The use of digital technologies and online tools to support both students and educators has become synonymous with transforming learning within Higher Education, particularly within post graduate courses. It can be argued that the recent push for transforming Higher Education aligns itself with the notion that postgraduate students need more flexible learning opportunities while still retaining access to high quality, engaging and collaborative pedagogical approaches. This paper reports on an exploratory case study that focuses on cross campus/university collaboration and flexible learning opportunities for students studying a masters level degree in the area of Music, Communication and Technology (MCT) within a Nordic context. The research question guiding the study is “What factors do educators in a hybrid cross-campus learning environment identify as essential for providing a supportive learning experience for students?” A pedagogy, space and technology (PST) framework underpins the development of this program and forms the basis for its development. The findings from our research identify three themes that need to be considered when attempting to design and implement high quality learning opportunities for students studying a largely synchronous hybrid music, communications and technology program. These themes were flexibility, trust and the human element, and ownership. The findings also highlight the need for a renewed focus on pedagogical approaches that can be adapted and continually revised to meet the changing needs of students in a synchronous hybrid learning space.
By sharing experiences from the process of making Massive Open Online Courses (MooCs) in second language at NTNU, this paper aims to raise awareness about the need for improved technology solutions with a critical look at how course developers can build more innovative and interactive language MooCs within the frame of self-instructed courses using new convergent technologies such as Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC).
This study focuses on student motivation and ownership of learning in a team-based learning environment that is situated in a cross-campus and online context. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from 12 students who participated in a joint international Master’s degree in Music, Communication and Technology programme between two large Nordic universities. The aim of the study was to identify factors that were most likely to impact student motivation and ownership in this cross-campus and online setting. Three main themes emerged from the analysis of data relating to student motivation and ownership. These three themes were autonomy, peer learning, and communication and social bonding. The study has the potential to contribute to the continued development of future learning environments, which will be physical as well as virtual, or a mix of those. The findings indicated that there is a need to focus on student tasks that should be flexible and open for student choice, and where peer learning is one of the main learning strategies used to engage students. Additionally, the findings also highlight the importance of having a focus on communication and social bonding in the planning and organisation of cross-campus and online courses in order for universities to succeed and to transform to meet the needs of a very diverse group of current and future students.
These couple of years have witnessed an increase in interest in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). As the COVID-19 situation amply showed us, MOOCs promptly became a practical way to secure continuity of education for students in lockdown. Educational institutions chose the MOOC format to swiftly adapt to the “new normal” and deliver their courses online without incurring too many unbudgeted expenses. However, the quality of teaching practices and learning design in MOOCs’ Digital Learning Environments (DLEs) varies considerably. Also, while the interest in the MOOC format has increased, the emergent body of specific research on MOOCs for language learning or Language MOOCs (LMOOCs) is unfortunately still limited. By choosing a connectivist approach to understand teaching and learning dynamics in DLEs, this article will elaborate on the importance of learning design and Digital Story Telling (DST) to create sustainable DLEs in MOOCs for Language Learning. The main research question investigates whether and how the development of a comprehensive and interconnected narrative structure based on DST can enhance the participants’ learning experience in LMOOCs and facilitate language learning leading to better participant retention and higher completion rates. To illustrate and support the logic threads of the argumentation, the article introduces a mixed-methods or multi-modal study of three international LMOOCs in Norwegian for beginners (NfB) developed for the international e-learning platform FutureLearn (FL). The findings discussed in the article seem to corroborate the initial hypothesis that including a comprehensive narrative structure based on DST and inspired by principles of Connectivism can lead to the development of higher-quality DLEs in MOOCs, specifically in LMOOCs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.