scholarly journals Students’ attention in class: patterns, perceptions of cause and a tool for measuring classroom quality of life

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-71
Author(s):  
Neil Grainger Allison
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Classroom Quality ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Individual Interaction ◽  
Medium Education ◽  
Exercise Breaks ◽  
Interaction Types ◽  
Full Class ◽  
Changes Over Time

Constructs such as engagement and FLOW have been well-developed and studied in education contexts. Sustained attention, a distinct but related concept, has been less studied, particularly in the language classroom and foreign language medium education. In a case study involving mixed methods, predominantly structured qualitative data, student attention was measured repeatedly during a university pre-sessional EAP course. The aim was to compare with previous research on the relationship between attention and time/stages of lessons and reveal any additional attention patterns based on interaction types (group work, individual work, full class). In addition, repeated surveys were used to reveal what students perceived as damaging to attention and also the perceived value of exercise breaks. Results suggested significance in attention changes over time and between teacher talking time, group work and individual interaction types. The study design itself forms a simple and effective tool to improve classroom life including teachers’ monitoring of class dynamics and for students, a means of self-reflection to increase learning performance. 

scholarly journals METHODOLOGY OF GROUP WORK ORGANISATION FOR STUDENT LEARNING PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataly Prokofyeva ◽  
Marina Uhanova
Keyword(s):  
Student Learning ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
First Year ◽  
Work Organisation ◽  
Student Group ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Java Programming ◽  
Learning Programming

The article describes the methodology of learning programming for students of various engineering disciplines. The course "Algorithmization and Programming of Solutions" is taught to all first-year students of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology in Riga Technical University and provides the basic knowledge of the principles of computational process algorithmization and software creation technology using Java programming language. There are 8 laboratory assignments in the course, where students have to develop a software programme and 2 group work assignments, where the student has to develop some algorithms to solve a given problem, write a programme, evaluate the speed of developed algorithms and prepare a presentation on the results of their research. The article describes the main principles of efficient student group work organisation that lets to increase their interest and motivate them to participate in the course in a responsible way. This paper is focused on research on how group work influences student learning performance.

scholarly journals Developing Student Meta-Cognition in a Design Course.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Steele
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Project Work ◽  
Group Project ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Main Route ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Life Long Learning ◽  
Capstone Project ◽  
Planning Group

practice can help with developing professional skills. To encourage the development of self reflection and ultimately meta-cognition related to project and design work, undergraduate electrical engineering students in anon-capstone project course undertook reflection exercises on their group project. The instructor observed a range of abilities to undertake the reflections, with some not going beyond describing the work that they had done, whereas others started to show a deeper consideration and thinking about their project work. The main route for reflection was a reflection journal, where five entries were required over the period of the project. The choice of reflection topic was up to the student except in one entry case when a mandatory question on life long learning was asked. For each of the other reflections a suggestion was provided for a reflection topic. Other opportunities for reflection were included with questionnaires at the beginning and end of the course, as well as presentations including one describing one thing the group had learned.The individual experiences of students in a first major group project course allow a range of reflections to occur, from ideas about planning, group work, problem solving and design being potential areas for discussion. Evaluation here is restricted to the instructors observations and not a detailed analysis of the student’s reflection work. This is an early examination of reflection and meta-cognition of the students but there areindications that students are taking the first steps in considering their approaches to project and design work.

Measuring individual learning performance in group work from a knowledge integration perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 179 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
J FERNANDEZBREIS ◽  
D CASTELLANOSNIEVES ◽  
R VALENCIAGARCIA
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Learning Performance

scholarly journals Supporting Mature Aged Students to Develop Group Work Skills: A Review of a 2-Year Study of Students’ Experience of Group Work within their Pre-Nursing Program

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2 (October)) ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Deanna McCall ◽  
Bronwyn Relf
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Nursing Program ◽  
Social Connection ◽  
Access To Higher Education ◽  
Work Skills ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Student Role ◽  
The University ◽  
Gain Access

