Category: Awardees

Awardees, Memorial Award

2023 Awardees

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Note : Full papers of the 2023 Conference can be read here.

Ms. Abarnah Kirupananda
Senior Lecturer,
Business School,
Informatics Institute of Technology.
iabarnah.k@iit.ac.lk		 Ms. Shalini Kaduwela
Senior Lecturer,
Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology
shalinikaduwela@gmail.com
Encouraging development of peer learning skill through in-class activities to enhance student learning experience and interactions

Peer to peer learning is where the students learn from each other in addition to what is taught by the teacher. This method is efficient, and it enables students to take ownership, increase self-confidence and help learn from the experience, knowledge and skills of others. Generally, when students join the university, they have very few friends and they also try to network only with people they knew previously. I also noticed that they worked in silos, missing out on valuable opportunities for peer learning. As students are reluctant to talk with others in class, I planned to introduce activities in class  to  promote peer learning. I decided to do this in a scaffolded manner so that they will be able to adapt to this new concept. I divided the students into small groups, and gave them topics to teach each other. The jigsaw method and group presentations were used as activities in this intervention. Even though there was reluctance among the students initially, they eventually got motivated to collaborate with their peers, embracing the concept of peer learning. As peer learning should be promoted among students, I believe it is necessary we identify the correct technique and implement this in class for students to practice. We should start with less ‘risky’ activities and gradually move to more ‘risky’ activities. By consistently practicing peer learning in the class environment, we can establish it as a habit for students, creating a positive and collaborative learning atmosphere. This not only enhances their academic experience but also prepares them for effective teamwork in future endeavours.

 Use of FouRe’s method to develop paraphrase building skill in higher education students.

The paper focused on a method and a series of activities I used in my English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class to teach paraphrasing skills. I had been teaching paraphrasing for several years in the Foundation and Undergraduate programmes and had not seen the students using paraphrasing skills effectively. I assumed that the steps I taught the students to write a paraphrase could have been complicated, thereby confusing them. This made me research about changing my teaching style which led me to an easy four step method (Reword/Rearrange/Realize/Recheck) for paraphrasing, followed by a series of group and individual activities to support the students in remembering the principles of paraphrasing. The students realized that they require to use their own words, phrases, and sentence structures as they rephrased song lyrics, matched original and paraphrased material and completed group paraphrasing tasks. The outcome of the new method and activities was more effective and successful; with the final paraphrases of the current students being better than those by previous students. I strongly encourage and recommend my colleagues and students to follow this technique as it is simple and enjoyable. Based on SLAIHEE’s theme for 2023, ‘Outcome-based higher education for developing knowledge-based procedures in students’, and having worked on the above paper, I realized the importance of focusing on the outcome to develop my students’ knowledge-based skills to enhance their academic skills.
Awardees

2019 awardees

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Note : Full papers of the 2019 Conference can be read here.

Ms. Ishani Anushika
Lecturer,
Dept. of Languages,
Saegis Campus, Nugegoda.
ishani.anushika23@gmail.com		 Dr. Kasuni Akalanka
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Basic Sciences,
Faculty of Allied Health Sciences,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura
kasuniakalanka@gmail.com
Empathy as a Tool to Develop Learner Engagement in a Mixed- ability ESL Classroom: student perceptions

Background for teaching changes:Improved learner engagement in a class is the ultimate expectation of an educator with the belief that more inquisitive and motivated the learner is, the more s/he learns. However, making students engaged in a mixed ability ESL classroom can usually be a challenging task. This was no exception in the ESL class of 60 students that I was teaching in a well-known state university. In this class, the relationship among students of different proficiency levels was not satisfactory. A writing activity on self-limiting beliefs about learning English disclosed that the affective filter of the less proficient learners was high when they were learning with the advanced learners in English. On the other hand, the advanced learners wished the content of the class to be more challenging, and appeared to be bored when working with the less proficient peers. This suggested the need of turning the class to a learning community where students appreciate, acknowledge the presence of each other and learn to positively depend on one another. Above all, it is known that students should be taught to be more empathetic as empathy involves bridging the gap between the self and the other. To achieve this, I used Bourdieu’s (1986) concepts of cultural, social and linguistic capital to make the students get to know about each other well and to develop empathy. First, I used energisers in the class which reinforced rapport between the students and gave a sense of togetherness. Second, I encouraged students exchanging personal narratives of learning English in order to develop empathy among students. In this activity students wrote their stories of learning English contemplating the opportunities and obstacles they had and have at present in learning English. This was then followed by an open-class discussion about what they learnt about each other. The feedback collected later revealed that these activities had made the learners recognise how the capital learners bring into the class, results in differences in their English language proficiency. It was fascinating to watch how this led to more open-mindedness, attunement to others and nonjudgmental interactions among students in the class. In fact they started to mingle with peers despite their varied proficiency level and to prefer pair and group work over working individually. This whole experience made me realise the potential we have as teachers in making our learners’ learning experience more meaningful.

