Digital Learning Dispatches

Dublin City University (DCU) and Arizona State University (ASU) are delighted to announce a new programme that builds on our respective institutions’ commitment to removing mathematics as a barrier to student success in higher education. ASU and DCU will work in partnership on an initiative to leverage the Khan Academy‘s adaptive learning platform to enhance the mathematical skills of our students.

Khan

This research-based project will leverage the Khan Academy‘s free, globally accessible adaptive learning platform–fitting it to the needs of our respective students; training lecturers, teachers and tutors as effective Khan Academy coaches; and building research-evidenced insights into students’ learning of mathematics. Our goal is to create a personalized math education ecosystem which can dramatically improve student success by combining widely available, open resources with effective human pedagogy.

DCU’s work with the Khan Academy combines efforts in the School of Mathematical Sciences, Maths Learning Centre, CASTeL (Centre for the Advancement of Science and Mathematics Teaching and Learning), and the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL).

ASU’s Khan programme is an expansion of its deep investment in adaptive learning to improve student success in general education, especially among at risk populations. ASU’s First Year Mathematics redesign project is a 4 year collaboration between ASU Online and the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

We are pleased to announce that Elaine Walsh and Dr James Brunton received the Best Poster Award at the prestigious EDEN Research Workshop at Oxford for their work entitled “Assessment Strategy – Designing and Developing Assessment for Online Distance Education”. Their poster was a clear winner and validates the leading-edge work they are doing in the area of online Assessment. The Award was jointly presented at the end of Day One by Professor Antonio Moreira Teixeria, President of EDEN, and Professor Belinda Tynan, Pro Vice-Chanchellor (Learning & Teaching), The UK Open University, with official Rapporteur, Professor Tony Bates, closely watching proceedings. Congratulations to Elaine and James!

EDEN Poster Award

Earlier in the day, Colum Foley, also from the NIDL, gave an excellent report back to conference delegates after the first keynote address by Dr Cristobal Cobo from Oxford University.

Later in the day Dr James Brunton, Lorraine Delaney, and Dr Eamon Costello assisted Professor Mark Brown in chairing the highly successful Oxford Debate. In arguing the motion “That Open Educational Resources (OERs) have fundamentally transformed Higher Education”, Professor Rory McGreal from Athabasca University, Canada and UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER) came up against Professor María Soledad Ramírez Montoya from Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, who holds both an ICDE Chair in OER and UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Practice (OEP). After the cut and thrust of a lively debate the motion was eventually won by Professor Ramírez Montoya in favour of the motion.

NIDL staff will be presenting two papers on Day Two of the Research Workshop, which is being attended by many leading scholars in the field from around the world.

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