Transforming pedagogical practices in African higher education with blended learning: considering Telepresence in university teaching

Nonofo Losike – SedimoEducation Foundations Department

University of Botswana

IntroductionThis presentation is about bringing the media

magic in the classroom with special effects. Much more like the movie magic in the movie theatre,

Because of time limit, these slides do not tell the whole story. Therefore the first two slides represents two publications which are readily available on the web

Slide 1 is a book and slide 2 is a chapter which happens to be more popular than the book. If you are interested in this topic, they will fill in the gap in this presentation

Introduction

Abstract

This study, which took place at the University of Botswana focuses on how blended learning can be used to motivate student by enhancing their conceptualizing ability. The purpose was to investigate the pedagogical significance of telepresence teaching at the university level

Abstract continued

The problem addressed in this study was the lack of student motivation due to the complexity of the subject taught.

The study pays attention to the African context in consideration of the research questions, the structures, processes and staff available to facilitate pedagogical innovation.

Abstract continued

An experimental research design was used to understand the complex contextual framework of the problem in order to determine the appropriate integration of technology. Data was collected from two groups by obtaining pre-test and post-test scores from the experiment and control groups.

Results were consistent with previous technology impact studies. It is concluded from this study that blended learning at university level can benefit from the integration of telepresence teaching

The study

This study presents results that can be used to improve methods of teaching by adding super sensitivity to teaching materials in such a way that student experiences become unique and highly engaging.

This can be achieved by targeting the students’ conceptualization’s strength and weaknesses. And designing lessons using special effects to build very catchy and engaging lessons’ tasks. The study was conducted to test such a method here called telepresence teaching method

Definitions continuedTelepresence teaching engages the three types of

interactivity defined here. It is about teaching a remote class though e-learning or telecommunication technologies. The content is designed with immersive interactivity that creates learners’ experiences of the teacher’s presence and virtual reality of the content.

Learners experiences should be such that they do not want to put the device used down or shut down the PC.

Learners’ experiences have been at the center of educational research. For example, experiential learning and instruction technology research studied experiences

Definition of telepresenceTelepresence teaching engages the three types of

interactivity defined here. It is about teaching a remote class though e-learning or telecommunication technologies. The content is designed with immersive interactivity that creates learners’ experiences of the teacher’s presence and virtual reality of the content. How?

The engagement on task and general interaction with learning materials make more sense to the learner resulting in enjoyment of the lesson.

By bringing in feelings of the presence of the communicator and the receiver in the same space. The lessons are designed to have high impact in all human senses especially taste

Samples of cultural materials

some of the material s blended i the teaching came from local schools and cultural events, e.g., our Africa Teaching resources or wedding video

http://www.sos-schools.org/our-africa-teaching-resources

Telepresence explained

Advances in E-learning technologies have brought to the teaching process an exciting array of methods for motivating learners, reinforcing learning and automated student teacher interactions with instant feedback

One of the leading technologies in area is the SMART board.

Reviewed studies

Revealed the following;

a) the importance of learners’ technology usage patterns

b) and that the correlation between these patterns and the different technologies improves learning.

c) The studies also delineated that how the learner’s experience of technology related to achievement motivates them to learn. (Author, 2010, 2006, 2003; Cramer,2002;Dillon & Gabbard; Miller, 2009).

Targeted Learner ExperienceThe feeling of a teacher in the classroom

Enhancement of conceptualization

A sense of achievement

Motivation

And effective time on task

Enjoyable manipulation of learning conditions

In short the teacher aims at students experiencing what they learning and that depends entirely on the teachers creativity with the use media and technical know how

Why this study is important or how we became interested in it

Statement of the problem

The problem addressed by this study was to determine the impact of telepresence teaching on the achievement scores and motivation scores of third year psychology students at the University of Botswana.

Purpose and significance

Could improve teaching methods

Conceptual FrameworkRogers’ (1983) theory of experiential learning

guided the study

distinguished two types of learning: (a) cognitive

(meaningless), and (b) experiential (significant).

The former corresponds to academic knowledge such as learning vocabulary or multiplication tables, and the latter refers to applied knowledge such as learning about engines in order to repair a car.

Methodology The study experiment:

Method – Quantitative

Design - Pre-test and Post test randomized experimental design

Sample -From the 140 who had registered for an advanced course in Educational psychology, 70 students were randomly selected for the study .

Two groups experimental and control groups were formed. Thirty five students were randomly assigned to each group.

 

Ethical and context considerations

I.RB approval

2. To what extent did the telepresence in the experiment include the human sensory elements of vision, sound, and touch/manipulation and in what form?

3.Visuals, videos, power points, and three D models pictures were used to explain concepts without violating the rights of the learner

Students’ baseline profile

What did the student baseline profile look like before the experiment

Pre test measures

1. motivation scores

2. Achievement score

3. Demographic data

Were collected to profile the learners.

