The Role of Technology in Improving Quality of Teaching in Higher Education

Abstract

Students are the future of any country. They are the leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. If teaching quality is undermined, so is the country's overall education system, and therefore, so is a country's future. In this chapter, the role of technology in improving quality of teaching in higher education, which has been declining over the years internationally including in the US, is reviewed. Databases EBSCOhost and Academic Search Complete were employed in this review. Empirical studies have revealed that e-learning technologies such as Moodle improve teaching quality. Given the advancement in technology, institutions of higher learning the world over are challenged to embrace technology as a strategy to engage students and enhance learning.

Session-Based Time-Window Identification in Virtual Learning Environments

“…In traditional presence-based courses, Carroll (1963) distinguishes time-on-task and time-off-task as the time spent learning and the time spent in activities other than learning, together forming the elapsed time. Quality learning has been defined as "learning in which learners are provided with the ability to effectively learn and retain skills and knowledge gained" (Thindwa, 2016). The distinction between on-task and off-task activities is evident in face-to-face courses.…”

“…Likewise, in a course, a student can be involved in various tasks, but only a subset of those are related to "quality learning," i.e., activities with intentional and purposeful student involvement that enable effective learning and retention of acquired skills and knowledge (Thindwa, 2016). Not every activity has a specific learning involvement.…”

“…For instance, the Attendance module, unlike Lesson, does not involve any "active learning," since the student action is limited to taking attendance and has no effect on their academic performance or knowledge acquisition. On the other hand, there are other activities, like Quiz, that require students' active participation and influence academic performance, during which a student can "effectively learn, retain skill and knowledge" (Thindwa, 2016). Specifically, in our dataset, we consider the following modules being related to quality learning:…”