New Pedagogies in Teaching and Learning

Self-directed learning (SDL) is unquestionably a key feature of professionals who continuously seek to ensure relevance and excellent delivery of their professional services. For new practitioners, developing a sense of professional identity (PI) is also important because their commitment for performing competently and legitimately would be an impetus for their SDL (Tan, Van der Molen & Schmidt, 2017). This study examines the redesign of a teaching portfolio assignment for new polytechnic lecturers at a local polytechnic so as to promote SDL in their new role as educators. In their learning journeys, SDL and PI are largely developed through reflective practice.  To guide their reflections,  they would need to refer to a framework of standards so as to determine where they are at in their professional development, and what they could aspire towards. This study traces the redesign of the teaching portfolio assignment from the previous - an exercise to introduce new practitioners to the practice of documenting and reflecting on their own teaching experiences through their initial development journey, to the current which now includes two new features to explicitly guide effective SDL. These features would give lecturers an indication of their level of reflective practice and provide feedback to promote their professional identity development as polytechnic lecturers. The rubrics that guided the review of portfolios was designed to describe three levels of reflective practice: baseline, progressing, exemplary. Structured feedback on teaching portfolios based on Hattie & Timperley (2007)’s feedback model was also provided by staff developers. The analysis of lecturers’ submissions and staff developers’ feedback for the first cohort using the redesigned approach found that the lecturers’ reflective practice could be distinctively classified under each band in the rubrics. The staff developers’ feedback also prompted the lecturers to reflect on aspects of their teaching practice they would like to further develop through their upcoming practicum coaching. In our presentation, we would also share our analysis based on submissions and developers’ feedback on portfolios (due in July 2018) of a new cohort of lecturers. We will discuss the advantages and limitations of the designed rubrics and feedback model in practice.

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in using gamification in mobile learning to make learning fun and engaging. However, to date, there are limited studies on factors that drive students’ perceived enjoyment when using mobile learning with gamification. Drawing on the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), this study aimed to investigate how the fulfillment of three inherent basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness) and two beliefs’ variables (i.e. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) predict students’ perceived enjoyment measured in terms of affective, cognitive and behavioural dimensions.
134 polytechnic students participated in the study using a mobile learning web application, iChampion, in an “Introduction to Programming” course. iChampion was designed with the purpose of providing students with a platform to access learning materials anytime anywhere using their mobile devices. The students watched video tutorials, downloaded lecture notes and attempted quizzes on programming concepts covered in the lessons. The mobile learning also included some common game elements such as profile, reward points, leader boards and team play. Upon completion of the programming course, the students completed an online questionnaire measuring their responses to three basic psychological needs variables, two beliefs’ variables and three perceived enjoyment variables.
The results show that fulfilment of relatedness needs are positively related to behavioural and affective dimensions of perceived enjoyment. Further, perceived ease of use and fulfilment of competence needs are positive and significant predictors of the cognitive dimension of perceived enjoyment. Finally, implications of these findings along with limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed in the paper.