scholarly journals Are Social Media Sites a Platform for Formal or Informal learning? Students’ Experiences in Institutions of Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cedric Bheki Mpungose
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lecture Hall ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Learning Platforms ◽  
Group Interviews

By being oblivious to the recent paradigm shift from formal learning to informal learning platforms, higher education institutions (HEIs) disadvantage student learning in the digital age. With the aim of bringing awareness of the need to shift from the use of learning management systems (LMS) to social media sites (SMS), this study explores students’ experiences of the use of SMS for learning science modules. This qualitative interpretive case study was carried out at two universities, with electronic reflective activities, Zoom focus group interviews and WhatsApp one-on-one semi-structured interviews used to generate data. The sample was a total of 47 students purposively selected from science modules in a teacher education programme at two schools of education, one in South Africa and one in the United States of America. Data were thematically analysed and framed by social constructivism and connectivism. Findings indicated that learning of science modules is mainly through LMS, at the expense of SMS which are preferred by the students. The study concludes that since SMS are used effectively for students’ communication and collaboration outside of the lecture hall, then HEIs need to shift to thinking about bringing these SMS inside and putting them to use for effective learning.

Malaysian University Students' Preferences of Social Media and LMS in Academia

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaidatul Akma Adi Kasuma ◽  
Mohamad Saifudin Mohamad Saleh ◽  
Ayuni Akhiar ◽  
Yanny Marliana Baba Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Media ◽  
University Students ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Management System ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Academic Environment ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Academic Content

Academic online portals of Learning Management System (LMS) and social media have become a necessity in many higher education institutions to tie classroom meetings with learning resources. This study examines Malaysian university students' preferences of social media and LMS for academic purposes. A set of questionnaires was distributed to 269 students at four Malaysian universities. The results show that the students preferred both social media and e-learning for academic purposes, although their interest in social media was slightly higher than that of e-learning. The students had a higher regard for the academic content shared with them, than the design of a social media or e-learning platform. This suggests that both social media and e-learning are highly suitable to be used in academic environment to cater to students' need for formal-informal learning.

Policy actors’ perceptions of qualitative research in policymaking: the case of higher education rulemaking in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca S. Natow
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Target Populations ◽  
The Us

Background: As calls for evidence-based policymaking become increasingly common, qualitative research has much to offer the policy community. However, policymakers frequently evidence a preference for quantitative research. By discounting the importance of qualitative research in the policymaking process, resulting policies and their target populations miss out on the benefits that qualitative research uniquely offers.Aims and objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine how qualitative research has been perceived and used in the US government’s rulemaking process for creating higher education regulations.Methods: This qualitative case study included data from semi-structured interviews with 34 policy actors involved in higher education rulemaking, rulemaking documents, and research reports cited in several key higher education regulations.Findings: Many policy actors viewed qualitative research favourably, but qualitative studies have seldom been cited in higher education rulemaking. Several respondents discussed validity concerns and some policymakers’ misunderstandings regarding qualitative methods. Moreover, storytelling can influence policy actors’ perspectives about the content of policies, and qualitative research was viewed as effective at identifying compelling stories. Thus, narratives derived from qualitative research may provide an opportunity for qualitative researchers to have their work considered in policymaking processes.Discussion and conclusion: Qualitative research faces challenges with gaining visibility and influence in the development of regulatory policy. However, this study has shown that qualitative research has the potential to be both useful and persuasive to policymakers. Studies that discuss relevant stories may be particularly compelling.

scholarly journals Design, Development and Use of a Digital Badges System in Higher Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 220
Author(s):  
María-Estrella Sousa-Vieira ◽  
David Ferrero-Castro ◽  
José-Carlos López-Ardao
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Design Development ◽  
Digital Badges ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Master Level ◽  
Learning Platforms

Badges are non fungible tokens used to document or certify achievements in academics or in any other domain. Besides their utility as proof of achievement, badges are of interest in higher education as pure incentives to push the students and learners in general toward pursuing well-defined goals and skills. In this respect, badges can be naturally incorporated into digital learning platforms also as part of informal learning activities, and stimulate participation, merit, and visibility for the students. However, the level of engagement of learners into these learning activities depends crucially on how the system of badges and rewards has been designed and on how it is applied, if it is to be used effectively. In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of a smart badges system, and an example of its use inside a gamification methodology for informal learning in a master level course, and discuss the benefits and the observed gains in learning performance that can be obtained.

scholarly journals Identity Crisis: The Agency of Instagram in Schools of Architecture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Smith ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Prospective Student ◽  
Representational Practice ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

The focus of this paper addresses themes of neoliberalism, university commercialization and marketing, architecture school identity formation as a representational practice through social media, and the role of image curation and its production in contemporary architecture. This paper emerged after hearing the phrase ‘buyer’s motive,’ which explained what schools needed to consider for attracting students to their programs at a conference by Ruffalo Noel Levtiz on recruitment, marketing, and retention in higher education in the United States. The use of the word, ‘buyer’, instead of ‘student’, or ‘prospective student’, or ‘learner’ seemingly transformed the production of engaged education to its passive consumption.

scholarly journals Designing a learning analytics dashboard for Twitter-facilitated teaching

