Media Literacy Facilitation as Service Learning and Public Engagement

This chapter offers insights from a 15-year partnership between a public university and local K-12 schools to explore how the facilitation of media literacy education (MLE) programs by university students can offer rewarding outcomes for both research and learning. The MLE program that serves as the case study for this chapter takes place at local elementary schools each spring in conjunction with an undergraduate communication course and includes interactive media analysis discussions as well as a culminating creative production activity. Reflections and written feedback from participating graduate, undergraduate, and elementary students emphasize the strengths of this pedagogical model for collaboration and learning while also acknowledging the practical constraints of such a partnership. By detailing the institutional-level support, instructional design, and practical implementation of this MLE program, the chapter enumerates the benefits and challenges of engaged research and service learning for advancing media literacy goals.

Writing Classes with Writeabout.com: Learning Mode, Feedback, and Collaboration

This review seeks to provide an alternative online platform for running an online writing class inside and outside the classroom. It focuses on Writeabout.com, which enables the integration of different modes of instruction, types of feedback, and collaborative activities that are necessary for providing an effective writing class. Its features allow teachers to create virtual classes and add students by using codes or importing from Google Classroom. The other features enable teachers to monitor the progress of each student’s writing and give both oral and written feedback synchronously and asynchronously. Writeabout.com provides some stimulating ideas to inspire students to start writing. This review also elaborates on the pedagogical applications of Writeabout.com inside and outside the classroom in a self-access context and for developing learner autonomy in writing.

Challenges of Short Sentence Writing Encounter 1st Year Uundergraduate Students in English Language Departments at Al-Baha University

This study aims to find out the most common challenges of writing short sentences encountered by first-year English-major undergraduate students of English language departments. A mixed method was used including quantitative and qualitative as data was obtained using student questionnaires and interview questions for the lecturers. About 122 first-year English-major undergraduate students (%50.4 female and %49.6 male) from the English Language Departments at all colleges of Al-Baha University were randomly chosen, including 30 lecturers, and were interviewed in the study (15 males and 15 females). The study revealed significant results which have shown difficulties in constructing short sentences, the distinction of active and passive voice, and the use of conjunctions, punctuations, quantifiers, and the correct auxiliary. Also among common issues, students find difficulties in using comparative and superlative degree, subject–verb agreement and the use of articles. Thus, the study recommends that first-year English-major undergraduate students should be given more written exercises as well as written feedback so that students can be able to write more effective short sentences. The study suggests that more studies could be conducted qualitative researches for first-year students of English language department to investigate and analyze the most common challenges and difficulties of the students’ written samples or documents.

Measured Wound Outcome Feedback Improves Surgical Site Infection Rates

Feedback supports learning. No matter how effective medical professionals think they are, evidence of measured patient wound outcomes helps inform their wound care practice, empowering them to improve patient outcomes. Prospective randomized clinical trials (RCTs) proved this principle in relation to healing chronic wounds. Measuring wound healing outcomes and providing caregivers with feedback about the 4-week healing progress increased the percentage of diabetic foot ulcers healed within 20 weeks and venous leg ulcers healed within 24 weeks. Longitudinal research2 suggests this principle holds true in preventing surgical site infections (SSIs). When individual orthopedic surgeons were provided written feedback about their hand hygiene practices and corresponding SSI rates, surgeon hand hygiene improved and SSI rates in their patients were reduced. This Evidence Corner describes systematic review evidence indicating that feedback given to responsible wound care professionals reduced SSI incidence for patients undergoing orthopedic or trauma surgery3 and abdominal surgery.

Written Feedback In Second Language Writing: Perceptions Of Vietnamese Teachers And Students

<p>Writing can be very challenging for ESL students since they need to overcome the changes associated with academic writing styles and their mechanics in order to improve their writing skills (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). In Vietnam, English is known as a foreign language in all public and private schools, and writing is a compulsory component. It is unavoidable that students will make errors in their writing development process, and feedback is a fundamental requirement to reduce these errors. Even if giving feedback costs a great deal of time, it can be the most significant investment of writing instructors (Ferris, 2002). In the last 20 years, many studies have examined a wide range of issues in academic writing, including the types of feedback, and stakeholders’ perceptions about feedback; however, the results have been contradictory. Mahmud (2016) revealed that teachers are often forced to use their own writing experience and intuitive criteria due to the lack of information on how to give feedback. Nevertheless, researchers tend to focus on either students’ or teachers’ perceptions, or both teachers’ and students’ perceptions, about different types of feedback in writing (Atmaca, 2016). In Vietnam, there are few studies about students’ and teachers’ perceptions of written feedback. This study investigated the views of both Vietnamese students and teachers on peer feedback, direct feedback, indirect coded feedback, indirect un-coded feedback, and self-feedback to fulfil the gap. Thirty-six university students in Finance and Banking and two senior English teachers participated in this study. Due to the unexpected pandemic, the researcher changed the study from in-class to online. This qualitative research employs questionnaires and interviews. The pre-questionnaire in class before the outbreak of coronavirus in Vietnam, but the rest of the questionnaire surveys and interviews were collected online because the school had shut down. The students were grouped into two separate online groups on Facebook with their classmates, and they were asked to complete five surveys about five different types of feedback. The findings revealed some similarities between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback in L2 writing. In terms of similarities, both teachers and students agreed that feedback played an important role in L2 writing learning and teaching. Teachers and students believed that feedback could affect L2 learners’ cognitive engagement in writing and some types of feedback could affect learners’ psychology. Moreover, training was necessary to improve peer feedback in both quality and quantity of feedback and to help students use this type of feedback more effectively. The results from teachers’ interviews and students’ surveys also revealed the discrepancies between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback in L2 writing. This study concludes that using appropriate types of teacher feedback can boost students’ confidence to improve their writing skills in the long term.</p>

