Feedback and assessment:

Feedback and assessment methods in higher education are important since they play a key role not only in immediate learning requirements and the certification of students’ achievement, but in preparing students for the learning in their life and work after graduation (Young and Perovic, 2015).

On the first day of the meeting, we had an attention-grabbing presentation about recording feedback for students’ assignments. The technique sounded unique and interesting to me. However, I believe pros and cons of this approach should be scrutinized. As far as I understood, recorded feedback is a way to explain more the written comments. Therefore, the feedback is presented double in different ways and could be very time taking for the courses with many assignments. Nevertheless, this could be useful for a thesis supervision where the student has to work deeply on the subject and usually comes up with many questions. Then, the recorded feedback can help student to understand the suggestions better and make the process of writing and finalizing the thesis faster since a thesis draft would usually exchange between the student and supervisor several times. There is no doubt the feedback contributes largely in learning and achievement, and the type of feedback and the way it is given can influence its impact (Hattie and Timperley, 2007), therefore, the recorded feedback needs further consideration to identify under what circumstances it can be more effective on learning and achievement.

Workshops:

On the meeting 3, we participated in two workshops. First was related to the project Rethink: KAU, where it “finds, develops and tests digital tools that give students better opportunities to complete their education”. This workshop was a good idea to involve both student and staffs in thinking and developing digital tools to help students to succeed with their learning. Different tools were suggested and presented in the workshop that some were very interesting. This type of digital tools can be developed and used not only in university-scale but also in course-scale to assist in providing the same opportunities for students in their education. I am so keen to follow the results and developed tools thorough the project Rethink: KAU and possibly to use them in my future courses.

The second workshop, ABC learning design, was a great experience for course development through a rapid-design method, developed by Young and Perovic (2015). I found the method quite practical for early career lecturers who are going to build new courses and programmes at their department as well as for those who are interested in changing a traditional course to an online or a blended format. Although I am not a main lecturer for any courses at KAU, getting familiar with these kinds of methods and how to use them to develop programmes will be very helpful for my future career, as I would love to keep working in academia, especially as a university lecturer.

References

David Boud, D., Falchikov, N. 2006. Aligning assessment with long‐term learning, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 31: 399-413.

Hattie, J., Timperley, H. 2007. The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research 77: 81–112.

Young, C., Perovic, N. 2015. ABC Leaning Design method. Resources available from http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/abc-ld/.

Learning Environments

Physical learning environment (PLE)

Based on my previous assignment and two presentations in the second meeting, type and availability of physical resources in a classroom can improve the learning process. Modern facilities such as projectors, monitors and good ventilation, even furniture stuff such as comfortable chairs, window with a good view and curtains play a role, although a teacher usually does not have control on these resources. Space in a classroom is also associated with  teaching and learning, and it can help teachers to establish relations and control the activities in the room (Kress et al., 2005). The ways a teacher can manage verbal interaction among students might be influenced by arranging furniture in a classroom (Jewitt, 2008).

However, as we are living in a digital age and digital facilities are growing very fast, academics should prepare themselves for using digital tools to convert PLEs into either blended learning or digital learning environments. As mentioned in (Bates, 2015), modifying teaching and learning for the digital age needs a comprehensive and effective learning environment as a significant factor.

Digital learning environment (DLE)

In the meeting two, we had a chance to get more familiar with a new, digital and user-friendly tool, called Zoom. This tool can be used for distance learning, blended courses and arranging e-meetings.  I didn’t have that much experience in working with Zoom, only once I was invited to participate in a course related to my PhD project. By the meeting 2, I understood the capacity of Zoom further and deeper, and it gives us this possibility to establish and teach a course in a totally digital learning environment. Zoom allows us to form a flexible LE with the aid of screen sharing, virtual whiteboards and the transmission of speech and images to participants. Furthermore, the meeting can be divided into smaller groups for discussion using “break out rooms”, be recorded and interact by means of chat functions is also available.

In my last assignment, I explained two different PLEs (computer lab and project supervision meetings) for teaching LCA course, my selected course to work on in AUPU2. Now I think the project supervision meetings can be run in Zoom as online meetings, and I hope to improve my skill in using this tool and explore other digital resources and methods in a pedagogical context during the AUPU2.

In the meeting 2, we had some discussion groups regarding the DLEs, one point discussed in the meeting which I totally agree with was “Using digital learning tools does not automatically mean that we optimize learning”. Therefore, if we are interested in using digital tools, we need to design course and learning process accordingly as it could be very different with teaching the same course in a PLE. According to what I learnt from course AUPU 1, teaching and learning processes should be led in a constructive alignment system where it is focusing on what and how students are to learn and to what level, rather than on what topics the teacher is to present (Biggs and Tang, 2011). Hence, in a DLE, teacher also needs to create a constructive alignment system for the course based on the intended learning outcomes, teaching/learning activities and assessment tasks.

References

Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age. Appendix 1: Building an effective learning environment.

Biggs, J.B. & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. (4th Ed.). Maidenhead: McGraw Hill Education & Open University Press.

Kress, G., et al. (2005) English in urban classrooms: A multimodal perspective on teaching and learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Jewitt, C. (2008) Multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. Review of Research in Education 32: 241–267.

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