Rich Learning Experience Research Articles

From McDonaldization to place-based experience: revitalizing outdoor education in Ireland

ABSTRACT Outdoor education in Ireland, as in many countries, takes place in a variety of physical locations ranging from urban to wilder, minimally human influenced environments. Irish public outdoor education providers have traditionally placed little emphasis on cultural understandings of the places where learning occurs. Moreover, outdoor education commonly demonstrates characteristics of a McDonaldized experience as opposed to a place-based experience. This paper explores two topics that may help to explain why place is not to the fore in teaching and learning in Irish outdoor education practice: historico-cultural relationships with the land, and the impact of the rationalisation of place on outdoor education. We approach this conversation from the belief that places, as well as people, can teach and that a more conscious pedagogical engagement with place encourages deeper, richer learning experiences. We conclude this paper by outlining how a more place-focused practice may be developed in (Irish) outdoor education.

The Digital Pedagogy Competence Scale (DiPeCoS): development and validation

Digital pedagogy is the intentional integration of technology into teaching and learning to build rich learning experiences. Given this potential and the pace of the digitization of education, it is important to define, assess and develop teachers’ digital pedagogical competence. Although there are several self-report measures that assess digital pedagogy competence, these do not include scenario-based tools. Scenario-based assessments allow the evaluation of knowledge and skills in real-world applications. We present here the Digital Pedagogy Competence Scale (DiPeCoS), a short, scenario-based tool that assesses a teacher’s digital pedagogy competence through choices made in real-world teaching and learning scenarios. An initial pool of ten items was reduced to create an eight-item scale using item response analysis, which was subsequently validated on 1,315 teachers in India. The DiPeCoS demonstrates unidimensionality, and its constituent items show acceptable levels of discrimination, difficulty and guessing parameters and reliability. Our results indicate that such a tool is valuable in assessing teachers’ digital pedagogy competence, and we hope it finds value in the field of digital pedagogical training and evaluation.

Integrating LGBTQI+ Content in Nursing Education Using Immersive Virtual Reality: Embodying Eden.

Teaching nursing students to understand LGBTQI+ health care perspectives is critical in providing safe and effective care. Nursing curricula often have limited LGBTQI+ content to prepare students, with clinical experiences too varied to ensure exposure to specific gender diversity learning opportunities. Immersive virtual reality is a promising strategy to offer rich learning experiences from the perspective of the LGBTQI+ community.

Reflections on an interprofessional student placement initiative in care homes.

Interprofessional learning can offer students from different disciplines an opportunity to learn from, with and about each other. Additionally, practice placements in care home settings can offer students a rich learning experience. In 2021, a pilot interprofessional student placement initiative in care homes took place in the Manchester area, with three care homes and 17 students from a range of health and social care disciplines. In this article, the members of the core operational group that implemented the initiative reflect on their experiences. Using the 'What? So what? Now what?' reflective framework, they describe the context of the initiative, explore the lessons learned and make recommendations for future initiatives. The authors' intention is to inspire other educators to consider offering interprofessional placements to students, recognise the value of care homes as placement settings, and acknowledge the benefits of using reflection-in-action and reflective frameworks in healthcare education and practice.

Promoting Creativity in Children with Digital Technology to Overcome Inequalities in Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education is the education given to children at thepreschool, nursery schools and training (practicum) which is thefoundation to other levels of education. Creativity is an essential part oflearning which the children are anticipated to be exposed to from theirearly stage. Creativity is embedded in the curriculum for children in earlychildhood education to give room for a rich learning experience and tohelp healthy growth and a wholistic development of the child, to make surethat no child is left behind even with the application of digital technologyin teaching creativity innovation. Early childhood teachers are expected toteach the children with relevant and up-to-date materials such as the useof technology to activate their imagination, sense of belonging to bridgethe cap of inequalities among the children which will help in appreciatingchildren’s individuality and encourage participation withoutdiscrimination amongst the children. This paper therefore, looked intopromoting creativity in children with digital technology without leavingany child behind. Based on this, the paper suggested among others that theuse of digital technology should be encouraged in early childhood, nodiscrimination of any type and all the children should be treated equally.

Examination of STEAM-based Digital Learning Applications in Music Education

STEAM is an interdisciplinary educational approach. Based on the idea that different disciplines can meet on a common ground, the STEAM approach aims to give students the habit of working together, to provide rich learning experiences and to focus on real-world problems. This study investigates STEAM-based digital learning applications used in music education, their contents and age group suitability. For this purpose, the method of the research is the narrative review study. In this context, we analyzed the Chrome Music Lab, Scratch Music, Groove Pizza, earSketch, UPISketch and iMuSciCA applications. Studies have proved that digital-based STEAM applications used in music education increase students’ creativity, improve their music learning, and increase their interest in the lesson because they offer fun learning. With the development of technology, it has become necessary to adapt the methods and techniques used in music education to the age. By integrating art education, which has an important place in STEAM education, with other disciplines, music lessons can be effective and more permanent. The study shows that the more effective use of related applications by music teachers will contribute to music education and it is important in this regard.