Written Feedback In Second Language Writing: Perceptions Of Vietnamese Teachers And Students

<p>Writing can be very challenging for ESL students since they need to overcome the changes associated with academic writing styles and their mechanics in order to improve their writing skills (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). In Vietnam, English is known as a foreign language in all public and private schools, and writing is a compulsory component. It is unavoidable that students will make errors in their writing development process, and feedback is a fundamental requirement to reduce these errors. Even if giving feedback costs a great deal of time, it can be the most significant investment of writing instructors (Ferris, 2002). In the last 20 years, many studies have examined a wide range of issues in academic writing, including the types of feedback, and stakeholders’ perceptions about feedback; however, the results have been contradictory. Mahmud (2016) revealed that teachers are often forced to use their own writing experience and intuitive criteria due to the lack of information on how to give feedback. Nevertheless, researchers tend to focus on either students’ or teachers’ perceptions, or both teachers’ and students’ perceptions, about different types of feedback in writing (Atmaca, 2016). In Vietnam, there are few studies about students’ and teachers’ perceptions of written feedback. This study investigated the views of both Vietnamese students and teachers on peer feedback, direct feedback, indirect coded feedback, indirect un-coded feedback, and self-feedback to fulfil the gap. Thirty-six university students in Finance and Banking and two senior English teachers participated in this study. Due to the unexpected pandemic, the researcher changed the study from in-class to online. This qualitative research employs questionnaires and interviews. The pre-questionnaire in class before the outbreak of coronavirus in Vietnam, but the rest of the questionnaire surveys and interviews were collected online because the school had shut down. The students were grouped into two separate online groups on Facebook with their classmates, and they were asked to complete five surveys about five different types of feedback. The findings revealed some similarities between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback in L2 writing. In terms of similarities, both teachers and students agreed that feedback played an important role in L2 writing learning and teaching. Teachers and students believed that feedback could affect L2 learners’ cognitive engagement in writing and some types of feedback could affect learners’ psychology. Moreover, training was necessary to improve peer feedback in both quality and quantity of feedback and to help students use this type of feedback more effectively. The results from teachers’ interviews and students’ surveys also revealed the discrepancies between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback in L2 writing. This study concludes that using appropriate types of teacher feedback can boost students’ confidence to improve their writing skills in the long term.</p>

Facilitators and Barriers to Student Learning and Impact of an Undergraduate Clinical Posting in Psychiatry: A Thematic Analysis

Background: There is an absence of information on empirical evaluation of undergraduate psychiatry training programs in India. We aimed to evaluate a clinical posting in psychiatry for undergraduate medical students. Methods: We employed levels one and two of Kirkpatrick’s four-level program evaluation model. The qualitative study used written feedback that was collected using a semistructured questionnaire. For quantitative metrics, we used end-of-posting assessment scores and frequencies of standard comments provided by examiners on case-based discussions with students to evaluate their clinical skills. Results: We obtained written feedback from 40 female and 19 male fifth-semester students. We identified facilitators (patient interaction, outpatient department observation and teaching, demonstration of signs, case presentation and discussion, evening posting, observation of clinical work, use of anecdotes while teaching, and lectures by senior faculty) and barriers (organizational issues related to evening posting and disinterest in didactic teaching) to the students learning psychiatry, and the perceived impact of the posting for the students (changed attitudes, knowledge, self-efficacy, and skills acquired). The mean total score on case-based discussion, assigned to 22 groups of students, was 3.86 out of 5. Conclusion: We described the impact of the posting and identified unique facilitators and barriers to students’ learning in psychiatry. These findings will inform the choice of teaching-learning methods in the context of the new Competency-Based undergraduate Medical Education (CBME) curriculum.

Teacher Written vs. Audio Feedback on Undergraduates’ Written Assignments

Due to the importance of instructor’s feedback on students’ written assignment as part of formative assessment and the relatively new way of delivering audio feedback, this case study aimed to explore instructor’s audio vs. written feedback provided on 15 pairs of undergraduates’ written tasks through Google Docs over an academic semester in a Saudi public university. The data was collected from actual feedback comments in both modes and follow-up interviews with the students. The content analysis of feedback revealed that audio feedback differed from written feedback in terms of quantity and content. Despite the potential of audio feedback revealed through the content analysis, the majority of students (16) preferred written feedback over audio feedback for its clarity, easiness, easy access to feedback and its focus on a certain issue in the assignments, whereas 14 of them preferred audio feedback. Several challenges highlighted by the students, including its length and detailed instruction and the difficulty in accessing it served as good points for several pedagogical implications for instructors in this study.