Virtual flipped teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced teaching to be shifted to an online platform. Since the flipped teaching (FT) model has been shown to engage students through active learning strategies and adapt both synchronous and asynchronous components, it was a convenient choice for educators familiar with this instructional method. This study tested the effectiveness of a virtual FT method during the pandemic in a graduate-level physiology course. Besides assessing knowledge gained in the virtual FT format, student surveys were used to measure student perception of their adjustment to the new FT format, their confidence in completing the course successfully, and the usefulness of assessments and assignments in the remote FT. Students reported that they adjusted well to the remote FT method ( P < 0.001), and their confidence in completing the course in this teaching mode successfully improved from the beginning to the end of the semester ( P < 0.05). Students expressed a positive response to the synchronous computerized exams (90.32%) and the formative group (93.51%) and individual (80.65%) assessments. Both collaborative activities (93.55%) and in-class discussions (96.77%) were found to be effective. The course evaluations and the overall semester scores were comparable to the previous semesters of face-to-face FT. Overall, students’ perceptions and performance suggested that they embraced the virtual FT method and the tested teaching method maintained the same strong outcome as before. Thus, this study presents a promising new instructional method in the teaching of future physiology courses.

Aspirational Ethics as a Contributing Factor in Engineering Students’ Ethical Awareness and Behavior

As ethical behavior is a part of engineers' professional identity and practice, developing ethical behavior skills in future engineers is a vital component of the engineering curriculum. There are already established instructional methods to teach engineering ethics (EE), however, it is concentrated on ethical awareness, and little attention has been given to how this will affect the ethical behavior. Even though students are capable of exercising ethical judgment, it does not mean that they are ethically literate or likely to act ethically. The assessment of engineering ethics cannot be conducted based on ethical judgment, because the ethical awareness of some engineers has not translated into ethical behavior. An alternative instructional method for measuring the ethical behavior is required to see how the ethical awareness given in the classroom setting is translated to the actual ethical behavior. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to propose an instructional method that correlates with both ethical awareness and ethical behavior, through aspirational ethics which require the students to contribute to the society. This method integrates the theory of morals and values, ethical and unethical conduct, code of practices of an engineer, ethics with the environment, and the responsibility of the engineer for the safety of everybody. Students’ ethical behavior in the society will be demonstrated through the University Social Responsibility (USR) projects. From these projects, the students’ ethical behavior is assessed by their peers, beneficiaries that they are serving, as well as by the educators, regarding their ethical conduct. This will be the tools to observe the degree of correlations between the ethical awareness instilled and behavior manifested. Applying these instructional methods will allow educators to build confidence and trust in their students' ability to build a professional identity and be prepared for the engineering profession and practice.

IMPROVING STUDENTS ENGAGEMENT IN PHYSICS USING COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION METHOD

Contemporary society has witnessed a growing trend of technological innovations in the educational landscape. The phenomenon has been widely integrated into the education system of Nigeria. Perhaps, researchers have deployed different computer technologies to enhance students performance in varying subjects. The present study aims to determine whether computer-assisted instructional methods would affect students engagement in physics in secondary school. A total of one hundred and eighty-seven secondary school students were drawn from eight public secondary schools in Ankpa and Lokoja in Kogi state as the studys participants. The study adopted aquasi-experimental pre-test, post-test study design. The result revealed a significant difference in students engagement in physics between the students taught with the computer-assisted instructional method and those taught with the conventional way at MD = 5.08, t (185) = 7.328, p = .000. Thus, the study concludes that a computer-assisted instructional method is an indispensable tool that could influence students engagement in physics, especially among secondary school students. The practical implications and recommendations are discussed.