How replication studies can improve doctoral student education

In addition to helping advance theory, replication studies offer rich and complementary learning experiences for doctoral students, enabling them to learn general research skills, through the process of striving to imitate good studies. In addition, students gain replication-specific methodological skills and learn about the important roles replications play for making management knowledge trustworthy. We outline best practices for enabling doctoral students and their supervisors to select studies to replicate, execute their replications, and increase the probability of successfully publishing their findings. We also discuss the crucial role of faculty mentors in supporting and guiding replication-based learning of doctoral students. Ultimately, educating doctoral students on how to execute high-quality replication studies helps to answer wider calls for more replication studies in the field of management, an important stepping stone along the journey toward open and responsible research.

Language Brokering and Code Switching as Teaching and Learning Tools in Multilingual Settings: Reflections of Two Immigrant Children

Language diversity is generally a norm in multilingual South African classroom. Orellana and García (2014) describe how multilingual speakers need to learn tools to allow them to be flexible with their language skills. Language brokering and code-switching form part of the everyday teaching and learning tools needed in South African multilingual classroom setting. Data was collected by means of observation and semi-structured interviews. Snowball sampling was used to select Francophone immigrant children or learners who were observed outside the classroom in order to establish how they interacted with their peers on school playgrounds. Their personal narratives were collected and analyzed to enhance triangulation and thematic analysis was used to understand how immigrant children acted as language brokers. This research sets out to consolidate the position of language brokering and code-switching as pedagogically oriented language practices in a multilingual classroom setting. Using the sociocultural theories and the funds of knowledge (FoK), the current study rejects a deficit model, where linguistically and culturally diverse institutions of learning are reputed to be incapable of offering rich learning experiences and resources.

Making the shift to virtual professional learning

ABSTRACT This qualitative research involved the development of 12 weeks of twice-weekly virtual maker professional learning (PL) sessions for K–12 and post-secondary educators at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sessions were developed by four researchers from a maker lab in Ontario, Canada that moved entirely online in March 2020. The research question driving the study was: what are best practices related to virtual maker professional learning? Findings and implications related to this question include: a) technical issues should be anticipated and addressed in advance of each session; b) simple, hands-on activities are most effective for online maker professional learning; c) collaboration are pivotal to a rich online maker professional learning experience; d) using free, virtual tools is imperative for equitable access and learning; and e) adaptability is key when working with a diversity of learners/teachers from varied subjects and divisions.

Position Paper: Implementation of pre-reading assignments in the classroom

As a student, when a topic is first introduced to me, I am always anxious and feel underprepared. I come into the classroom not knowing what to expect, and often am unable to keep pace with the lecture. However, in some of my classes, having pre-reading assignments has allowed me to stay more engaged with the lesson and reinforce what I learned from the pre-reading assignment, giving me a richer learning experience.

Critical Empowerment Frameworks Paramount to Social Justice Work

As we continue to navigate the complex challenges of a pandemic and the urgent need for racial justice, social work faculty are well positioned to train the next generation of social workers in human rights work and structural change movements. Authors discuss how engaging key critical empowerment frameworks that include critical race theory, structural competency, together with a decolonizing and transdisciplinary lens within community-engaged research and practice can provide social work students models for collective impact. Leveraging university-community partnerships to directly provide faculty mentorship around human rights work will also be discussed. One author has been working with the institution’s law school and their Neighborhood Legal Assistance Project to provide support, legal resources, and advocacy. She has also co-founded and is developing a Chicago-based coalition to address intimate partner violence-induced brain injury. The second author has helped start and develop two coalitions to advance a coordinated structural response involving the provision of mental health resource support and psychosocial forensic asylum assessments within immigrant communities. Authors also discuss how students have been engaged in health equity work through a racial and healing justice initiative that values and provides training around healing circles within indigenous communities and communities of color. Through these rich learning experiences, students internalize the value of critical empowerment frameworks that inform participatory approaches in collaboration and coalition building that are essential to social justice work and the process of social and structural change.

