Student Engagement : Classroom Action Research Reflection

The introduction of small group collaborative LTA has seen a more collaborative approach within the class, and more open communication. Following Vygotsky’s theory of Social Constructivism, (McLeod, 2019), this should come as no surprise. Most students have communicated as a group, both in the informal discussions which began each class, as well as within LTA, though many still appear to prefer to use chat or post on Jamboard, rather than speaking. Some students encountered technical difficulties, with regular dropouts, and difficulties in hearing. Many students accessed the Collaborate-Ultra classroom via their mobile phone, and this too caused audio and visual difficulties, as well as connectivity. The CoI (Garrison, 2020) supported the collaborative and social learning environments, and social/student and teacher presence were established initially via class discussions at the beginning of every class, but expanded to further collaboration during and between classes, while ensuring cognitive presence via collaboration LTA within each class.

Directing and guiding students towards key areas of concern, such as one LTA in which students posted their specific questions and clarifications regarding the assessment, aimed to further clarify and provide a better understanding of concepts that are required to be understood. Application of these concepts was assessed via the Summative AT, and the outcomes of the AT have shown a clearer understanding than has been observed in previous classes. However, this is not the case for all students, and again, it is difficult to determine whether students who did not carry the in-class learnings across to their Summative AT, were students who did not participate within the LTA. Student responses regarding difficulties engaging others in small group LTA and the final Group AT would seem to confirm that not all students participated. One student admitted that he/she lost interest. The LTA and interventions cannot be proven as the cause of identified improvement, but the outcomes do support research regarding Constructive Alignment (Biggs, 1996) and the learner-centredness of LTA.

Both Jamboard and Mentimeter allow anonymous logins, thus it is difficult to ascertain participation and authorship of responses. The open-ended questions and quizzes used in LTA via Mentimeter, were intended to determine recall, and understanding of topics covered in the previous class. Jamboard activities also did not identify active participants, and via the post-intervention feedback, several students did identify difficulty in engaging others within their small groups. This was representative of overall classes, where students would log in and contribute to discussions within the first 30 minutes but would then not respond to specific questions or polls which were created ad-hoc. It was also interesting to see the same students at the end of the class, still logged on when others had left. There were generally between 3 and 5 students each week, and perhaps these students did not participate in the LTA. A small number of students experienced internet issues and were logging out and back in a few times in each class. Several other students found difficulty in logging into Jamboard or Mentimeter while remaining in the Collaborate-Ultra classroom, and many viewed the shared Jamboard, responding via chat.

Student attendance did not improve markedly throughout the trimester, and class attendance is not mandated. Thus, this research was unable to test participation for students who did not attend the classes. Based on the outcomes of this research only, a correlation may be assumed between attendance/participation and academic outcomes, however this would require further study and validation, and attendance would need to be clearly compared to participation. The graph below does not clearly allow attendance alone to be seen as a predictor of grade, and a further investigation of the anomalies is warranted to fully understand these outcomes. A face-to-face classroom environment may produce different results.

Student learning and professional practice in higher education is improved by reflective writing (Rogers, 2001 cited in Ryan, 2010). This subject, however, does not have a reflective assessment as a summative AT. Though students were asked to complete a Reflective Journal weekly, compliance was negligible. Via the post-intervention feedback, a few students noted the value of the practice, but stated that lack of time was an issue. As a result, the impacts of reflective writing on overall student learning outcomes were not able to be measured.

Perhaps the most disappointing outcome of this study was the incidence of Academic Integrity breaches, which, though reduced from previous classes, were still found. (4 students as at the time of writing). As mentioned previously, the tools used for the LTA do not lend themselves for a full assessment of active participation, and therefore I cannot determine a link between attendance, participation and Academic Integrity breaches. Students were particularly concerned that they were marked for attendance, as, it appears, this is a visa requirement. I do not propose to investigate the reasons further in this study but am interested in pursuing this in further studies.

Final Comments