The instructor's gaze guidance in video lectures improves learning

Instructor behaviour is known to affect learning performance, but it is unclear which specific instructor behaviours can optimize learning. We used eye‐tracking technology and questionnaires to test whether the instructor's gaze guidance affected learners' visual attention, social presence, and learning performance, using four video lectures: declarative knowledge with and without the instructor's gaze guidance and procedural knowledge with and without the instructor's gaze guidance. The results showed that the instructor's gaze guidance not only guided learners to allocate more visual attention to corresponding learning content but also increased learners' sense of social presence and learning. Furthermore, the link between the instructor's gaze guidance and better learning was especially strong for participants with a high sense of social connection with the instructor when they learned procedural knowledge. The findings lead to a strong recommendation for educational practitioners: Instructors should provide gaze guidance in video lectures for better learning performance.     

Engagement in Online Social Networks: The Impact of Self-Disclosure and Humor

This study proposes an engagement model that supports acceptance and use of course-based online social networks for engaging student, hence improving the instructor's credibility. This research demonstrates that instructors who create course-based online social networks can increase student engagement in these online social networks and improve the instructor's credibility. This increase in engagement is seen when the instructor posts private information related to the course and when the instructor makes humorous posts. However, it is not seen when the instructor posts private information unrelated to the course. These results should be useful for instructors who are trying to improve student engagement and to enhance their own credibility. This research utilizes communication privacy management theory and instructional humor processing theory to expand our understanding of how instructor self-disclosure and use of humor via a course-based social network impacts student outcomes. The research also contributes to the theory by providing an engagement model that is unique to online educational settings.     

Interactive Correction and Recommendation for Computer Language Learning and Training

Active learning and training is a particularly effective form of education. In various domains, skills are equally important to knowledge. We present an automated learning and skills training system for a database programming environment that promotes procedural knowledge acquisition and skills training. The system provides meaningful knowledge-level feedback such as correction of student solutions and personalized guidance through recommendations. Specifically, we address automated synchronous feedback and recommendations based on personalized performance assessment. At the core of the tutoring system is a pattern-based error classification and correction component that analyzes student input in order to provide immediate feedback and in order to diagnose student weaknesses and suggest further study material. A syntax-driven approach based on grammars and syntax trees provides the solution for a semantic analysis technique. Syntax tree abstractions and comparison techniques based on equivalence rules and pattern matching are specific approaches.     

浅谈高职课程《计算机网络技术》教学新方法

根据高职院校教育教学的规律特点、学生的现实情况及笔者从事高职教育的经验,对《计算机网络技术》课程教学做了一些方法改革,实践证明,这些教学方法能够最大程度地激发高职学生的学习主动性,培养高职学生的实践动手能力、团队合作精神,提高其综合素质,为高职类的学生就业和立足社会打下坚实的基础。     

Audio peer feedback to promote deep learning in online education

We investigated the relation between providing and receiving audio peer feedback with a deep approach to learning within online education. Online students were asked to complete peer feedback assignments. Data through a questionnaire with 108 respondents and 14 interviews were used to measure to what extent deep learning was perceived and why. Results support the view that both providing and receiving audio peer feedback indeed promote deep learning. As a consequence of the peer feedback method, the following student mechanisms were triggered: “feeling personally committed,” “probing back and forth,” and “understanding one's own learning process.” Particularly important for both providing and receiving feedback is feeling personally committed. Results also show that mechanisms were a stronger predictor for deep learning when providing than when receiving. Given the context in which instructors face an increasing number of students and a high workload, students may be supported by online audio peer feedback as a method to choose a deep approach to learning.     

Attention to the model's face when learning from video modeling examples in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder

We investigated the effects of seeing the instructor's (i.e., the model's) face in video modeling examples on students' attention and their learning outcomes. Research with university students suggested that the model's face attracts students' attention away from what the model is doing, but this did not hamper learning. We aimed to investigate whether we would replicate this finding in adolescents (prevocational education) and to establish how adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, who have been found to look less at faces generally, would process video examples in which the model's face is visible. Results showed that typically developing adolescents who did see the model's face paid significantly less attention to the task area than typically developing adolescents who did not see the model's face. Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder paid less attention to the model's face and more to the task demonstration area than typically developing adolescents who saw the model's face. These differences in viewing behavior, however, did not affect learning outcomes. This study provides further evidence that seeing the model's face in video examples affects students' attention but not their learning outcomes.     

