Technology-Based Activities as Formative Assessments in the Higher Education Classroom

Instructors across a variety of contexts and levels utilize formative assessments to measure students' progress toward meeting learning outcomes. Formative assessments are how instructors gauge whether their students have mastered content or skills or if they require additional practice and support. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how three elementary education professors utilize technology-based activities as formative assessments within their classrooms. In this chapter, the authors address the importance of using formative assessment in higher education classrooms and provide illustrative examples of how various technologies can be used as assessment tools. These examples will include game-based activities (e.g., Kahoot), presentation platforms (e.g., Nearpod), and organizational tools (e.g., Padlet). The goal of this chapter is to help support instructors in higher education who wish to incorporate technological activities while using them as formative assessments when teaching students.

A Design Framework for Guiding Integration of Instruction and Assessment

Educators are increasingly urged to integrate instructional technology into the curriculum to enhance learning. While it may be that providing more options for delivering instruction in different formats provides instructional benefit for educators, achieving the goal of linking activities and assessment requires a systematic and integrative approach. This chapter will develop a framework that educators can use to guide the integration of learning activities, assessment, and instructional technology in a manner that provides instructional affordances for students to develop critical competencies for success in an ever-changing environment that is the new world of work.

Active Learning Strategies for Online College Classrooms

The term active learning is also known as “learning by doing”; it is where students are presented with a variety of learning activities that encourages thinking and reflection. Educational leaders recognize the value of promoting active learning in the educational setting and encourage their faculty to apply active learning techniques in their online classrooms to increase learner interest and motivation. This chapter identifies various active learning strategies that can be applied to any discipline in any online course, as well as presents different examples of active learning activities. Active learning strategies can include group work, simulations (role play), and games, in order to build learners' critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills.

Increasing Participation of International Students in the Higher Education Classrooms Through Technology-Enhanced Instruction

This research-based chapter explores East Asian international graduate students' challenges in the U.S. higher education environment and identifies how technology-enhanced instructional practices can increase their active participation in the classroom. The classroom-based intervention study was conducted in a Master of Arts program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at a research university in the Western U.S. The participants were 56 students in this TESOL program. The three types of technology (Padlet, Plickers, and Poll Everywhere) were selected based on criteria including ease of implementation and positive influences on students' participation and learning in class. The data were collected through a pre- and post-survey and three weeks of classroom observation. The resulting qualitative observational and survey data revealed consequences of the technology enhancements in instruction in terms of changes in students' active participation in class, insights produced into critical cultural understandings, and relationships to learning outcomes.

Intentionality in Blended Learning Design

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to develop a tool that helps educators develop digitally mediated learning (DML) episodes by systematically applying the principles of four paradigms, namely meaningful learning, ubiquitous learning (u-learning), universal design for learning (UDL), and culturally responsive teaching (CRT). The goal is to harness the affordances of each paradigm and combine them into an approach that systematically enhances and enriches DML. This chapter will be relevant for teachers in higher education wishing to complement their face-to-face teaching with carefully designed digitally mediated content capitalizing collaboration, interaction, personal relevance, and projects that can provide creativity-enhancing learning.

Beaches, Temples, and Flying Proas

Our mission at educators, teachers, professors, and yes, even guides and facilitators on the journey of knowledge and learning for students in higher education must be to strive each and every day to foster an environment within the classroom and even beyond its walls that seeks to empower the learners to take charge of their own learning and to endeavor to find approaches and strategies that most effectively contribute to the outcomes of stated learning objectives. In this chapter, the authors analyze five years of experience within the classroom setting in upper level sociology courses at the University of Guam. The experience centers around strategies and approaches in three broad areas of learner-centered pedagogy that include flipping the classroom, collaborative, and active learning approaches.

Implications of Cognitive Theories for Optimizing Higher Education Learning

Cognitive theories have the potential to provide suggestions to design more effective learning environments for higher education. The goal of this chapter is to review cognitive theories and principles based on empirical findings and suggest implications for practice. Working memory theory, distributed cognition theory, dual-process theory, modulatory emotional consolidation theory, mental model theory, metacognitive theory, transfer appropriate processing principle, generation effect, testing effect, and spacing effect are presented in the current study. Based on these theoretical frameworks, novel recommendations for educational practice are suggested.

Contemporary Theories of Learning and Pedagogical Approaches for All Students to Achieve Success

Learning plays a key role in the development of human society. Learning theories and pedagogical approaches from the past can inform teaching and learning today. However, as society becomes more technologically advanced, as science uncovers more about the human brain, and as educational institutions become more open to persons historically excluded from educational environments, there is a need to understand and apply contemporary theories of learning to meet these changes. This chapter seeks to summarize contemporary theories of learning and pedagogical approaches for all students to achieve success. Summarizing these theories will help educators see the unique approach each theory offers and understand how multiple learning theories and pedagogies can be applied to their learning environment to support student success.

Formative Assessment and Classroom Activities of New Era Microwave Engineering Curriculum

Microwave engineering (ME) is a technology-based course. The aim of this course is to train future professional engineers to gain practical skills, such as RF-integrated circuits design and analysis, as well as microwave instrument operation. Therefore, the curriculum for this course needs to revise and meet the needs of the future so that future graduated engineers in the telecommunication field can find the job easier and have the professional skills required by the employer. This chapter proposes and presents some simple practical assignments for undergraduates to complete their assessment in the ME course. At the same time, the gap between the university's curriculum and the current development of microwave technology in the industrial sector can be reduced through such practical assignments.

A Comparative Study on New Generation Learning and Awareness

Considering the evolutionary process of education and training from past to present, access to information is possible in many different ways such as written, visual, auditory, virtual, online, offline, one-to-one, or in classrooms regardless of age, place, and time. Within the scope of this study, a questionnaire was applied to undergraduate students who were studying at two different universities in Ankara and Izmir during 2018-2019 academic year by convenience sampling method. The survey data gathered from these universities were analyzed and compared to assess student awareness of new generation learning environments. According to the results of this survey, it is found that the undergraduate students had awareness about the new generation learning environments and that the awareness increases towards the upper grades. On the other hand, it is also found out that YouTube is the most preferred platform among the electronic learning resources.