Barnsley College: Rethinking assessment of work-based learning

Barnsley College’s level 3 and 4 diplomas in digital learning design are delivered in one year, enabling apprentices to be employed alongside their studies in the college’s innovative learning design company, Elephant Learning Designs. The limited time this allows for delivery and assessment has prompted course leaders to rethink their approach to course structure, assessment and feedback design, and the role of technology in evidence collection.

Reliability assessment of a peer evaluation instrument in a team-based learning course

Objective: To evaluate the reliability of a peer evaluation instrument in a longitudinal team-based learning setting. Methods: Student pharmacists were instructed to evaluate the contributions of their peers. Evaluations were analyzed for the variance of the scores by identifying low, medium, and high scores. Agreement between performance ratings within each group of students was assessed via intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: We found little variation in the standard deviation (SD) based on the score means among the high, medium, and low scores within each group. The lack of variation in SD of results between groups suggests that the peer evaluation instrument produces precise results. The ICC showed strong concordance among raters. Conclusions: Findings suggest that our student peer evaluation instrument provides a reliable method for peer assessment in team-based learning settings.

Task-based approach used on surfaces sampling strategy definition: the case of antineoplastic occupational exposure

Task-based approach implicates identifying all the tasks developed in each workplace aiming to refine the exposure characterization. The starting point of this approach is the recognition that only through a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of tasks is possible to understand, in more detail, the exposure scenario. In addition allows also the most suitable risk management measures identification. This approach can be also used when there is a need of identifying the workplace surfaces for sampling chemicals that have the dermal exposure route as the most important. In this case is possible to identify, through detail observation of tasks performance, the surfaces that involves higher contact (frequency) by the workers and can be contaminated. Identify the surfaces to sample when performing occupational exposure assessment to antineoplasic agents. Surfaces selection done based on the task-based approach.

EXAMINING THE IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING: A CASE STUDY

Title of Thesis: Thesis directed by: ABSTRACT EXAMINING THE IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING: A CASE STUDY Stefan Frederick Brooks, Master of Education, 2016 Professor and Chair Francine Hultgren Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership Department Project-based learning (PjBL) is a common instructional strategy to consider for educators, scholars, and advocates who focus on education reform. Previous research on PjBL has focused on its effectiveness, but a limited amount of research exists on the implementation challenges. This exploratory case study examines an attempted project- based learning implementation in one chemistry classroom at a private school that fully supports PjBL for most subjects with limited use in mathematics. During the course of the study, the teacher used a modified version of PjBL. Specifically, he implemented some of the elements of PjBL, such as a driving theme and a public presentation of projects, with the support of traditional instructional methods due to the context of the classroom. The findings of this study emphasize the teacher’s experience with implementing some of the PjBL components and how the inherent implementation challenges affected his practice.

Project-Based learning approach to foster strategic competences of adult students at Cafam Santa Lucia School

Tesis (Licenciado en Lenguas Castellana, Inglés y Francés).--Universidad de La Salle. Facultad de Ciencias de La Educación. Licenciatura en Lengua Castellana, Inglés y Francés, 2014

Investigating problem-based learning in Saudi Arabian mathematics education: a TIMSS-related study

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) on students’ mathematical performance. This includes mathematics achievement and students’ attitudes towards mathematics for third and eighth grade students in Saudi Arabia. Mathematics achievement includes, knowing, applying, and reasoning domains, while students’ attitudes towards mathematics covers, ‘Like learning mathematics’, ‘value mathematics’, and ‘a confidence to learn mathematics’. This study goes deeper to examine the interaction of a PBL teaching strategy, with trained face-to-face and self-directed learning teachers, on students’ performance (mathematics achievement and attitudes towards mathematics). It also examines the interaction between different ability levels of students (high and low levels) with a PBL teaching strategy (with trained face-to-face or self-directed learning teachers) on students’ performance. It draws upon findings and techniques of the TIMSS international benchmarking studies. Mixed methods are used to analyse the quasi-experimental study data. One -way ANOVA, Mixed ANOVA, and paired t-tests models are used to analyse quantitative data, while a semi-structured interview with teachers, and author’s observations are used to enrich understanding of PBL and mathematical performance. The findings show that the PBL teaching strategy significantly improves students’ knowledge application, and is better than the traditional teaching methods among third grade students. This improvement, however, occurred only with the trained face-to-face teacher’s group. Furthermore, there is robust evidence that using a PBL teaching strategy could raise significantly students’ liking of learning mathematics, and confidence to learn mathematics, more than traditional teaching methods among third grade students. Howe ver, there was no evidence that PBL could improve students’ performance (mathematics achievement and attitudes towards mathematics), more than traditional teaching methods, among eighth grade students. In 8th grade, the findings for low achieving students show significant improvement compared to high achieving students, whether PBL is applied or not. However, for 3th grade students, no significant difference in mathematical achievement between high and low achieving students was found. The results were not expected for high achieving students and this is also discussed. The implications of these findings for mathematics education in Saudi Arabia are considered.