浅谈计算机专业教学中的项目构建与实施

随着社会对技能型人才的要求越来越高,建设有中国特色的高等职业教育,培养高素质技能型专门人才已时不可待。该文试图通过对“项目教学法”在计算机教学中的构建与实施的论述,阐明如何以工作为起点进行课程改革,以及如何实现“做中学”的教育理念．以便让学生在完成工作任务的过程中培养技能,并逐步形成独立探究、自主获取知识的能力。     

计算机网络技术专业人才培养目标研究——依据《悉尼协议》规范

成果导向作为工程教育专业认证的三大理念之一已经深入人心。本文是根据7.11认证规范中培养目标展现高职功能与特色，专业依据学校的办学理念与发展愿景，结合学院培养目标，制订特色鲜明专业培养目标，将成果导向教育理念运用到教学模式中，分析了基于成果导向教学模式的内涵，即以学习产出为导向驱动课程活动和学生学习产出评价的结构与系统；根据当今社会的人才需求提出了培养目标的主要方法和经验，包括转变教学观念、注重实施该模式的各个环节和加强课堂教学。     

What's all this hype about hypertext?: Teaching literature with George P. Landow's The Dickens Web

The essay describes the use of George P. Landow's hypertext, The Dickens Web, in an advanced undergraduate literature class and analyzes its practical and theoretical implications. Hypertext is shown to encourage active student engagement, especially with contextual material; to lead to more focused research topics; and to facilitate student collaboration. Some of Landow's claims about the ease with which this occurs, however, are questioned. The difficulty of teaching students how to follow and construct conceptual hypertextual links is examined, and the instructor's role in relation to student contributions to the Web is presented as much more problematic than Landow allows.     

Effects of real‐time visual feedback on pre‐service teachers' singing

This pilot study focuses on the use real‐time visual feedback technology (VFT) in vocal training. The empirical research has two aims: to ascertain the effectiveness of the real‐time visual feedback software ‘Sing & See’ in the vocal training of pre‐service music teachers and the teachers' perspective on their experience with VFT. Forty participants from an undergraduate music teacher education programme were randomly assigned to three groups. The first two groups were assigned the teacher and student versions of Sing & See, respectively, and the third group served as a control group without access to the software. The experimental groups were given 12 weeks to use the software for vocal training on a self‐regulated basis. The technique of complex selections (TCS) was designed to assess the pitch accuracy and richness of vocal timbre. Pre‐ and post‐test singing tasks showed that the participants from the experimental groups significantly improved their vocal timbre. A questionnaire survey conducted after the training period found that most of the participants in the experimental s were positive about the effectiveness of VFT software in vocal training. As future leaders in the implementation of music education technology, pre‐service music teachers expressed a positive attitude towards the use of VFT as a technology‐enhanced learning (TEL) component in music education.     

基于项目驱动的“电路CAD”课程开发的研究

随着高职学校教学定位的明确以及我校示范校教学的要求,重点培养学生的实践动手能力成为当前高职教育教学的首要任务。"电路CAD"课程是电子信息类专业的专业课,本文以Protel99se为例,以项目驱动的方式进行学习情境设计,满足示范性建设的要求,提高学生的学习兴趣和教学质量。     

信息技术课中如何激发学生兴趣

教育部关于《中小学信息技术课程指导纲要(试行)》中指出,中小学信息技术课程的主要任务之一就是要培养学生对信息技术的兴趣和意识。作为一个只有十年左右的新兴学科,在教育过程中没有现成的经验可以借鉴,因此许多信息技术教师都面临着这样的一个问题:学生对本学科兴趣下降很快,上课效率不高,或者学习态度只为应付考试了事。本文旨在探讨如何让学生对信息技术课程保持长期的兴趣,使学生把信息技术作为终身学习和合作学习的一种手段和基本技能。     

Assessing the determinants of flow experience in the adoption of learning management systems: the moderating role of perceived institutional support

Information technology has moved the focus of students and instructors from blackboards to online learning platforms. In the emerging e-learning revolution, the success of quality education depends on the right use of information and communication technology, including the creation of participants’ flow experience while using learning systems, which are rightly considered a backbone of contemporary education. There is a gap in the e-learning literature, reflecting a lack of understanding of students’ flow experience while using online interactive systems. This paper presents a study investigating the key factors (interpersonal factors and atmospheric cues) affecting flow experience and highlights its massive role in the use of any learning management system (LMS). Moreover, the study examines the moderating role of perceived institutional support (PIS) on student adoption of LMS. Using a survey, data were collected from university students in Pakistan and the data were analysed through structural equation modelling. We found that interpersonal factors and LMS atmospherics have significant effects on the flow experience. It was also found that PIS moderates the relationship between flow experience and the use of LMS. This study contributes to the literature by helping institutions and policy-makers know key factors of effective learning systems that students value and enjoy.     

基于CDIO的高职人才培养模式改革

本文根据高素质技能型人才的培养目标,并借鉴CDIO工程教育模式,探讨教学模式、学习模式与教育模式三大领域人才培养模式的改革与创新。在教学模式上,通过实施项目制教学改革,加强"双师"、"双化"素质师资队伍建设,全面推行"做中教"的教学方法;在学习模式上,通过建设电子化学习中心,采用小组学习与项目汇报形式,促进学生自主学习活动的开展;在教育模式上,通过课外活动项目化,开展社会实践活动与开设综合素质养成课等途径,突出软技能的培养,使学生的综合职业能力与可持续发展能力得到明显提高。     

