Quality teaching in large classes is generally challenging to achieve. In large classes, there are fewer possibilities for students to interact with the teacher and with each other; the motivation to study decreases as does the possibility for receiving feedback during the learning process. This can result, among other things, in reduced understanding of the learning material and therefore in lower academic performance. The aim of this study is to investigate whether computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) can have a positive impact on aspects of quality teaching such as interaction, motivation and understanding. Two online collaborative activities were designed and implemented in a regularly scheduled course with approximately 200 undergraduate students. This study adopted a mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative analysis: data were collected from surveys, in-depth interviews, forum logs, and exam scores. The results show that CSCL facilitates motivation, interaction and achievement of deep understanding. More particularly, one CSCL activity was found to be a significant contributor to students' academic performance and this confirmed that traditional lecturing blended with CSCL improves the quality of the teaching compared to traditional lecturing only, at least as far as understanding is concerned.Moreover, the study indicates that different types of collaborative activities have different effects on learning and that the design of collaborative activities is therefore critical to outcomes. In this respect, it also reveals that social loafing, which is usually considered to have only negative effects on collaboration, can instead have a positive impact on learning if the task is appropriately designed.
Student success is becoming a shared vision for quality in higher education. Majority data in higher education have not been transformed into actionable insights for quality enhancement. Data are dispersed among stakeholders, and stakeholders’ data literacy influences the effectiveness of using data for student success. However, existing studies mainly focus on students’ data literacy; the analysis of other stakeholders’ data literacy for student success is still few. This study aims to explore how stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in a holistic view. The salience model is used to identify core stakeholders. The goal-modeling language iStar is used to present how stakeholders contribute to student success. A competencies matrix of data literacy is used to discuss the specific data literacy competencies that stakeholders should focus on promoting student success. A survey is conducted to validate the goal-oriented analysis and the discussions on specific competencies of data literacy for stakeholders. The goal-oriented analysis presents the complexity of interactions and dependencies among stakeholders for student success. This study helps to raise stakeholders to be aware of the importance of their data literacy and the necessity of collaboration on exploiting vast available data for student success.
A three-stage buck power electronic transformer (PET) topology based on the LLC resonant converter is proposed. In the proposed PET, the high voltage stage on the input side is a diode-clamped three-level rectifier used in reducing the voltage withstanding grade of switching devices. The isolation stage adopts a three-level LLC series resonant DC-DC converter, the voltage stress of each whose main switches is half the input voltage. It can realize soft-switching from no-load to full load, which will reduce losses and improve efficiency. The low voltage stage on the output side is a two-level three-phase four-leg inverter coping with the huge imbalance and nonlinear loads. A control scheme is designed and simulation is performed to verify the performance of the proposed PET. Simulation results show that the proposed PET not only has the basic features of isolation, voltage transformation and energy transmission as does the traditional transformer, but also carries out the power quality regulating function, which can avoid the mutual influence between system and load due to imbalance and distortion.
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