Drawingvoice 2.0: classroom joint designing and Facebook interactions to develop reflexivity and awareness

Drawingvoice 2.0 is an instructional method of collaborative pencil and paper drawing to use in the school classroom, followed by Facebook interaction on the drawing produced in class. It is based on a participatory and meta reflective approach, explicitly aimed at deconstructing, negotiating, and reconstructing the meaning that students attribute to themselves regarding their professional expectations and educational pathways. In particular, the collaborative pencil and paper drawing allows for the student’s emotional symbolisation processes underlying their educational pathway. Drawingvoice 2.0 induces a multidimensional cognitive and meta-cognitive process further supported by the following interaction on Facebook. Therefore, the World Wide Web is the added resource for sharing and deepening the classmates’ discussion. Finally, Drawingvoice 2.0 supported structural group interaction and was an important supportive and instructional method to bring about transformational and developmental training practices. As the main result, in our experience, psychology students increased their reflectivity about their strengths and threats in being psychologists within their cultural contexts and potential positive resources underlying their choice. Drawingvoice 2.0 thus enhanced their self-awareness about the lights and shadows of their training and future professional career.

Utilisation of Vignettes Instructional Method and Ethical Sensitivity in Decision-Making among Business Studies Teacher Trainees at the University of Nairobi, Kenya

Vignettes have been applied in many academic disciplines over time, as an essential element of experiential learning. At the Department of Educational Communication and Technology, adoption of vignettes instructional method by instructors remains slow, while application by early adopters remains inconsistent. Despite this, little is known about how utilisation of vignettes to teach business ethics at the Department influences teacher trainees’ ethical sensitivity in decision-making. The cross-sectional survey design guided the research process, and primary data were sourced in 2018 from 116 learners. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques were applied. Key results show that trainees who strongly agreed that utilisation of vignettes influenced their ethical sensitivity in decision-making had about 2 times the odds of being ethically sensitive in their decisions as their colleagues who expressed strong disagreement about the same. Besides, those who agreed that utilisation of vignettes influenced their ethical sensitivity in decision-making were about 1.9 times as likely to make ethically sensitive decisions as those who indicated strong disagreement. On aggregate, utilisation of vignettes caused a positive and significant influence on trainees’ ethical sensitivity in decision-making. It also emerged third in the order of relative importance. Notably, the more the trainees appreciated that utilisation of vignettes influenced their ethical sensitivity in decision-making, the higher odds of making ethically sensitive decisions. Thus, improving trainees’ knowledge on the various parameters of vignettes’ utilisation is likely to enhance their ethical sensitivity in decision-making. This may be achieved by dedicating a section of training modules on optimisation of vignette utilisation.

Exploring Dysphasia Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition through the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: An Experimental Study

Purpose of the study: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the impact of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning for students with dysphasia in learning disabilities. Another aim was to find out the acquisition of vocabulary toward News in levels lesson – Robinson Crusoe for Students of English. Twenty-four students with dysphasia in learning disabilities have participated in the study. The sample population was exposed to a similar handing environment for the research though they had various backgrounds. All the instructions, experiments, teaching-learning activities were provided in the special education resource room. Methodology: The Experimental Research Design was employed in the study. Pre-test, post-test, retention test, and Vocabulary Knowledge Scale questionnaire were administrated to collect the required data from both the control and experimental groups to study the impact of the multimedia and non-multimedia instructional methods. Major findings: The findings of the research revealed that the multimedia instructional method of teaching outperformed the non-multimedia instructional group. The retention test results and the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale questionnaire reaffirmed that students with dysphasia have motivated and store the new information in their long-term memory. They could retain most of the vocabulary when the multimedia instructional method was integrated into the teaching-learning process. All the test result scores were analyzed using the SPSS software package. A paired test value comparison was used to compare the results for both the control and experimental groups.

Pengenalan English Vocabulary Pada Anak Usia Dini Melalui English For Kids

Given the English vocabulary instructional method used by teachers of PAUD Qurrotul Uyun Pamekasan is not groundbreaking and varied since they constantly teach the English vocabulary from the textbook, additionally they never employ a modern technology tool such as smartphone gadget. Despite the fact that they frequently bring the gadget when the teaching learning porcoses in the class is occurring. In view of that the learning atmosphere becomes unappealing, the pupils becomes passive and dependent learners. Hence the aim of community service activity is to give pupils of PAUD Qurrotul Uyun Pamekasan training regarding English vocabulary learning employing English For Kids application. Method used in this community service is training by utilizing steps with activity theoretically and practically. The results are to be able to enhance pupils’ leaning motivation, to be able to lessen pupils’ boredom while learning, as well as to be able to create pulpils become autonomous pupils.