performances, the teachers' influence at the school level on students' learning could still be found by a significant moderating effect from teachers' usage of TBAs. Our results provide insight into how to promote students’ performance on TBAs and can contribute in various ways to future research efforts concerning the use of TBAs in classrooms.