Enhancing L2 Learners’ Critical Thinking Skills Through a Connectivism-Based Intelligent Learning System

Abstract

The Rain Classroom, grounded in the theory of connectivism in the digital era, is a mobile-supported tool for blended learning. This tool renders synchronous and asynchronous teacher-student interactions through dual-channel teaching in and out of class. In the study, the Critical Thinking Skills Survey (CTSS) was adopted to measure the critical thinking skills (CTS) of 112 first-year undergraduates majoring in English in mainland China. A pretest-posttest non-equivalent two-group quasi-experimental design was applied to compare the CTS of those learners of English as a second language (L2) instructed under the Rain-Classroom-based intelligent learning system with those taught by the traditional lecture approach. The mixed results indicated that the intelligent learning system had a positive effect on students’ overall CTS development with significant improvement in the interpretation subscale but had almost no influence on the evaluation and self-regulation subscales. The intelligent learning approach in this study is empirically meaningful in students’ CTS enhancement, but further research is warranted to make this system more efficacious in facilitating L2 learners’ CTS.

The Moderation Examination of ICT Use on the Association Between Chinese Mainland Students’ Socioeconomic Status and Reading Achievement

“…As a qualified educator, it is time to take full advantage of ICT in teaching considering the deduced positive influence brought by ICT use for schoolwork in students' reading achievement improvement. Effective ICT-assisted teaching needs to guide students to apply technology as cognitive tools whether in class or outside of class rather than simply giving students the chance to use ICT [42][43]. Meanwhile, teachers should work with parents to guarantee the in-time monitoring since students' unstructured use of ICT for leisure might distract them from learning [22].…”

Regression Analysis of ICT Impact Factors on Early Adolescents’ Reading Proficiency in Five High-Performing Countries

“…The concept of computer-based assessment of reading proficiency is of fundamental significance in the age of information and communication technology (ICT) (Naumann, 2015). The proliferation of ICT has a profound influence on the concept of reading proficiency (e.g., Liu, 2005; Coiro and Dobler, 2007) because it has largely reshaped students’ learning processes and reading activities (e.g., Gan et al, 2015; Mantoro et al, 2017) by engaging students in effective reading activities (e.g., Chen and Hu, 2018) and improving their reading comprehension ability (e.g., Whyte et al, 2014). As the benchmark of international large-scale assessment, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has evaluated reading, science, and mathematics achievement among 15-year-olds from participating countries/economies of the Organization of Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) every 3 years since 2000.…”

The Inheritance and Spreading of Confucianism in Modern China and South Korea

“…In addition, digital advertisements can be utilized to reflect upon the spirit of comity and harmony in Confucian thoughts in the way of blending people, feelings, and scenery. The digital spreading of Confucianism is both innovative and effective against the background of globalization [12][13][14]. At the same time, effective and in-time monitoring of the spreading of Confucianism via multimedia is also needed [15][16][17].…”