scholarly journals Active Participation in the Student-to-Teacher Interaction in Online Synchronous Sessions in Higher Education

Author(s):  
Catalina Juárez-Díaz ◽  
Leonel Ojeda-Ruiz

Mexican institutions promoted e-learning to conclude the school year 2019-2020. In the higher education institution where this study was conducted, teachers were not familiar with online teaching. In Spring 2020, teachers prepared themselves or with students’ assistance to teach online. In Summer 2020, the institution offered workshops to update teachers on Blackboard LMS, Microsoft Teams, and Moodle to work in Autumn 2020. After that training, teachers started videoconferences in online synchronous sessions (OSSs). However, they observed that students did not participate actively in OSSs. Given this contextual background, this qualitative exploratory study addressed a threefold objective: 1. To identify students’ perceptions of active participation in OSSs. 2. To explore the degree of participation in the student-teacher interaction in OSSs at a higher institution, and 3. To identify factors affecting student active participation while teachers are lecturing. Sixteen participants with ages ranging from 19 to 25 years old were interviewed. The results showed that most participants consider active participation essential in online synchronous sessions; the level of participation was high, moderate, and low. In addition, affective, cognitive, moral and technical factors affected students’ active participation. The results of this study are useful in shaping our understanding of the whole panorama that is taking place behind synchronous sessions. 

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 278-288
Author(s):  
Cosmas Maphosa ◽  
Talent Rugube ◽  
Khetsiwe Eunice Mthethwa-Kunene ◽  
Patience Dlamini

ABSTRACT  This desktop review paper advances the view that the utilisation of technology for online teaching and learning needs to be based on sound considerations. Online learning technologies are defined and the purpose of utilising such technologies is explored. Among the different considerations in online technology utilisation is the need to consider how the technologies assist in solving pedagogical challenges for teaching and learning. The context in which the learners and the course instructors find themselves using the technologies may promote or negate the effective use of the technology. Technology may be costly to procure and maintain, and this factor should be considered before the technology is procured for use in an institution of higher education. In many contexts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the digital divide is real in terms of access to technologies and the skills in technology use. The use of technology may perpetuate social differences as learners from disadvantaged backgrounds end up being left out of the learning process. Organisational and infrastructural issues are other important factors to consider in technology utilisation. The paper concludes that technology utilisation for online teaching and learning should be deliberately planned to consider numerous factors and address avoidable challenges in the implementation of online learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5471
Author(s):  
Chuan-Yu Mo ◽  
Te-Hsin Hsieh ◽  
Chien-Liang Lin ◽  
Yuan Qin Jin ◽  
Yu-Sheng Su

In order to enable online learning to continue developing when the COVID-19 pandemic passes, this study aimed to identify the critical factors that affected the use of e-learning by university students during the pandemic. These critical factors will help to increase the efficiency of future development and deployment of online learning systems. Through a literature review, this study employed the technology acceptance model, social support, and task–technology fit as the theoretical basis to establish the framework of the online learning environment with regards to the technology acceptance model in the context of emergency management. A questionnaire survey was administered to students in universities that had implemented online teaching during the pandemic, and 552 valid responses were collected. The survey explored the factors affecting the willingness of higher education institution students to continue using online learning, and the following conclusions were drawn. (1) The easier an online learning platform was to navigate, the better it was perceived by the students, and thus the students were more willing to use it. (2) Ease of use and usefulness were associated with the teachers’ choice of platform and their ability to achieve a satisfactory fit between the course design and platform navigation, which thereby affected the students’ learning outcomes and attitude towards use. (3) The positive attitude of teachers towards teaching increased the students’ perceived ease of use of online learning. (4) During the pandemic, family support—a major support for teachers in online teaching—enhanced teachers’ attitudes towards, and willingness to provide, online teaching. A high level of support showed that the parents urged the students to learn and complete online learning tasks as instructed by the teachers, implying that family support could affect the students’ habits towards, adaptation to, and identification of online learning. The study results provide insights into the factors affecting the willingness of teachers and students to continue using e-learning platforms.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan D. Tipan

The study attempted to describe the factors affecting the sociolinguistic andstrategic competencies in English among teachers in Higher Education Institutionsin Lipa City and determine the relationship between the demographic characteristicsand their assessments. The study was done during the school year 2010-2011. ThreeHigher Education Institutions in Lipa City were selected as the research locale. Totalenumeration was used as sampling for the study. Both quantitative and qualitativeresearch methods were employed. The respondents agreed that the factors of contextof acquisition, accommodating speech norms and code switching, degree of contactwith second language users and level of confidence affect their sociolinguisticcompetence. Likewise, they also agreed that the factors of questioning skills and useof non-verbal communication affect their strategic competencies. Variations in termsof the relationships of different demographic characteristics and their sociolinguisticand strategic competencies were also established. A general sense, the teachers’diverse characteristics generated different points of view on how the factors affecttheir competencies. This led to the conclusion that they are the ones responsible why the factors influence their competencies. They should be the ones responsible for affecting culture and not culture to affect their language competencies. It is of greatimportance that teachers should take the initiative to study and systematically use thecompetencies which they can work on. HEI administrators should offer professionaldevelopment seminars as these are necessary for the effective use of the teachers’competencies.Keywords: competency, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competency,context of acquisition, code switching, confidence questioning skills, non-verbalcommunication


