Poster Session
Featured Advancing STEM in Early Education.
Poster Session Haley Neuhausen
STEM topics and careers have become pivotal as we have moved into the 21st century. As we work to innovate and change our technologies, it is important that we have the knowledge and technology to keep up with those needs. Right now, there is a projected 2.5 million jobs that are expected to be vacant in STEM by 2038. In order to fill that gap, we need to look at the education element of this. It is important that this be filled in, not only, higher education, but also in secondary and early education. When looking at specifically early education, we can work to develop interests in careers early. A lot of the fundamental memories and interest are formed at this age, and can ultimately project where a student will go from there. With the assistance of AI and human technologies, we will be able to see movements towards a more well-rounded education, including STEM, if our educators were to take that step.
Students’ Reflections on Learning: A Preliminary Study
Poster Session Hameed Sulaiman Seyed Mohamed, Ghiyatha Al Wardi
Developing students’ ability to reflect on their learning is a fundamental but complex skill for preparing students in higher education. In this study, levels of reflection are categorized from a reflective writing essay based on the coding scheme of Kember, where seven levels of reflection are proposed. Out of 173 reflective statements analyzed from student essays, approximately 20% of students wrote more than eight clear reflective statements, while most students wrote between 2 to 6 statements. The findings revealed that students' reflections fall around Thoughtful Action (TA), Content Reflection (CR), and Process Reflection (PR). Most students' reflection (41%) falls in CR. TA and PR constitute 36% of statements each in student essays, although TA is not considered a reflection. Thirty-two percent of students' statements fall at the Introspection (I) level, where students mostly describe their feelings toward the course tasks. Only 21% of students' statements showed a higher level of reflection, which belongs to Content-Process Reflection. Premise Reflection is the most complex and highest level of reflection, constituting only 5% of reflective statements that contemplate a change of perspective. The findings of the work show a clear diversity in the student’s ability to write their own reflections, in which few students have the aptitude to write more reflective statements. This indicates the importance of raising students’ ability to express their thoughts. Preparing students to reflect on their learning is necessary, as it is pivotal to achieving transformative graduate attributes intended in higher education.
“I Feel that I Learned More about the Truth”: Integrating VR/AR Headsets into Criminal Justice and Cybersecurity Classrooms View Digital Media
Poster Session Jennifer Breese, Katherine McLean
Virtual and Altered Reality (VR/AR) technologies have been recognized for their potential to improve students’ workforce readiness across multiple disciplines, including criminal justice and cybersecurity; they may also function as an example a signature pedagogy in these disciplines, namely, experiential learning. Yet, little empirical research has been published concerning their impact in the related coursework, with only a handful of scholarly studies reporting net-positive effects on student learning, class satisfaction, and empathy. This study reports on a multi-year pilot program to integrate VR/AR headsets into three criminal justice and security classes taught at the introductory and advanced levels. In each class, VR/AR headset assignments (employing 360° videos) were deployed to increase student engagement, stimulate critical reflection, and improve familiarity with emerging technologies used in professional practice. Associated reflection assignments were designed to capture self-reported student learning, perceptual changes, and barriers to headset use, while a brief survey was distributed to measure student satisfaction with the technology. A rapid assessment of this quantitative and qualitative data revealed consistent evidence of “added value” for students, as well as strong affective responses to the content presented in virtual reality (ex. solitary confinement, immersive international tours). Few barriers to headset use inside or outside the classroom were documented. While this study reports on a limited sample of students, future research should investigate student learning and affective outcomes within a wider range of subject areas, with view to headsets as a flexible form of experiential learning in the post-COVID era.
The Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate Approach to Developing an English Course: A Study on Students’ 21st-Century Skills
Poster Session Yen-Hui Lu
This study applies the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate teaching model to design a freshman English course that integrates themes related to the Sustainable Development Goals. The course aims to enhance students' 4 Cs skills: critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration, through an innovative learning process focused on designing future products. The curriculum includes diverse learning activities such as group discussions, design thinking workshops, creative product development, and English oral presentations. A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate the course's effectiveness in fostering 4 Cs skills. Quantitative data were collected using the 4 Cs Competency Assessment Questionnaire to measure students' skill development, while qualitative data were analyzed from students' worksheets, assignments, reports, and reflective journals to provide deeper insights into their progress. The findings offer empirical evidence demonstrating how integrating Sustainable Development Goals themes and design thinking into language learning can effectively enhance students' language abilities and their 4 Cs competencies.
The Development of Gen AI Instructional Assignments Using the Task Technology Fit Framework
Poster Session Lutfus Sayeed
Training to effectively use Generative AI or large language models (LLMs) based applications to solve business problems is necessary to enhance university students’ employability. Employers are actively implementing these tools in order to leverage the utility of the newly available technology implementations in workplaces. Therefore, universities need to integrate the use of LLMs into the curriculum. The study discusses two different Gen AI-based assignments that were developed and tested at a large public university in the United States. The assignments were designed to address two tasks that differed in terms of their structure and characteristics. One task involved summarizing a set of text documents, while the second task consisted of an image classification project. Both assignments required using multiple publicly available LLM tools to complete the activities. Based on the Task Technology Fit model (Goodhue and Thompson, 1995), the students compared the experience of completing each task on three dimensions. The three dimensions adopted by Gu and Wang (2015) were task complexity, satisfaction, and perceived task-technology fit between the LLM used to perform the two tasks. The presentation provides a description of the two assignments and student reactions to the three tasks. References: Goodhue, D.L. and Thompson, D. L. (1995) “Task-Technology Fit and Individual Performance,” MIS Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 213-236. Gu, L. and Wang, J. (2015) “A Task Technology Fit Model on e-Learning,” Issues in Information Systems, Vol. 16, Issue I, pp. 163-169.
