New Pedagogies in Teaching and Learning & Multi-Disciplinary Learning and Innovation

Cultivating self-regulated learners who can transfer what they learn in appropriate contexts is a crucial objective where 21st century skills education is concerned. Promoting spontaneous learning strategy use in various learning situations is essential to achieving this goal. Homework can provide a good vehicle for experiencing learning strategy use, especially, making use of meta-cognitive learning strategies (e.g., students might get good results by analyzing experiences of failure and inducing lessons for future transfer once they have solved problems). Although previous homework studies have focused more on quantitative aspects such as amounts of time students engage in homework and how much effort they deploy for the purposes of completing homework, the present study focused more on qualitative aspects of learning during engagement in homework (e.g., how students utilize failure experiences following homework tasks). This study took data at two periods from students in a real school setting and examined the effects of spontaneous use of meta-cognitive learning strategies on their academic achievement. In the first of the two periods, students engaged in their regular classes and homework (i.e., mathematical problem-solving tasks). Their level of understanding in class sessions and their learning strategy use in homework were examined. Also, at the end of this period, they were administered a regular test to assess their mathematics achievement. In the second period, which corresponded to the winter vacation, students were assigned another homework task intended to address their weak points observed in the regular test. Again, their level of understanding and their use of learning strategies in homework were examined, followed by a second test to assess their improvement. This time, their self-reported effort put into the homework was also assessed. Multi-regression analyses showed that achievement in the regular test was influenced by homework behavior and conceptual understanding in class. The improvement from the first test to the second test was influenced by homework behavior and conceptual understanding. However, the effort students deployed during the homework intervention did not influence the gains in achievement. This suggests that the quality of student behaviors during homework is more important than quantitative measures of effort.

Theoretical framework:  This study is informed by Dewey’s experiential education theory that linked the purpose of education to citizenship, proposed the use of projects as a means for producing learning, and emphasised reflection as a means for enhancing thinking.
Research Questions: What is the impact of Service-Learning (S-L) on civic responsibility and academic connection? What variables (S-L design and delivery considerations) are correlated with change in civic responsibility and academic connection?
Methodology: The participants were 398 students in nine S-L modules at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Ngee Ann Polytechnic in April and October 2017 semesters. Students completed a pre-SL survey before they were briefed about S-L, the purpose of S-L in the module, and the S-L projects they would be undertaking as a service to the community partners. Students reflected before, during and after S-L, as they learnt academic contents to apply in their S-L projects. Lecturers were provided reflection prompts based on the DEAL - Describe, Examine, Articulate Learning - model that emphasised academic connection, civic responsibility and personal growth. At the end of the semester, students completed a post-SL survey.
Findings: Paired sample t-test revealed a significant increase in students’ mean civic responsibility score after S-L compared to before SL (Mpost=3.97, SD=0.57; Mpre=3.69, SD=0.58, t(397) =-10.51, p<.01). A one-sample t test showed that the academic connection mean score of 4.01, SD=.74 is significantly greater than the neutral/mid-point (3), following S-L with structured reflection. Pearson correlations showed positive correlations between S-L design and delivery considerations and change in civic responsibility score (rs ranged from .20 to .33, p<.01), and academic connection (rs ranged from .60 to .80, p<.01).
Conclusion: The findings suggested that S-L has potential positive impact on civic responsibility and academic connection. Important S-L design and delivery considerations for enhancing civic responsibility include: strategies to strengthen impact of S-L projects for community partners and students, better preparation of students for S-L, and designing quality reflection prompts.
Funded by Singapore Ministry of Education Tertiary Education Research Fund: 2 TR 17

Writing as an academic endeavour is often perceived by students as an obstacle rather than a welcomed task. Students are less motivated to write. The literature review suggests several reasons why. Students struggle because of their disinterest with traditional, paper-based writing assignments, leading to perceived lower task value. Moreover, the assignments may lack relatedness as they are divorced from students’ social lives. A possible way to enthuse students to write lies with using multimodal writing activities. It is not that students dislike writing entirely as they do write regularly and enthusiastically online. As online platforms allow for a variety of digital media to be incorporated seamlessly, students are, in actuality, already producing multimodal compositions. Online motivators for writing for educational purposes have largely gone unexamined. In business, emotional or high-impact motivators that drive consumer behaviour are extensively researched. A cross-disciplinary application from business research, as a learning innovation, can help inform educators on motivating students to write. High-impact motivators help connect customers emotionally to a brand by fulfilling deep, often unarticulated, motivations and desires. An emotional motivator can, in this respect, help reignite a positive relationship with writing. The study explores, through interviews and content analysis, how students can develop an interest in writing through multimodal assignments using high-impact business motivators. To add much-needed relatedness, the assignment included location based learning to enable contextual learning. The writing assignment was created based on a collaborative Google map. Students had the opportunity to use geospatial markers, another modal affordance that is largely under-utilised in education, to contextualise their writing. It was found that students demonstrated a natural awareness of semiotic choices for multimodal composing. The freedom of choice promoted learner autonomy and led to higher perceived task value and relatedness, which in turn, increased emotionally-connected motivation. However, students were less skillful at using the conjunction of textual, visual and spatial layers to amplify their writing. This points to the need to teach visual and spatial grammar in writing. This study’s pedagogical significance rests in how educators might leverage the productive use of emotional motivators and online learning innovations in teaching practice.