Blended learning pedagogy designed for communication module among undergraduate nursing students: A quasi-experimental study.

COVID’19 is hastening the adoption of online learning and teaching worldwide, and across all levels of education. While many of the typical learning and teaching transactions such as lecturing and communicating are easily handled by contemporary online learning technologies, others, such as assessment of learning outcomes with closed book examinations are fraught with challenges. Among other issues to do with students and teachers, these challenges have to do with the ability of teachers and educational organizations to ensure academic integrity in the absence of a live proctor when an examination is being taken remotely and from a private location. A number of online proctoring tools are appearing on the market that portend to offer solutions to some of the major challenges. But for the moment, they too remain untried and tested on any large scale. This includes the cost of the service and their technical requirements. This paper reports on one of the first attempts to properly evaluate a selection of these tools and offer recommendations for educational institutions. This investigation, which was carried out at the University of the South Pacific, comprised a four-phased approach, starting with desk research that was followed with pilot testing by a group of experts as well as students. The elimination of a tool in every phase was based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ approach with each phase building upon the milestones and deliverables from the previous phase. This paper presents the results of this investigation and discusses its key findings.

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An Evaluation of Online Proctoring Tools

This work describes a systematic review of the research on take-home exams in tertiary education. It was found that there is some disagreement in the community about the virtues of take-home exams but also a lot of agreement. It is concluded that take-home exams may be the preferred choice of assessment method on the higher taxonomy levels because they promote higher-order thinking skills and allow time for reflection. They are also more consonant with constructive alignment theories and turn the assessment into a learning activity. Due to the obvious risk of unethical student behavior, take-home exams are not recommended on the lowest taxonomy level. It is concluded that there is still a lot of research missing concerning take-home exams in higher education and some of this research may be urgent due to the emergence of massive online open courses (MOOCs) and online universities where non-proctored exams prevail.

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Take-Home Exams in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Flexible learning design in curriculum delivery promotes student engagement and develops metacognitive learners: An integrated review

Experiences of nursing undergraduates on a redesigned blended communication module: A descriptive qualitative study.

As more and more undergraduate nursing programs (UNP) adopt the blended learning model, which combines traditional face-to-face learning and e-learning, how it impacts on students’ academic performance comes into educators’ mind. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the blended learning model adopted by a UNP could yield the same, if not better academic achievement as compared with the traditional classroom learning. Students enrolled in two undergraduate nursing courses in fall 2008 and spring 2009 semesters were taken as a convenient sample. Students’ academic achieve- ments were compared before and after the two undergraduate nursing courses adopted blended learning. Faculty members who taught those courses before and after the adoption were interviewed for insights on students’ complains and their corresponding solutions. The statistic results showed that there was no significant difference in terms of academic performance before and after the courses adopted blended learning. Interviews from the faculty members suggested that there was some initial resistance from the students on taking the online content outside of class. Pop quizzes at the beginning of each face-to-face class helped motivate students to complete the online portion at home prior coming to the class.

https://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/jnep/article/download/3477/2366

Switching to blended learning: The impact on students’ academic performance

This paper explores the benefits and pitfalls of computerized take-home testing in an undergraduate curriculum. A case study of how health science course "nutrition" utilized computerized take-home testing is presented. A survey was conducted after the implementation of computerized take-home testing program. After detailed data analysis on students' feedback, advantages and disadvantages of computerized take-home testing are discussed. It is concluded that the biggest advantage of computerized take-home tests is the convenience it brings to both instructors and students, however students' aberrant behaviors such as cheating still presents the biggest challenge to the instructors who intend to implement take-home testing.

A Case Study on Computerized Take-Home Testing: Benefits and Pitfalls

Engaging students in the learning process is critical to their learning experience. One common practice is to have student do the work and report it back in classroom as presentations. However, many of these presentations are solely presented by students and are crowded into specific presentation class sessions. This is suboptimal in achieving a teaching (learning) environment with balanced information exchange. This paper presents a collaborative lecturing methodology, which engages students in the complete process of learning design, topic research, and collaborative lecturing in classrooms. Key activities and features of the method are presented in a four-stage life cycle. The method has been employed by the author in multiple IT and IS courses of different subjects and levels. Past experiences and lessons learned will be discussed.

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Zhigang Li

Papers

Switching to blended learning: The impact on students’ academic performance

A Case Study on Computerized Take-Home Testing: Benefits and Pitfalls

Engaging Students as Co-Lecturers in Information Systems and Technology Courses.

Learning-by-Teaching in CS Education: A Systematic Review