REDESIGNING LEARNING EXPERIENCES FOR ADVANCING THE LIFE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND SUBJECT-SPECIFIC LEARNING AT THE SCHOOL STAGE: PREPARING LEARNERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Learners’ active involvement in the learning process led to learning experiences. Meaningful learning experiences contribute to the learners’ holistic development, i.e., improvement in skills, experiences, knowledge, etc. In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis placed on the need of equipping learners with essential life skills because life skills prepare learners for their daily life. Life skills are introduced as a separate subject at CBSE schools, but integrating life skills with other school subjects is essential to prepare students for the 21st century. Conventional learning methods are widely used for the development of life skills among learners and advancement of subject-specific learning, but these methods are less potential and practical. Thus, there is a need for innovative, realistic, experiential and learner-oriented learning methods like situation-based method, activity-based method, children-led learning method, problem-based method, projects-based method, field-based method, case-based method, inquiry-based method and locality-oriented method can be used for constructing subjects cum life skills-based learning experiences. This paper provides an exemplary classroom-based activity based on problem-based method on science for the life skills development and improvement of science learning of the sixth-class learners. Proper assessment is very much needed to trace the life skills development and learning of different subjects of the learners. This paper provides a framework of life skills-guided holistic assessment. Besides these, the present paper gives prominence to learning experience, life skills development and subject-specific learning: an overview of key elements relating to school stage; need for redesigning learning experiences for the development of life skills and enhancing learning in different subjects; innovative learning methods for constructing holistic learning experiences; life skills-guided holistic assessment; and implicative measures for consideration. This paper has wide implications for constructing life skills cum subject based rich learning experiences; and assessing student’s life skills and learning regarding different subjects.

EShadow+: Mixed Reality Storytelling Inspired by Traditional Shadow Theatre

eShadow is a digital storytelling platform inspired by traditional Shadow Theatre. It enables the creation of digital stories within a project-based approach that may start from scenario development and include the creation of digital puppets and sceneries, the set-up and recording of story scenes and the final assembly of a digital story. This paper presents details about eShadow architecture, features and how its use has been enhanced, employing the PerFECt framework, to combine it with immersive technologies such as projection mapping, to create mixed reality installations that offer rich learning experiences to participants in informal learning settings. Two installations are described and compared. The evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach towards engaging learning experiences that combine mixed reality approaches with arts such as black light theatre.

Exploring student teachers’ experiences of engaging in Hands of the World, a contextualised global intercultural eTwinning project

This paper considers the impact of student teachers’ participation and engagement in the award-winning eTwinning international Hands of the World (HOTW) project which connects over 2000 students and their teachers in 50 schools across the world. Students participated in a wide range of educational collaborative experiences, before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, to develop their knowledge and understanding of intercultural education. Student teachers live and work in an interconnected and intercultural world and having a knowledge of how to embed diversity, inclusion and cultural awareness into their practice is important to ensure that their pupils develop a positive intercultural mindset. An explanatory design analysed students’ end of year reflections on participating in the project, which were publicly available on the project’s Padlet™ page. Data were analysed thematically focusing on participation and derived benefits. The findings revealed a continuum of engagement with some students participating at a lower level, where they would observe and question, whilst others had a higher level of engagement engaging in the activities and/or applying the project to practice. Our analysis enabled us to identify that although there were various barriers to participation, the design of the project enabled students to engage at various levels with a higher level of engagement evidenced during the COVID-19 lockdown. Our findings suggest that effective intercultural learning in teacher education requires a range of intercultural opportunities that can be accessed at a variety of levels and at different times throughout the year to provide a rich learning experience.

Understanding of Froebel's doctrine in primary school teachers of rural Kashmir: A pilot study

This study is a pilot study conducted on rural schools of Kashmir in a specific area in order to evaluate the understanding of Froebel’s theory by primary school teachers of rural Kashmir. The study is based on answering of preset questionnaire which was given to various primary school teachers in order to investigate their understanding of Froebel’s theory and its implications in practice. Analysis of data shows professional priorities of teachers, their respect of student’s ideas and their concern of student’s safety.Even though many teachers have an idea about Froebel’s theory, but majority did not know their practice is based on this theory. This study argues about the need for training of primary school teachers in rural areas with a focus on Froebel’s doctrine in order to generate trained teacher population who are well aware about the origin of their practice and can provide a rich learning experience.

Questionnaires based evaluation of teaching and learning methods among MBBS, BDS and Nursing students.