Interdisciplinary project-based learning: technology for improving student cognition

The article studies a way of enhancing student cognition by using interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL) in a higher education institution. IPBL is a creative pedagogic approach allowing students of one area of specialisation to develop projects for students with different academic profiles. The application of this approach in the Ural State University of Economics resulted in a computer-assisted learning system (CALS) designed by IT students. The CALS was used in an analytical chemistry course with students majoring in Commodities Management and Expertise (‘expert’ students). To test how effective the technology was, the control and experimental groups were formed. In the control group, learning was done with traditional methods. In the experimental group, it was reinforced by IPBL. A statistical analysis of the results, with an application of Pearson χ 2 test, showed that the cognitive levels in both IT and ‘expert’ experimental groups improved as compared with the control groups. The findings demonstrated that IPBL can significantly enhance learning. It can be implemented in any institution of higher or secondary education that promotes learning, including the CALS development and its use for solving problems in different subject areas.

Progettazione di un kit di supporto ai corsi Project Based Learning: il ruolo del tutor nel modello Tech to Market.

L’istruzione superiore in Europa è stata oggetto di un significativo processo di riforma: è aumentato l’interesse per un modello di apprendimento intorno ai progetti, centrato sullo studente, che favorisse lo sviluppo di competenze trasversali – il project-based learning (PBL). Inserire il PBL nelle Università richiede un processo di innovazione didattica: il curriculum di un corso PBL e le competenze richieste all’insegnante si differenziano dall’apprendimento tradizionale. Senza un'adeguata attenzione ai metodi di supporto per insegnanti e studenti, questi approcci innovativi non saranno ampiamente adottati. L’obiettivo di questo studio è determinare in che modo sia possibile implementare un corso PBL non presenziato da figure esperte di PBL. Le domande della ricerca sono: è possibile implementare efficacemente un approccio PBL senza il coinvolgimento di esperti dei metodi di progettazione? come si declinano i ruoli della facilitazione secondo questa configurazione: come si definisce il ruolo di tutor d’aula? come rafforzare il supporto per l’implementazione del corso? Per rispondere alle domande di ricerca è stata utilizzata la metodologia AIM-R. Viene presentata la prima iterazione dell’implementazione di un corso di questo tipo, durante la quale sono state svolte attività di ricerca e raccolta dati. L’attività di facilitazione è affidata a tre figure diverse: docente, tutor d’aula e coach professionisti. Su questa base, sono stati definiti gli elementi costituenti un kit di materiale a supporto per l’implementazione di corsi PBL. Oltre a un set di documenti e strumenti condivisi, sono stati elaborati i vademecum per guidare studenti, tutor e docenti all’implementazione di questo tipo di corsi. Ricerche future dovranno essere volte a identificare fattori aggiuntivi che rendano applicabile il kit di supporto per corsi basati su un modello diverso dal Tech to Market o che utilizzino strumenti di progettazione diversi da quelli proposti durante la prima iterazione.

"Poster yourself": a construção colaborativa e multimédia do conhecimento no Ensino Precoce de Inglês

Mestrado em Ensino Precoce do Inglês

Developing Young Learners’ Logical/Deductive Thinking Skills and Second Language Skills through a CLIL approach

Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Teaching English as a Second / Foreign Language.

A dimensão intercultural do inglês como língua estrangeira em contexto de formação profissional - estudo de caso

Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ensino do Inglês

A cooperar é que se aprende?: a aprendizagem cooperativa e educação intercultural: um contributo na construção da autonomia do aluno

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino de Inglês e Espanhol no 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico e Ensino Secundário

CLIL Materials in Chemistry and English: Iodometric Titrations

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)Materials in Chemistry and English following the principles of CLIL / Content-based Instruction and Task-based Learning

CLIL Materials in Chemistry and English: Iodometric Titrations

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)Materials in Chemistry and English following the principles of CLIL / Content-based Instruction and Task-based Learning