The University of Newcastle offers a tertiary preparation program that enables mature aged students to gain access to higher education. One of the largest intakes is into the pre-nursing program. This paper will share the findings of a 2-year study of tertiary preparation students undertaking group work within their pre-nursing program. For many mature-aged students returning to study, it requires the development and transition of their identity from that of an adult role to that of a student role. The aim of this study was to examine how group work can help support mature aged students in their transition to a student identity. The premise was to enable students to develop skills for success in their undergraduatenursing studies, whilst fostering social connection and a sense of belonging in the university. We identified an essential aspect of nursing as being able to work collaboratively with other nurses and within allied health teams. Keeping this in mind, we developed and delivered an approach that introduced group work in Week 3 of the students' program to enable them to effectively integrate curricula and co-curricular learning experiences. Using an online assessment tool called SPARK, students were each asked to self-reflect upon their individual role and their role within the group according to specific criteria that promoted positive group work behaviours and fostered social connection. It was hoped that by providing students with resources and evaluation tools they would develop group work and self-reflection skills to succeed in their studies and future profession.

scholarly journals Transferring Power: a reflective exploration of authentic student-centred small group work in clinical legal education

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Elaine Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Clinical Setting ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Small Group Work ◽  
Self Reflection

Researchers use self-reflection and personal narrative as a lens through which to identify thoughts and feelings about lived experience.  This article uses reflexivity in order to capture, critique and develop small group work practice in clinical legal education.  It draws on the concept of constructivism and queries whether small group work in a clinical setting can truly be a paradigm of student-centred teaching.  At its core, it argues that an authentic student-centred approach is best achieved when power is transferred to clinic students and they are given the opportunity to lead their own group work.

scholarly journals So You Think You Can ELF: English as a Lingua Franca as the Medium of Instruction

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (45) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Beyza Björkman
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Communicative Strategies ◽  
Medium Education ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Pragmatic Strategies

This paper reports the findings of a study on spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF) in Swedish higher education. The aim has been to investigate the role pragmatic strategies play in content lectures where English is a lingua franca, i.e. a vehicular language. The findings show that lecturers in ELF settings make less frequent use of pragmatic strategies than students, who deploy these strategies frequently in group-work projects. Earlier stages of the present study showed that despite frequent non-standardness at the morphosyntax level, there is very little overt disturbance in student group-work (Björkman 2008a and b/2009b), most likely owing to a variety of communicative strategies used during interaction and the questions raised (Björkman 2009a). It seems reasonable to assume that, in the absence of appropriate strategies and questions that serve as real-time signals of disturbance, there is an increased risk for covert disturbance in lectures. This view complies with the findings of earlier studies on the importance of such strategies (Mauranen 2006, Airey 2009, Hellekjær 2010). The findings imply that the effectiveness of a speaker of English in academic ELF settings is determined primarily by the speaker’s pragmatic ability and less by his/her proficiency. There are important implications of these findings for lecturers who need to operate in ELF settings. First, increasing interactivity by using pragmatic strategies sufficiently frequently appears critical for those involved in English-medium education. It is also important that awareness is raised on target language usage in lecturing in English. Such awareness-raising can be achieved at the macro level by clearly-written language policies that include training for teachers and students who both need to be equipped with the skills needed to cope with the complexities of such settings, and at the micro level, by in-house training and courses that could be administered to both teachers and students.

scholarly journals TEACHING TEAMWORK TO ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS: THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-REFLECTION AND ACKNOWLEDGING DIVERSITY IN TEAMS

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Long ◽  
Amin Reza Rajabzadeh ◽  
Allan MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Group Work ◽  
First Year ◽  
Engineering Technology ◽  
Problem Solving Skills ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Technology Students ◽  
Group Members

 Abstract – In their quest to find work-ready graduates, employers are increasingly prioritizing graduates with so-called transferable skills. These transferable skills include critical thinking and problem-solving skills, communication skills, and the ability to work in diverse teams. With the plethora of engineering education literature on the topic of developing undergraduates’ teamwork abilities, there are numerous suggestions and little consensus on the best way to develop these skills in engineering classrooms. This paper adds to this literature and provides an overview of group work workshops for first-year undergraduates. The hope for these workshops was to better equip students for future group work activities by providing them easy-to-remember teamwork tools that were first learned and practiced in low-stakes workshop environments. Following their participation in these workshops, students participated in focus groups and feedback demonstrated an appreciation for these workshops as well as the opportunity to self-reflect on their role as a team member. Further, there appeared to be a shift in the awareness and tolerance of the diversity found among group members, which demonstrates a potential area for further investigation. The authors conclude with a call for more research in order to better understand the role of teamwork as a means for developing tolerance toward diversity among first-year undergraduate students.