Objective: To compare the conventional ways of teaching to new teaching methodologies thus finding their efficacy. It also highlights the significance of incorporating technology into teaching thereby creating a rich learning experience for students. Study Design: Cross-sectional Survey. Setting: Different Medical and Nursing Colleges and Universities of Punjab, Pakistan; Faisalabad Medical University Faisalabad, University Medical and Dental College Faisalabad, Ameer-ud-din Medical College Lahore, Nishtar Medical and Dental College Multan, Shareef Medical and Dental College, Continental Medical College Lahore. Period: June 2020 to August 2020. Material & Methods: Was conducted amongst 1600 medical, dental and nursing students from various medical and dental colleges across Pakistan. A questionnaire was circulated among students after briefing them about the objective of the study. Result: Out of 1600, 816 were MBBS students, 715 were BDS and 69 were nursing students. About various teaching methods, 53% in MBBS, 56.78% in BDS and 30.43% of nursing students were aware about new teaching methodologies. Tutorials were least known by MBBS students, online classes for BDS students whereas both methods of teaching were least popular amongst nursing students. A significant percentage of students were more in favor of group discussion as an effective method of teaching. Conclusion: This study concluded that student-centered learning should be focused on and new technologies should be incorporated in order to make medical education more interactive and interesting.

PREFERENCE DETERMINES PERFORMANCE: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ PREFERENCE OF ON-CAMPUS AND ONLINE LEARNING AND THEIR ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE DURING COVID-19

On-campus and online learning modalities provide rich and diverse learning experiences to students with certain physical, psychological and Covid-19 limitations. Present study was carried out to compare the students’ preference of on-campus and online learning and their academic performance in both modes with the purpose of identifying the causes behind their choices. Mixed method research design was selected. 358 students from two public universities of Islamabad participated in research. The research instrument consisted of a mixed questionnaire containing close ended items followed by an open-ended research question. Results showed that majority of students preferred on-campus classroom learning. GPAs of students were better in online classes as compared to on-campus classes. Students favored on-campus learning due to good teacher-student relationships, better course content understanding, more class participation, high motivation, use of a variety of pedagogical practices, and more reliable assessment technique. Those students who favoured online classes said that it is easy to attend from any place, it saves travelling time and cost. Trainings may be provided to teachers about the use of various teaching strategies and suitable assessment techniques for online classes to enhance its effectiveness.

Codes and control: explicating pedagogic communication in classroom practice

ABSTRACT The impact of State policy to combat educational disadvantage with two iterations of DEIS supports has had a positive influence the patterns of achievement among all social groups with some notable improvements across a range of indicators for students in DEIS schools. Notwithstanding these improvements, research and evaluations continue to identify a persistent achievement gap for large numbers of working-class students compared to their more middle-class peers. Research evidences the inextricable links between class, economic circumstances, and student outcomes. In producing these more system-oriented data, the dynamism of underlying processes that produces these outcomes can be often masked. Student-teacher characteristics and classroom interactions become variables or aggregated performance datasets, rather than signifiers to unpack the mechanisms of how students and teachers construct their classroom world. Pedagogic communication, so central to classroom teaching and learning, is largely unexplored from the perspective of its construction, transmission, acquisition, context and how these are framed by structures of social relationships. This paper intends to explicate a core component of the student/school relational domain by examining specifically the patterns of pedagogic communication that frame teaching and learning in one case study school located in a very marginalised and challenging community in Ireland. The findings are stark. Different linguistic strategies for engaging in pedagogic communication are detailed in the data but in all cases, they fail to lead to rich learning experiences and positive student outcomes.

PACE-IT: designing blended learning for accounting education in the challenging context of a global pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper describes the design of a blended learning intervention to enhance the student learning experience, incorporating innovative technologies and pedagogies within introductory accounting. The design-based research (DBR) methodology involved 68 learners in the participatory design of the intervention across three design iterations. Emerging from the design process, a framework informed by the key themes of Pedagogy, Autonomy, Collaboration, Engagement, Interaction and Technology (PACE-IT) was conceptualised, tested and developed. This study presents the PACE-IT model which offers guidelines to practitioners who seek to design blended learning to provide students with a rich and meaningful learning experience. The emergence of COVID-19 underscores the relevance of these findings. PACE-IT provides direction to accounting educators working within an unfamiliar educational context, today and in the future, where there is an imperative to develop new approaches to accounting education that combine face-to-face with online interaction and learning.

The Development of a STEAM Program about Global Energy with a Focus on Democratic Citizenship

Abstract This study explored democratic citizenship (DC) for students by developing a DC framework (DCF) with eight components. We employed the DCF to examine what and how much DC was included in Korean science textbooks and lab books focused on the topic of energy for Grades K–12. We found different DC components were included at different grade levels and some components were not present at all. To help address the uneven distribution of these components, we developed four DC inclusive science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) books related to the topic of energy. These books were designed with the DCF to foster rich DC learning experiences in school science. We engaged 13 teachers as consultants in a validation process when developing the DC inclusive STEAM books. This study describes the development and implementation of the DCF for preparing supplemental science curriculum materials that can improve students’ appreciation for DC.