基于工作过程系统化的高职《图形图像处理技术》课程开发与实践

近年来,我国高职教育迅速发展,培养目标日益提高,从起初"量"的发展,到现今"质"的飞跃,强调培养高素质技能型专门人才。作者基于"工作过程系统化"的理念,以就业为导向,以职业为载体,以人的全面发展为最终目标,对高职《图形图像处理技术》课程进行课程开发与实践,通过调研实际工作过程,将课程划分为多个项目模块,每个项目模块依据人的思维过程六步骤(咨询、计划、决策、实施、检查、评价)进行重复,让学生掌握解决问题的思路和方法,增强学生学习兴趣,提高课堂教学质量。     

Factors impacting students' online learning experience in a learner‐centred course

Technologies bring a new era of content presentation for online teaching and learning. With more instructors adopting new tools to design online teaching materials, students are often put into learning contexts with certain new design components. Assessing learner experience and outcome in these contexts is challenging because of the complexity involved, as social and individual factors and behavioural impacts of using the new components have to be considered. Few studies have been reported in the literature identifying behavioural factors of learners' online learning experience when they interact with the content. Factors that affect learners' online learning experience, especially the affect factors, are less understood. This study therefore proposed and tested a model that explains the relationships among the affect factors and outcome behaviours of participants' online learning experience, taking into account individual difference, and employing a comparison based on a difference in content presentation. The data were collected from a professional training course offered by a university in the United States. The results support the assumption that time spent in study affects learning outcome and other outcome related behaviours. Also, positive relations between perceived quality of content design and outcome behaviour were found, indicating the effects of sense of presence and feeling of enjoyment on performance of creative tasks. The study intends to foster a deeper understanding of motivation and behaviours of online learning under innovative content design.     

An analysis of the use of virtual delivery of undergraduate lectures

Educators and technologists have been wrestling with the most appropriate way in which to use information technology in teaching and in learning, for some years. We have seen online course notes, both linear, hypertext and hypermedia format, lecturer/student communication via electronic bulletin boards or via e-mail, multimedia courseware with student-directed learning and many others. All of these approaches have had limited impact on mainstream teaching in our universities and colleges and we believe one of the reasons for this is that these attempts all represent a significant shift in the normal student–lecturer relationship and an enormous amount of effort on the part of the lecturer. In our work we have addressed this by using technology to replicate the traditional mode of delivery of lectures to a class. The presentation of lecture material was digitally recorded, both audio and synchronised visuals, and made available for students to take in their own time. In addition we provided 3 orthogonal means to access this material. The present paper describes our analysis of the use of these `virtual lectures' by a class of over 100 students. Our analysis includes log files of all accesses to the online material, pre-course and post-course questionnaires and anonymous questionnaire feedback, some of this is compared to exam performance. Results indicate that mode of delivery, student usage and a student's technical bias have no impact on overall exam performance.     

Facilitating application of language skills in authentic environments with a mobile learning system

We uncovered two critical issues in earlier studies: (a) some studies have shown that mobile learning technology is not beneficial for all students due to complexity of learning environments and student prior knowledge, skills, and experience and (b) familiarity of students with the authentic environments in which they learn using mobile technology did not receive much attention in earlier studies. To address these issues, we designed three learning tasks for a class of 26 junior high school students. The students applied language skills by completing the tasks in authentic environments individually in a first task, loosely collaborating with peers in a second task, and tightly collaborating with peers in a third task. A mobile learning system was also designed in this study to support students to accomplish the tasks. The aim of this study was to explore students' learning experiences using the learning system, their perceptions towards the system, and to assess how differently the students perform on the three tasks. According to our design, in the first task, the students took pictures of objects and described them orally or in writing using the mobile learning system. In the second task, after the students completed assignments, each student received comments from a partner through the system. In comments, the partner indicated flaws in student assignments and suggested how to fix them. In the third task, the students completed assignments, shared them using the system, and then exchanged comments with their partners face to face regarding issues related to their completed assignments and suggested how to improve them. Such learning behaviours in the three tasks enabled the students to practise writing and speaking skills. Our results demonstrate that most of the students highly valued our learning system and intend to use it in the future. Furthermore, the results show that the students performed best when they collaborated; namely, student performance was enhanced the most after the third task that required tight collaboration. Based on our results, we learned that students' familiarity with authentic environments is very important and beneficial for their learning. In addition, we learned that even in complex environment, less skilled and experienced students with low prior knowledge can perform well when they tightly collaborate with more skilled and experienced students with high prior knowledge, and our learning system can facilitate such collaboration.     

A control system proposal for engineering education

The goal of the work is to improve the teaching–learning process through the inclusion of prediction features in a control system proposal namely Reactive Blended Learning. To achieve this goal, a model of the student has been proposed, whose considered outputs are the performance and a participation index that measures the activity level of the student in the class. The controller is based on fuzzy logic and uses the predictions of the model to anticipate the student's state.An important issue that has been taken into account is the limited time to identify the dynamics of the student learning before the course ends. This limitation has been treated through a three-stage process. It is important to remark that this work is not focused on obtaining a complete student model, but on getting useful information for the detection of trends in the teaching–learning process. Preliminary results on a real course are presented to attest the efficiency of the proposed control strategy.