Case studies
Introduction
Allocation problem often happens in a school. For some teaching purposes, students need to be assigned to different resources, such as courses and supervisors. We often use the first-come-first-served way, but there are many complaints from students about the unfairness, since some of them do not have the opportunity to select their favourite choice.
The Fair Allocation activity on the XJTLU Learning Mall is a tool that can support fairer allocation. The system considers everyone’s preference and tries to maximise the overall satisfaction among students. It also reduces teachers’ work and time, especially in a big class.
In this case, we will show you how the teachers use Fair Allocation in their courses and its benefits.
Background
Fair Allocation is often used for students to select supervisors for the final year projects or to select optional courses at XJTLU. The purpose of using Fair Allocation in BIO303 Final Year Project is to make sure most students can choose their favourite project and tutor. We have got a lot of positive feedback from both teachers and students because of the fairness and automatic system work.
Interviewee(s)
David Ruiz-Carrillo, Department of Biological Sciences
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
Gamification describes the process of applying game-related principles — particularly those relating to user experience and engagement — to non-game contexts such as education. One way to apply gamification strategies is to use a new XJTLU Learning Mall feature called Level Up! to design the online course content. By offering scaffolded content with different levels and badges, it can effectively motivate the learners to keep learning and competing with each other.
On the XJTLU Learning Mall, we have the Level Up! function available. So if you are interested in gamifying your students’ learning, this case study will be right for you.
Background
With the help of Grzegorz Rogala, an instructional designer, the English Language Centre has created an optional module for students to learn academic vocabulary. It is designed based on gamification theory and uses the feature of Level Up!. The words are carefully selected and put into different levels. If the students achieve the passing goal, they will update to a new level and get a related badge.
Interviewee(s)
- Ling Xia, English Language Centre
- Mark Sinnott, English Language Centre
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
In a traditional teaching environment, if we have a big class with about 100 students or even more, it will be very hard for teachers to manage interactive activities or to hear everyone’s voice, because of the large class size and time limitation. However, if we could use educational technology in the big class teaching circumstance, it would be easier for teachers to conduct interactive activities and enhance students’ engagement.
The JazzQuiz activity is designed to be used in face-to-face lessons, with a classroom full of computers/tablets/phones. A teacher can prepare the questions from a question bank and start the quiz during the lesson. All the students can join the session and take the quiz, and the teacher can see the responses immediately.
In short, JazzQuiz is a tool for the teacher to manage the live test in a big class. The functions, such as “re-poll” and “jump to”, are also friendly to be used.
Background
Shaofeng Lu had a big class with about 200 students in one big classroom a few years ago. In order to better interact with the students and enhance engagement, he used JazzQuiz a lot in his teaching sessions. With the help of JazzQuiz, he said, the students’ engagement was highly improved, and as a teacher, he could adjust his teaching method according to the feedback from students during the session.
Interviewee(s)
Shaofeng Lu, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
The Assignment activity on the XJTLU Learning Mall is a powerful tool. It is a place where students can submit homework for teachers to grade. It is commonly used to submit text-based files, but it also supports other types of files, such as media files for video/audio works.
Compared to other ways to collect video works from students, using the Assignment activity is much easier for both teachers and students. And it will be more secure since all the videos are stored in the XJLTU media centre.
In this case, we will show you how the teachers use Assignment in their courses and what benefits it will bring.
Background
The teachers of CCT007 Self-management have been conducting video submission as the final project for years. A few years ago, they started to use the XJTLU Learning Mall’s Assignment activity to collect, grade, and give feedback to students. The teachers mentioned that the technology saved them a lot of time and made teaching and learning more efficient.
Interviewee(s)
Jie Wang, Chinese Cultural Teaching Centre
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
The Quiz activity on the XJTLU Learning Mall contains many different types of questions, such as multiple-choice, drag and drop, true/false, short answer, numerical… Teachers can design the questions and build the quiz for different purposes. The questions will be kept in the question bank once they have been created and can be reused in other quizzes.
In this case, we will show you how to set up the online Quiz for a massive number of students and the benefits of doing so.
Background
In the summer of 2018, to place each Year 1 student into the right level of calculus module, the Department of Mathematical Sciences conducted a background knowledge test for more than 3300 students through the XJTLU Learning Mall. Because of the randomness of the questions and strict exam settings, it helped to avoid cheating and provided much convenience to the teachers, such as the grades were generated right after the test, and the questions can be reused next time.
Interviewee(s)
- Jie Fei, Department of Pure Mathematics
- Ruonan Zhang, Department of Applied Mathematics
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
The Gradescope online grading function is a powerful feature to assist teachers in seamlessly administering and grading all of their assessments, whether online or in-class. It saves time grading and provides a clearer picture of how students are doing.
In this case, we will focus on how the Gradescope tool assists with large class sizes and unfamiliar material.
Background
UPD105 Urban and Environmental Economics was a design module with over a hundred students and was inherited by Dr Sophie Sturup due to the professor being out of the country. Because of the large number of submissions and the need to familiarise herself with the module quickly and efficiently, Sophie decided to turn to Gradescope to assist her in the marking process.
DES001 Explore Design was a taster module with a large number of students. Dr Konstantinos Papadikis decided to use Gradescope to speed up and allow simultaneous marking to navigate such a large module regarding the number of participants.
Interviewee(s)
- Sophie Sturup, Department of Urban Planning and Design
- Konstantinos Papadikis, Design School
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
Introduction
Double marking means at least two markers are involved for each student submission, and one final grade has to be generated at the end. It is the policy of XJTLU for final year projects to increase grade reliability.
At XJTLU, many departments will have a double marking process each year, with many teachers and students involved. However, double marking manually is very hard to manage and time-consuming, especially for the module leaders who need to put all the grades and feedback together.
Based on the teachers’ requests, the XJTLU Learning Mall’s educational technology team found and helped develop an activity that perfectly supports double marking online. It is called Coursework. With the help of this tool, the double marking process can be managed by the system, so the teachers only need to go to the page and finish their own grading responsibility.
Background
Three departments were invited to join the pilot group on using the Coursework in 2018. It has been successfully run for three semesters. During the trial period, based on the feedback from the pilot group, we updated the features of this tool from many aspects. Now, we think it is time to let more teachers know about it, and hopefully, it can benefit more departments at XJTLU.
Interviewee(s)
- Sophie Sturup, Department of Urban Planning and Design
- David Ruiz-Carrillo, Department of Biological Sciences
- Qiufeng Wang, Department of Intelligent Science
Please click here to watch the video (password protected)
To promote educational technologies at XJTLU, we select interesting, useful and powerful technologies used by our teachers from different subjects to do case studies. We would like to show how they use the new technologies, why they select them, and the results and benefits of using them in their courses. Beyond the technologies, we also analyse some of the teaching theories and strategies behind the technologies they have used.
Through these case studies, we hope to stimulate our faculty interest in educational technologies and encourage them to find better solutions through technologies to achieve their goals.
If you want to learn more about any of the case studies or share your experience of teaching with technologies, please email us via learningmall@xjtlu.edu.cn.