An official website of the United States government
Lesson study provides opportunities for teachers to collaboratively design, implement, and analyze instruction. Research illustrates its efficacy as a site for teacher learning. The setting for this article is a lesson study project involving preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and university faculty members. We supported collaborative reflection on practice among these individuals by using asynchronous and synchronous online tools and meeting protocols. Asynchronous online lesson-video review and tagging helped participants prepare to debrief about lessons they had implemented. Midway through one of our lesson study cycles, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, eliminating opportunities to meet face-to-face for lesson debriefing sessions. In response, we developed and field-tested two protocols for online synchronous lesson study debriefing meetings. The protocols prompted conversations related to pedagogy, content, and content-specific pedagogy. After the debriefing sessions, lesson study group members reported improvements in their knowledge growth, self-efficacy, and expectations for student learning. We describe our use of online virtual tools and protocols to contribute to the literature on ways to support collaborative reflection on practice.
more »
« less
An Analytic Comparison of Student-Scheduled and Instructor-Scheduled Collaborative Learning in Online Contexts
Collaborative learning can improve student learning, student persistence, and the classroom climate. While work has documented the tradeoffs of face-to-face collaboration and asynchronous, online learning, the trade-offs between asynchronous (student-scheduled) and synchronous (instructor-scheduled) collaborative and online learning have not been explored. Structured roles can maximize the effectiveness of collaborative learning by helping all students participate, but structured roles have not been studied in online settings. We performed a quasi-experimental study in two courses—Computer Architecture and Numerical Methods—to compare the effects of asynchronous collaborative learning without structured roles to synchronous collaborative learning with structured roles. We use a data-analytics approach to examine how these approaches affected the student learning experience during formative collaborative learning assessments. Teams in the synchronous offering made higher scoring submissions (5-10% points better on average), finished assessments more efficiently (11-16 minutes faster on average), and had greater equality in the total number of submissions each student made (for example, significant increase of 13% in the mean equality score among all groups).
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2121412
- PAR ID:
- 10379677
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Motivation: This is a complete paper. There was a sudden shift from traditional learning to online learning in Spring 2020 with the outbreak of COVID-19. Although online learning is not a new topic of discussion, universities, faculty, and students were not prepared for this sudden change in learning. According to a recent article in ‘The Chronicle of Higher Education, “even under the best of circumstances, virtual learning requires a different, carefully crafted approach to engagement”. The Design Thinking course under study is a required freshmen level course offered in a Mid-western University. The Design Thinking course is offered in a flipped format where all the content to be learned is given to students beforehand and the in-class session is used for active discussions and hands-on learning related to the content provided at the small group level. The final learning objective of the course is a group project where student groups are expected to come up with functional prototypes to solve a real-world problem following the Design Thinking process. There were eighteen sections of the Design Thinking course offered in Spring 2020, and with the outbreak of COVID-19, a few instructors decided to offer synchronous online classes (where instructors were present online during class time and provided orientation and guidance just like a normal class) and a few others decided to offer asynchronous online classes (where orientation from the instructor was delivered asynchronous and the instructor was online during officially scheduled class time but interactions were more like office hours). Students were required to be present synchronously at the team level during the class time in a synchronous online class. In an asynchronous online class, students could be synchronous at the team level to complete their assignment any time prior to the deadline such that they could work during class time but they were not required to work at that time. Through this complete paper, we are trying to understand student learning, social presence and learner satisfaction with respect to different modes of instruction in a freshmen level Design Thinking course. Background: According to literature, synchronous online learning has advantages such as interaction, a classroom environment, and better course quality whereas asynchronous online learning has advantages such as self-controlled and self-directed learning. The disadvantages of synchronous online learning include the learning process, technology issues, and distraction. Social isolation, lack of interaction, and technology issue are a few disadvantages related to asynchronous online learning. Problem Being Addressed: There is a limited literature base investigating different modes of online instruction in a Design Thinking course. Through this paper, we are trying to understand and share the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous modes of instruction in an online Flipped Design Thinking Course. The results of the paper could also help in this time of pandemic by shedding light on the more effective way to teach highly active group-based classrooms for better student learning, social presence, and learner satisfaction. Method/Assessment: An end of semester survey was monitored in Spring 2020 to understand student experiences in synchronous and asynchronous Design Thinking course sections. The survey was sent to 720 students enrolled in the course in Spring 2020 and 324 students responded to the survey. Learning was measured using the survey instrument developed by Walker (2003) and the social presence and learner satisfaction was measured by the survey modified by Richardson and Swan (2003). Likert scale was used to measure survey responses. Anticipated Results: Data would be analyzed and the paper would be completed by draft paper submission. As the course under study is a flipped and active course with a significant component of group work, the anticipated results after analysis could be that one mode of instruction has higher student learning, social presence, and learner satisfaction compared to the other.more » « less
-
Use of structured roles to facilitate cooperative learning is an evidence-based practice that has been shown to improve student performance, attitude, and persistence. The combination of structured roles and activities also helps build students’ process skills including communication and metacognition. While these benefits have been shown in a variety of disciplines, most prior work has focused on in-person, synchronous settings, and few studies have looked at online, synchronous settings. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we need a better understanding of how cooperative learning takes place online and what differences may exist between online and in-person modalities. This work-in-progress serves to document our development of an observation protocol to help us answer research questions such as the following: Do group members participate equally? Do group members’ contributions match their role? How do groups connect and bond with each other? How do groups seek help?more » « less
-
Developing effective assessments of student learning is a challenging task for faculty and even more difficult for those in emerging disciplines that lack readily available resources and standards. With the power of technology-enhanced education and accessible digital learning platforms, instructors are also looking for assessments that work in an online format. This article will be useful for all teachers, but especially for entry-level instructors, in addition to more mature instructors who are looking to become more well versed in assessment, who seek a succinct summary of assessment types to springboard the integration of new forms of assessment of student learning into their courses. In this paper, ten assessment types, all appropriate for face-to-face, blended, and online modalities, are discussed. The assessments are mapped to a set of bioinformatics core competencies with examples of how they have been used to assess student learning. Although bioinformatics is used as the focus of the assessment types, the question types are relevant to many disciplines.more » « less
-
In many disciplines, the growth of online courses was propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, but this trend moderated as health concerns receded. Before the pandemic, computer science-related disciplines were less keen on online labs because of their inherently hands-on nature. This study presents a comparative analysis of student and faculty perceptions towards online labs in three computing-related disciplines a year after the pandemic. Through a survey with 242 students and 20 faculty responses, we found students were, overall, positive about their online lab experience—as were faculty. Students and instructors both agree that (1) where provided, online lab courses are being taught effectively, and (2) it is crucial to continue investing in technology infrastructure to enhance the quality and accessibility of both online and in-person labs. However, students and instructors disagree on two issues: (1) teamwork for lab activities and assignments (i.e., faculty tended to have a more optimistic view of online collaborative activities); and (2) modality for lab sessions (i.e., student preferences were evenly split between synchronous and asynchronous labs while faculty mostly preferred synchronous online labs). Faculty appear more optimistic about the effectiveness of online labs but show heightened concern regarding technological disruptions. Notably, all comments from students asserted the importance of having recorded demonstrations, even when a live synchronous demonstration may have been provided. Utilizing recordings and making them available is an example of a best practice worth promoting despite the added effort for faculty.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