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Gruzd ◽  
Nadia Conroy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Formal And Informal Learning ◽  
Course Material

Social media sites are increasingly being adopted to support teaching practice in higher education. Learning Analytics (LA) dashboards can be used to reveal how students engage with course material and others in the class. However, research on the best practices of designing, developing, and evaluating such dashboards to support teaching and learning with social media has been limited. Considering the increasing use of Twitter for both formal and informal learning processes, this paper presents our design process and a LA prototype dashboard developed based on a comprehensive literature review and an online survey among 54 higher education instructors who have used Twitter in their teaching. Keywords : Learning analytics, teaching, dashboards, survey

scholarly journals University and Professor Practices to Support DACA and Undocumented Students: DACA Student Experiences, Teacher Knowledge, and University Actions

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 346
Author(s):  
Jenny Banh ◽  
Jelena Radovic-Fanta
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
Undocumented Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Promising Practices ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
College Life ◽  
States Immigration

The United States immigration policy Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which protects some individuals from deportation was enacted in 2012, phased out in 2017 and is now under court challenges. There are still thousands of DACA students currently in higher education. The article highlights promising practices that professors and universities can put in place to support DACA students in the United States. Several semi-structured interviews were conducted with DACA students and Dream Center Directors in California universities to gauge students’ barriers and bridges to their higher education success. DACA students articulated public policy suggestions that universities and professors can immediately enact and have tangible results. Three themes were revealed in the interview data: the need for teacher knowledge, diversity of DACA student experiences, and for actions. These were explained as (1) knowledge of student’s lives, and, conversely, students’ access to information necessary for navigating college life; (2) the diversity of students’ life stories and experiences of trauma suffered during and after DACA rescinding decision; and (3) actions that should be taken by the faculty, staff, and the university community that would help students succeed academically.

Informal Learning Contributes to the Leadership Development of Nurse Managers

2018 ◽  
pp. 356-376
Author(s):  
Rebecca McGill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Nurse Managers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Role Transitions ◽  
Nurses Role

This chapter aligns with this book's purpose to highlight the incidents of informal learning in a variety of settings. The focus of this chapter is on the experiential and informal learning that emerged from a recent study of the workplace leadership development of nurse managers in the United States. This study used a grounded-theory methodology and was based on 19 semi-structured interviews of current and previous nurse managers in two healthcare organizations. The findings focus on the informal learning of nurse managers and how these findings fit into and contribute to the existing literature in adult education on informal workplace learning. Subsequently, the author describes a proposed theory of the informal/experiential learning aspects that contributed to the nurses' role transitions in this study. This chapter will shed new light on the healthcare context as a place of immense informal learning and the informal learning of nurses.

African-Born Female Academics in the U.S.

2019 ◽  
pp. 427-440
Author(s):  
Rosaire Ifedi
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Gender And Migration ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The U.S

This paper was based, in part, on some findings related to the intersection of identity and career outcomes for some African-born female academics located in the United States. In the phenomenological study, data were collected through semi-structured interviews and revealed accounts of race and gendered challenges in their experiences. However, even though they faced similar kinds of marginalization as other Black and foreign women, these participants were confronted with unique questions of identification and experiences of double discrimination. Nonetheless, the findings also suggest a persistence that was reflected in their stories of access, inclusion, and exclusion as well as their perceived role as coalition-builders. An implication for immigrant female professors in the U.S. is that their immigrant status could both facilitate as well as challenge their career paths and economic outcomes, a point equally corroborated by research on gender and migration in higher education in Europe and elsewhere.

Informal Learning Contributes to the Leadership Development of Nurse Managers

2015 ◽  
pp. 121-139
Author(s):  
Rebecca McGill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Nurse Managers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Role Transitions ◽  
Nurses Role

This chapter aligns with this book's purpose to highlight the incidents of informal learning in a variety of settings. The focus of this chapter is on the experiential and informal learning that emerged from a recent study of the workplace leadership development of nurse managers in the United States. This study used a grounded-theory methodology and was based on 19 semi-structured interviews of current and previous nurse managers in two healthcare organizations. The findings focus on the informal learning of nurse managers and how these findings fit into and contribute to the existing literature in adult education on informal workplace learning. Subsequently, the author describes a proposed theory of the informal/experiential learning aspects that contributed to the nurses' role transitions in this study. This chapter will shed new light on the healthcare context as a place of immense informal learning and the informal learning of nurses.

scholarly journals Investigating instructional strategies for using social media in formal and informal learning

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baiyun Chen ◽  
Thomas Bryer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
Telephone Interviews ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Formal And Informal Learning ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Despite the high popularity of personal use of online social media, a low percentage of students and instructors use them for educational purposes. This qualitative study explores the use of social media among faculty in the discipline of public administration in the United States. Eight instructors participated in telephone interviews about their experiences and perceptions of using social media for teaching and learning. Instructors perceive that informal learning using social media could be facilitated by instructors and integrated into formal learning environments for enriched discussions, increased engagement, and broad connections. This study provides qualitative empirical support for social learning theories while offering strategies for and examples of how social media can be used to connect formal and informal learning.

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