Study variables

Independent VariablesTeaching method; the telepresence method was created by using visuals 3D models videos games role-plays SMART board lessons conveyed by blackboard, internet and phone

Dependent Variable: students’ motivation scores

And students’ achievement scores

Research questions and Instruments 1.To what extent does the telepresence method increase

students’ scores from pre – test to posted as measured by the Advanced educational psychology exam

2. To what extent does the telepresence method increase the students motivation as measured by the motivation scale

Instruments.

Educational psychology examination paper

The motivation survey was a self-report instrument based on the theory acquired form literature

Both instruments had established reality co-efficient of .89 and .91 respectively

Demographic survey

Data collection and Analysis Data Collection. Participants completed the demographic survey. Next, they were

randomly assigned to the treatment and control groups. While in the 2 groups, participants completed the achievement and motivation premeasures. Participants in the experimental group were exposed to telepresence treatment over a 1 5-week period. The control group received similar content through traditional face to face interaction for the same time of fifteen weeks. At the end of the 15-week period, both groups completed the achievement and motivation post measures.

 Data analysis Descriptive statistics The data was analyzed using SPSS. The descriptive statistics were

calculated, specifically the pre- test means and the posttest means

Data collection and Analysis

The standard deviations and effect size were calculated and interpreted as follows; mean of treatment group – mean of control group divided by standard deviation of control group. The effect size description was guided by Cohen’s description of effect size if, < 0.1 = trivial effect 0.1 - 0.3 = small effect, 0.3 - 0.5 = moderate effect and > 0.5 = large difference

Inferential statistics. The inferential statistics

model used was the t – test for paired samples. The test provided the t – value, probability value and degrees of freedom.

Results Achievement results Table 1   Means and Standard Deviations of the experimental group and the

control group pre – test and posttest scores Group N Pre-test

Posttest ________________________________ _M_____SD________ _______M

SD_____ Experiment Group 35 43.0 (7.8)

85.0 (8.9) Control group 35 41 .0 (5.7)

60.0 (6.39)    

Results

The telepresence teaching method group had a higher posttest achievement mean (M = 85.00, SD = 8.9) and the pretest achievement mean was (M = 43, SD = 7.8) the posttest mean was greater than the pre-test mean by 42%. The control group pre –test mean was (M =41 SD =5.7) and posttest mean was (M =60, SD = 6.39) making the mean difference of 17.The effect size was 0. 40 indicating that the strength of the difference between the group posttest means was moderate. In the t- test procedure, the t -test

for paired samples calculation showed p value of .000 which was less than the set alpha value of (0.5). The difference of 25 between the groups’ posttest scores’ means was statistically significant.

Results

. Motivation

The table below displays the results of the motivation scores. Each question in the survey was scored for individual respondents. Next the means for all items were calculated for both groups

 

Table 2

 

Means and Standard Deviations values

Table 2

Means and Standard Deviations values for the Likert survey given to both experiment and control group

Items 1 to 10 results follow

Table 2 - ResultsPost-test only. Pre-test included in the paper

Experiment Control

Question Mean SD Mean SD

________________________________________________________________   I prefer learning with technology in this course 4.59 .97

1.75 0.8 2. I want to use communication tools all the time 4.45 96

1.23 0.7 3. I like using the discussion forums 4.75 .55

2.25 0.43 4. I want to watch 3D videos and simulations all the t

4.89 .90 1.90 1.10

Results

5. By using Technology I will understand subject content better 4.40 . 78 1.86 0.86

6. I will not remember what I learned because I hate computers 1.90 .96 2.21 1.12

7. I prefer to learn by face to face method only 1.27 .66 4.79 1.19

8. Learning with technology will be easy 3.69 .55 1.22 0.40

9. It is more meaningful to learn from technology 4.73 .83 1.45 0. 55

10. Technology would be engaging and fun 4.64 .54 1.21 0.44 

Results

The table 2 results show that the experiment group had higher means in all the items that support the use of technology and scored low on items that did not support it. The control group scored high on the method that they were taught with and low on technology enhanced learning, The results for the experiment group makes good sense. The results for the control group show low scores for technology. This means both groups preferred the method they were taught with, but experiment group were more motivated to learn than the control group. In response to the research question 2 “To what extent does the telepresence method increase the students motivation” It appears the method has increased the motivation for the experiment group only.

ConclusionThe results of this study might provide a framework for effective

teaching method designs for higher education in Africa. Telepresence teaching method is like any multimedia-related instruction. The effectiveness of the method is in the lesson design

It was clearly demonstrated in this study that careful merging of technology properties and student abilities can be exploited to create desired sets of behaviors or experience.

The results bring critical design issues regarding the use of technology in E-learning. Finally, as a result of this study, telepresence has been established as an effective learning condition. It recommended that The study be repeated with a larger sample with another sample elsewhere