Collaborative Learning Patterns (CLPs)

This paper discusses the suitability and the added value of Collage and Gridcole when contrasted with other solutions participating in the ICALT 2006 workshop titled "Comparing educational modelling languages on a case study." In this workshop each proposed solution was challenged to implement a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning situation (CSCL) posed by the workshop's organizers. Collage is a pattern-based authoring tool for the creation of CSCL scripts compliant with IMS Learning Design (IMS LD). These IMS LD scripts can be enacted by the Gridcole tailorable CSCL system. The analysis presented in the paper is organized as a case study which considers the data recorded in the workshop discussion as well the information reported in the workshop contributions. The results of this analysis show how Collage and Gridcole succeed in implementing the scenario and also point out some significant advantages in terms of design reusability and generality, user-friendliness, and enactment flexibility.

No abstract

Learning Design (LD) and Learning Analytics (LA) are both domains of research and action that aim to improve learning effectiveness. The fact of sharing a common aim raises the potential of the synergies that may emerge between them.Learning Design or, as some prefer, Design for Learning [1][2][3], is an emerging field of educational research and practice. Its practitioners are interested in understanding how the intuitive processes undertaken by teachers and trainers can be made visible, shared, exposed to scrutiny, and consequently made more effective and efficient. Mor and Craft [4] define learning design as "the creative and deliberate act of devising new practices, plans of activity, resources and tools aimed at achieving particular educational aims in a given context". The emphasis on this activity as both "creative and deliberate" highlights the dual nature of design, and in particular learning design, as both a creative practice and a rigorous inquiry.Arguably, most of the work in the field of LD has focused on the creative processes, on practices, tools and representations to support it, and on mechanisms for sharing its outputs between practitioners. Very little has been done in terms of the practices, tools and representations used for evaluating the effects of the designs. Several approaches emphasise top-down quality enhancement, which help designers to base their work on sound pedagogical principles. What is missing is the trajectory that would complete the feedback loop: the built-in evaluation of designs to see whether they achieved the expected outcomes.

Due to the COVID-19 health crisis, the UPF closed its physical doors in mid-March, in line with all other universities. As a result, all teaching activities (initially conceived as on-site) had to be reorganised in order to fit a new, totally online learning environment. The Teaching Quality and Innovation Support Unit (USQUID) at the UPF Engineering School and ICT Department has provided the students and teachers of the School with support and guidance in many ways, including devising a feedback questionnaire addressed to undergraduate students of the following degrees: Computer Engineering, Audiovisual Systems Engineering, Telecommunications Network Engineering, Mathematical Engineering in Data Science, and Biomedical Engineering. The questionnaire aimed to canvass the views of the students on key aspects of this switch, such as teaching methods used in every course, the management of teamwork, continuous assessment, materials made available, etc. The total number of respondents was 242, distributed as follows: 52 from the degree in Biomedical Engineering (taught in collaboration with another UPF department) and 190 from the ICT degrees.The results show that students do in fact prefer some features of this new way of working. For instance, according to the collected data, the availability of teachers to students (one of the advantages of on-site learning) has been preserved, something students value highly. They also appreciate the way lectures, seminars and practical sessions have been reorganised. On the other hand, results also show that it has been hard for our students to get on with their tasks within the deadlines set, possibly because they are generally not as autonomous and disciplined as the average student at online universities. Another difficulty related to this has been the planning of group activities, which are typically designed to be done on-site and have been necessarily adapted to online learning. We have gathered information and data that reflect how hard it is for group members to attend videoconferences simultaneously or even to form working groups, which has led them to perform tasks individually. These results show the importance of facilitating time slots and learning spaces in order to plan and perform group activities. This paper presents both the context and the results obtained from the study carried out in the UPF Engineering School and the ICT Department. It includes information on what aspects of online teaching are valued most highly by students with traditional profiles (those enrolled at on-site universities), especially regarding the links between synchronous and asynchronous learning. User pointers arise that may come in useful for the entire university community, in particular designing hybrid formats that will certainly be the educational tools used next year at all universities.