Author(s):  
Allan M. Lawrence ◽  
Peter J. Short ◽  
Deborah Millar

This chapter reviews and investigates the models and acceptability of E-Learning to the emerging students markets for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from the More Developed Countries (MDCs) and seeks to evaluate the differing models of delivery from a practical and a socio-economic perspective. The research also investigates the impact of the shifts in population growth and the subsequent impact upon the levels of demand from students in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) for higher education. In addition, the logistical and quality factors affecting E-Learning are evaluated, looking at the aspects of academic rigour, plagiarism, and the methods of managing the originality and authenticity of student work. Similarly, the research looks at the viability of situations where the education provider may never physically meet the students through the exclusive use of VLEs, and the possible credibility issues that this may present to institutional and awarding body reputations.


Author(s):  
Morales

Electronic Web-based campus information systems and e-learning educational delivery became increasingly important for higher education practice in the late 20th and early 21st century (Bates, 2000; Cobarsí, 2005). These emergent information technologies brought about changes in the traditional face-to-face campus and paper-based communication and teaching (Brown & Duguid, 2000). There are several trends in the introduction of information technology in universities that can be summarised into three main types (Duderstadt, 2000; Folkers, 2005). Firstly, most universities gradually adopted electronic campus information systems and e-learning to reinforce functionalities offered by their physical campus, with no intention of substituting the traditional campus but simply to strengthen their capabilities. Secondly, other institutions, the so-called first generation distance universities, had no physical campus from the very beginning, such as the institutions founded in the 1970s: the British Open University http://www3.open.ac.uk or Spain’s Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia http://www.uned. es/portal/index.htm. Thus, they incorporated electronic media to complement their usual means of communication by post or periodical face-to-face tuition. Thirdly, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, hereinafter the OUC) is a quite different case: it was created from the very beginning (the academic year 1995-1996) as a wholly e-learning and Internet-based higher education institution, where a virtual campus with wide-ranging functionalities supports most of the day-to-day activities. As a result of these original premises, this university has some important organizational and information system features, which are summarised and discussed in the sections below, from the chronological perspective offered by its having been in operation for 10 years.


Author(s):  
Gary F. McKenna ◽  
Gavin J. Baxter ◽  
Thomas Hainey

An important part of educational effective practice is performing evaluations to optimise learning. Applying evaluation criteria to virtual and personal learning environments enables educators to assess whether the technologies used are producing the intended effect. As online educational technologies become more sophisticated so does the need to evaluate them. This chapter suggests that traditional educational evaluation frameworks for evaluating e-Learning are insufficient for application to LMS e-portfolios. To address this problem we have developed evaluation criteria designed to assess the usability of LMS e-portfolios used within higher education. One of the main problems with evaluating the usability of LMS e-portfolio is that there is a distinct lack of empirical evidence of evaluation criteria designed and developed for evaluating e-portfolios. This chapter describes the results of applying newly developed LMS e-portfolio evaluation criteria within one UK higher education institution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 791-811
Author(s):  
Lesley Gourlay

Abstract The term ‘quarantine’ is derived from the Italian quarantena, from quaranta, referring to the forty days of isolation traditionally imposed during the era of the Black Death in Europe. This paper examines this and related contemporary terms, in order to consider the complex and contradictory nature of enforced sites of isolation, with reference to the historical literature. The centrality of spatial practices in the current pandemic is emphasised, with a focus on the normally unobserved, micro practices of individuals under ‘lockdown’. The paper reports on an interview study conducted at a large UK Higher Education institution during the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’, and analyses the accounts of six academics, focusing particularly on their embodied and sociomaterial practices, with reference to the etymological analysis. The paper considers the extent to which their reported experiences reflect the various meanings of the term sequestrato, going on to propose that their working practices, particularly focused on screens and video calls, are characterised by a need to ‘perform the university’. I speculate on how the ontological nature of the university itself has been fundamentally altered by the closure of the campus and lockdown, proposing that the site of the university is now radically dispersed across these sequestered bodies. I conclude by calling into the question the accuracy of the term ‘online teaching and learning’, instead suggesting that in a fundamental sense, none of these practices is in fact ‘online’ or digital.


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