Improving student teachers’ knowledge-base in language education through critical reading

Abstract

The emergence of the digital era is redefining education and the pedagogical processes in an unpredictable manner. In the midst of the increased availability of print and online resources, the twenty-first century language teacher educator expects her (or his) student teachers to be reading beings if they are to improve their knowledge-base in language education. Therefore, the study set out to investigate factors that hinder student teachers' ability to widen their language education knowledge-base through critical reading, and how digital technology could alleviate the situation. Cultural-historical activity theory was employed in order to understand the student teachers' socio-cultural practices. Using a research based design approach, design principles emerged which resulted in improved student engagement with content, peers and technology. Consequently, a framework to enable student teachers to improve their knowledge-base in language education was designed.

The Changes in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Studies between 2012 and 2017- A Review of Literature

“…They stated that custom-making MOOCs could eliminate most of the existing challenges. Another study done by Mulumba (2016) revealed that the use of a VOKI (educational website) in the instruction process increased the learners' motivation and enhanced their engagement with the content. He concluded that the skills the students acquired were relevant to their working life.…”

“…Some studies agreed that student engagement and dropout rates were the most important measurements of an effective MOOC Mulumba, 2016). Moreover, most of the studies agreed that MOOCs are useful courses because they offer openness, flexibility, ease of access, interactivity, and good design (Nkuyubwatsi, 2013;Yousef et al, 2015).…”

“…Some scholars measured students' and instructors' views of MOOCs to identify their experience using MOOCs with different settings (Bruff et al, 2013;Asiri, 2014;Saadatmand & Kumpulainen, 2014;Waite et al, 2013;Patil et al, 2016;Leito et al, 2015;Leito et al, 2015;Eriksson et al, 2017;Salvador & Rodriguez-Hoyos, 2016), perception (Abeera & Miri, 2014;El Turk, 2015;Loizzo, 2015;Saadatmand & Kumpulainen, 2014;Dal Magro et al, 2017;Firmansyah & Timmis, 2016;Mamgain et al, 2014), motivation (Wen et al, 2014;Pickering & Swinnerton, 2017;Atrey et al, 2016;Sooryanarayan & Gupta, 2015), performance (Masanet et al, 2014;Nkuyubwatsi, 2013;Yousef, et al, 2015;Gamage et al, 2015), engagement (Milligan et al, 2013;Pickering & Swinnerton, 2017;Mulumba, 2016), preference (Abeera & Miri, 2014;Mamgain et al, 2014;Atrey et al, 2016), satisfaction (Fidalgo-Blanco et al, 2016;Khalil & Ebner, 2013), interaction (Khalil & Ebner, 2013), behavior (Campbell et al, 2014;Leach & Hadi, 2017), awareness (Bucovetchi et al, 2015), and intent (Campbell et al, 2014). This variation can help the researchers evaluate the MOOC and know more about how MOOCs could become an official method of education in the world.…”

Effectiveness of the Interactive Perusall Platform in Developing Critical Reading Skills of Middle School Students

“…The study recommended preparing training courses for teachers to help them teach critical reading skills to students. Mulumba (2016) focused on the factors that impede students' ability to deal with readable text critically. It is interested in employing modern technologies to help students understand the text better.…”

“…However, the field observations show that modern technologies are still neglected in teaching critical reading skills, some previous studies emphasized the importance of employing modern technologies in teaching critical reading to develop these skills. (Mulumba, 2016) (Mohammed, 2020). Reading skills are among language skills that need more study and attention.…”