scholarly journals Social Autonomy and Decision Making in L2 Group Work

2018 ◽  
pp. 280-305
Author(s):  
Diana Feick
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Learning Groups ◽  
Individual Interaction ◽  
Participation Mechanisms ◽  
Emic Perspective ◽  
Social Autonomy

This article presents an investigation into the socio-interactional nature of learner autonomy in language learning groups. The study is situated in the context of a mobile phone video project with 13 Mexican adult learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). The aim was to examine autonomy, heteronomy and participation in L2 classroom negotiations in a group work situation. These constructs have been shown to be highly influential in second language learning in an institutional context (Little, 2000; O’Leary, 2014; Schmenk, 2008; Thornbury, 2011). Decision-making episodes of three project groups were examined from an interactional, participational and sequential point of view. The analysis offered both an etic and an emic perspective on L2-group negotiation processes and allowed for the detailed reconstruction of collective and cooperative participation mechanisms. It unveiled a strong link between individual interaction styles, different types of participation, group discourse patterns and the display of group autonomy and/or personal autonomy. These findings inform an empirically grounded theoretical model of group autonomy in the L2 classroom, which will be introduced in this paper.

scholarly journals Experience of Using An e-portfolio In Clinical Practice at a Medical School

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mi Ryoung Song ◽  
Ji Hye Yu ◽  
Mi Jin Lee ◽  
Su Kyung Lee ◽  
Mi Ran Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Electronic Portfolio ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Obstetrics And Gynecology ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Fifth Grade Students

Abstract Background: The electronic portfolio(e-portfolio) is a useful tool for storing learning-related information, gathering and organizing learning evidence, and demonstrating student learning and growth over time. According to various studies, e-portfolio content criteria should be kept simple and adaptable in relation to educational aims. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies on whether the content composition of an e-portfolio as seen by learners using the real e-portfolio is acceptable. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the appropriateness of electronic portfolio content items and feedback affects self-reflection and learning ability in clinical practice for medical students who used an electronic portfolio.Methods: This research was carried out in 2020 with 40 fifth-grade students at Ajou University College of Medicine in Korea. The benefits and utility of e-portfolios were investigated in clinical practice courses in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and neurology. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), correlation analysis, and a regression analysis were performed on the obtained data.Results: Satisfaction with neurology was the greatest among the clinical practice courses in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and neurology as compared to clinical practice course using an e-portfolio for the first time. Self-reflection, learning performance improvement, and prompt feedback were all found to be more satisfying than in previous clinical practice courses. Furthermore, as the quantity of content items in the e-portfolio dropped and the faculty in charge rapidly provided feedback, medical students' satisfaction with e-portfolio usage increased.Conclusions: The number of content items in the e-portfolio decreased as the number of content items in the e-portfolio declined in the clinical practice course of the medical school; moreover, the faculty in charge provided timely feedback. This suggests that for medical students to effectively use the e-portfolio in the clinical practice course, a plan should be developed to reduce the number of e-portfolio content items. Subsequently, there should be a focus on the most important items while considering the unique characteristics of each clinical practice course. It also indicates that professors should provide prompt feedback on students' academic performances.

Outcomes: Promoting Reflective Practice Using Performance Indicator Questionnaires

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Pat McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Education ◽  
Performance Indicator ◽  
Clinical Skills ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Clinical Practicum ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Language Pathology ◽  
Traditional Performance ◽  
The University

This article details the process of self-reflection applied to the use of traditional performance indicator questionnaires. The study followed eight speech-language pathology graduate students enrolled in clinical practicum in the university, school, and healthcare settings over a period of two semesters. Results indicated when reflection was focused on students' own clinical skills, modifications to practice were implemented. Results further concluded self-assessment using performance indicators paired with written reflections can be a viable form of instruction in clinical education.

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