"Current trends indicate that more schooling will take place online, including project-based learning (PBL). This shift opens new possibilities for interactions and collaborations among students, allowing for glocalization of learning and connectivism across international classrooms. The last two years have shown that many well-established techniques/tools for facilitating PBL in physical classrooms are not simply transferable to the online space. Thus, techniques/tools for online facilitation need to be explored, adapted, and newly developed, whilst considering existing pedagogical principles. We conducted three case studies lasting approximately 3 months each, in which primary school students (Grade 5-7) from Namibia, Malaysia, and Finland collaborated in online sessions. Throughout these studies we focused extensively on the facilitation process, exploring different techniques/tools with a trial-and-error approach. We were guided by our own experiences in facilitating and teaching within physical classrooms, and continuously reflected on the adaptation to online settings, whilst consulting theoretically-proposed and empirically-supported suggestions from various fields. For each case study, we video recorded the planning of the sessions, the sessions themselves, and the reflection afterwards. In addition to analyzing these videos, we also drew upon focus group interviews that were conducted with students at the end of the studies. Based on this data, we present facilitation techniques/tools, including the structuring of sessions (e.g., the importance of icebreakers, variety in activities, and navigation of digital tools), as well as aspects relevant to the climate (e.g., student-student interactions, facilitator-student interactions, autonomy, role distributions, and language). With the presentation we offer researchers and educators practical techniques/tools, as well as important aspects to consider when facilitating primary school students in online project-based endeavors."
"Academic engagement refers to the overall quality of students’ involvement with schooling, including their activities and goals, as well as their connections with peers and educators. Much research has examined the facilitation and support of students’ academic engagement within physical classroom settings. However, the field of education has been experiencing a shift from the status quo modus operandi of face-to-face instruction to online synchronous/asynchronous instruction, which has impacted students’ engagement. This change has increased the demand to develop and adapt digital technologies that can support the engagement of students throughout online learning processes and their adjustment to the new educational norm. Fundamental research on the development and implementation of immersive technologies could provide a way forward, however we maintain that the development of such technologies needs to be guided by current pedagogical and psychological theories. Hence, in this paper, first we examine empirically substantiated frameworks of engagement and identify aspects that require consideration when developing new immersive technologies. Then, we present a succinct review of the technology-enhanced learning environments literature to determine how engagement has (or has not) been supported through immersive technologies, i.e., virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D volumetric video. Finally, having embarked on the development of our in-house technology, an immersive 3D video prototype, we present the technology setup alongside the co-creation process that we are implementing to guide its development. Based on pedagogical and psychological research, we highlight several vital factors substantiating students’ engagement, including the significance of the teacher’s role and the importance of teacher-student and student-student interactions. These factors serve to guide our qualitative data collection during co-creation sessions to uncover students’ and teachers’ new perspectives of engagement in relation to the affordances that immersive technologies should offer. Our work presents insights to educators, technology designers and researchers about important educational frameworks and considerations directing our development of immersive technologies in support of academic engagement."
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