Educationalizing Instagram for Virtual Instruction in COVID-19

Learning through social media platforms is a nascent pedagogy that opens up new virtual online e-instructional modalities and avenues to be explored especially in these challenging emergency times of COVID-19. This research focuses on a self-directed initiative of a math teacher who taught her students in an open virtual class via Instagram. This study explores how the main features of Instagram -inherently used as social interaction platform - were maximized for educational purposes. It also investigates the effects, be they positive or negative, on the learning-teaching process in terms of engagement and communication. For this, a mixed-method sequential exploratory design was opted for to conduct the study which surveyed 100 students across 22 different high schools who took part in the virtual open math classes. The findings highlight the different patterns of Instagram use and platform features that lend this social media website the requisite feasibility to educationalize it. Furthermore, the results reveal both the favourable and disadvantageous aspects of Instagram.

Wireless Network Access and Emotion Recognition of Online English Translation Teaching System from the Perspective of Artificial Intelligence

The research is aimed at verifying the application effect of the online automatic evaluation system in English translation teaching and at understanding the satisfaction of students with different feedback methods. The research uses three classes of human resource management majors in Xi’an Technological University as the research object and uses questionnaire survey and comparative experiment methods to compare and analyse the three feedback methods: teacher feedback, online automatic feedback, and teacher feedback combined with online automatic feedback. The research answers the following three questions: (1) will the three feedback methods affect students’ English translation performance? (2) Which of the three feedback methods will improve students’ English performance better? (3) What about students’ satisfaction with current feedback methods? The research results show that the significance value between the control group (CG) and the experimental group 1 (EG1) is 0.029, that between CG and the experimental group 2 (EG2) is 0.432, and that between EG1 and EG2 is 0.001. There are obvious differences in the posttest scores of the three groups of students. EG2 has the largest average posttest score, which is 9.8182; there is no obvious difference in posttest translation scores between CG and EG2. It indicates that “teacher feedback + online automatic feedback” and teacher feedback have the equivalent effect on improving students’ translation. The results of the questionnaire survey show that students have the highest degree of recognition of “teacher feedback + online automatic feedback.” The research is helpful for teachers to better understand the shortcomings in the translation teaching process, so that they can take effective measures against these problems in the follow-up teaching process to improve their teaching effect.

Lamb head as a training model for septoplasty and rhinoplasty

Background: Septoplasty and rhinoplasty are difficult operations to learn and teach. Many modalities have been proposed to make the teaching process of these operations easier. In this study, it was investigated if lamb heads were good training models to teach septoplasty and rhinoplasty to trainees or experienced surgeons. Methods: In the first part of the study, 21 lamb heads were dissected according to a dissection protocol and several anatomical distances were measured in order to compare them with human cadavers. In the second project 8 lamb heads were dissected and different preservation rhinoplasty techniques were practiced. Results: The study on 21 lamb heads used showed that the lateral crura were 17.8 x 11.6, average interdomal distance was 8.1 mm, average domal width was 3.7 mm. The average length of the upper lateral cartilages was 31.1 mm laterally and 21.2 medially. The average length of the nasal bones was 63.9 mm and the width was 16 mm. In the second part of the study 8 lamb heads were used to experience where high strip techniques were used in 5 and Cottle technique in 3. Conclusion: This study revealed that lamb head should be considered as an excellent training model for septoplasty and rhinoplasty. Its very low cost, ease of availability, and close similarity to the human cadavers can be counted as the main advantages. This study also proved that it was not only a tool for beginners, but also a very helpful tool for experienced surgeons to try new methods.

Project-Based Learning Application in Higher Education

Learning methodologies that are active and centred on the student are concepts that accentuate the learning process instead of the teaching process. In this way, the following chapter aims to present the application of project-based learning in higher education and the different impact it might have on the students, as well as the experience and perspective from the students' point of view on this kind of teaching approach. To be able to collect data, the authors used initially a qualitative approach to comprehend and understand the research subjects' perspectives and points of view, followed by the focus group method as a method for collecting qualitative data. Throughout the students' experience, the development of transversal competences is mentioned several times as a great aspect related to this kind of methodology. However, the need for effective management of conflicts between members and the mandatory integration of some subjects' contents are also mentioned as some less-positive aspects.

Students satisfaction with the online teaching process

This study is about student satisfaction in the online teaching process. The pandemic situation forced us to move the educational activities in the online environment for the safety of all its participants. The methodological design is the quantitative one, the research method used is the sociological survey. This study tried to identify students’ perception, effectiveness, satisfaction, and self-perceived efficiency regarding the teaching process in the online environment. The questionnaire was translated and adapted into Romanian. It consists of 26 questions, divided into five dimensions. The sampling method was the non-probabilistic convenience one, with voluntary participation. The results provided tell us those female respondents were more open to online methods, resulting in higher satisfaction despite common knowledge. However, the results should be viewed with reservations, as the data collected are not homogeneous, and the respondents were chosen by the voluntary participation method. This approach can be seen as a starting point for future research related to the satisfaction of the teaching process through e-learning.

Motivation in Online Learning

Online learning is accepted as an effective educational learning process that can respond to rapidly and constantly changing learner needs. Increasing the quality of online learning is an important point to be addressed. Within this context, motivation in online learning that affects what learners will learn, how they will learn, and when they will learn is one of the most important components because the motivation of learners has a very important place in terms of achieving desired goals in the learning and teaching process. It is not easy to continuously motivate learners in online learning process over a long period. Creating the motivation of everyone involved in the learning and teaching process is very important in terms of the efficiency and quality of the process. Within the context of a theoretical framework, “motivation,” “motivation process,” “types of motivation,” “internal motivation,” “extrinsic motivation,” “the importance of motivation in education,” and “motivation in online learning” were addressed in the present study.

Academic Integrity of Tourism Students

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the academic integrity of undergraduate tourism students amid the new normal. The chapter focuses on understanding the underlying reasons that instigate tourism students to cheat in written assignments. The findings reveal that tourism students are motivated to cheat by both internal and external factors. Individual or personal factors, such as students' characters, their knowledge, abilities, interests, levels of motivation, and commitment would affect the intention to cheat. Furthermore, time-related situations, the course itself, the assignment topic, demands of the assignment and the informing process, the teacher and the teaching process, the course materials, availability of the academic sources, the teaching, and the assessment environments are situational and/or contextual factors that instigate the students to cheat on their written assignments.