 “You hear and you forget, you see and you remember, you do and you understand” –adopted from Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)-
 
Background for teaching changes:There has been increasing emphasis in recent years on moving away from traditional teaching towards student-centered learning (SCL). This paradigm shift has encouraged moving control from the instructor to the learner, treating the learner as a co-creator in the teaching and learning process through direct involvement, discovery of knowledge and collaboration among peers. Teachers are therefore required to take a more facilitatory role. In other terms, in a student centered classroom, there would be a high degree of student engagement; challenge, enthusiasm and joy. Students learn in their own pace due to the use of their personalised technologies in learning process. Thus SCL is recognized as one of the best ways of improving deep learning in students. However, since the undergraduates in the University are used to spoon-fed education as majority of lectures are conducted in merely traditional manner, I entertained a hypothesis that students would prefer lectures rather than SCL activities. Thus, the objective of the study was to evaluate student perceptions and preferences on selected teaching learning methods with the question “which teaching methods are preferred by students?”, posing the question to a batch of undergraduates who were taught different sub-topics of Biochemistry using selected teaching approaches.Majority of the students rated conducting merely a lecture as a non-effective way in enhancing deep learning. Engaging students in active reading and letting them present in groups was rated as a highly interesting way of learning as they were able to gather knowledge and present to their peers with enhanced self-confidence. The Jigsaw technique was preferred by majority saying the activity helped them to completely comprehend the given topic. Students were further of the perception that the SCL activities helped them to improve their presentation skills, leadership qualities and self-confidence as well as deep learning of the lesson material.Thus it is highly recommended to conduct SCL activities to facilitate students in deep learning and understanding as what really important is not what is taught, but what is learned.
Awardees

2018 awardees

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Full papers are at here

Ms. Abarnah Kirupananda

Informatics Institute of Technology, Colombo 6, Sri Lanka.
abarnah.k@iit.ac.lk

 Ms. Prabhashrini Dhanushika

Department of Computational Mathematics, Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
dhanushika83@gmail.com

 Dr. Surangika Ranathunga

Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
surangika@cse.mrt.ac.lk
Use of a scaffold flipped classroom teaching approach to develop post-millennials as effective self-learners

Background for teaching changes:

Post millennials are a group that uses internet, social media and email facilities from school going age.  It is reported that they have a considerably less attention span, less focus, and have greater expectations, while wanting to be early starters, and importantly challenge teachers when they commence their higher education.  A majority of such learners do not prefer traditional methods of learning.

Having experienced this first hand, I was keen to explore  whether changing to a flipped classroom would create and interest among them to learn and hence to fulfill their learning needs.  I have combined the flipped classroom with lesson breaks in a first-year computer programming course with 20 students.  It turned out to be a success, where it helped them to research on prescribed topics before a lecture, and to make them actively engage during the class. Even though students did not like it at the beginning, later them seem to enjoy this interaction.  Student feedback showed agreement as they viewed the change positively, meeting their learning needs.  I have shared these methods with my colleagues and have motivated them also to follow interactive learning techniques to make the learning process more enjoyable.  Once I started working on this area, I got interested towards it and started exploring more. Now I am continuing to practice these methods and I am implementing different techniques to give learners a better learning experience.

 

 Development of a Teaching Philosophy to meet and improve Teaching Practices suited for effecting positive change

Background for teaching changes:

Higher Education (HE) teaching to meet today’s needs and to deliver quality learning, need a mind-set change.  Every teacher aspires to be an effective teacher, and some may still hold the view that transmission of knowledge can make learners competent.  There are many aspects that should be considered during the development and the delivery of courses.  As a novice teacher, I found it to be a huge challenge to introduce such changes, while maintaining learner interactions.

Having followed a teaching development course, I now could easily implement improvements while relating to documented prior knowledge given in the literature.

Therefore, in this paper, I have explored the use of Bloom’s Affective learning taxonomy to design and integrate a course to a holistic teaching philosophy (TP), which would deliver the required teaching quality and also self-satisfaction.  Curriculum and course planning should be grounded on a TP.  TPs should be flexible and may evolve when new experiences and knowledge are gained.

Currently, I am researching on how to improve learning skills among weak students.  In this regard, I am engaging with such learners to discover the root of such weaknesses, to address this issue.

I strongly believe that we academics should be effective in producing competent learners via the courses we teach, while not confining ourselves in transmitting information.

 Developing Active Explorers from Listeners: Encouraging engineering students to explore by asking Questions during Lectures

Background for teaching changes:

Moving students from lower order thinking skills (LOTS) to develop as graduates with higher order learning and inquiry skills is challenging.  The use of questioning strategies in class could develop students’ elaborative interrogation skills, during this transformation.

However, in the South Asian culture, many students hesitate to ask questions at lectures due to lack of confidence in what they have just learnt, and due to poor English communication skills.  As a lecturer, I found this silence very frustrating, and hence wanted to make a change.

Therefore I implemented two supporting actions in my Semester 2 engineering course, namely, to allow students to write their questions on a piece of paper and to pass it to the lecturer; and to move around the classroom so that they gain access to ask questions in private.  The effectiveness of these interventions were evaluated using direct observations and through a  questionnaire.  The initial opportunity to forward written queries helped later to have a  dialogue with them, when I moved around in class.  Motivated by this success, I  now have introduced lecture breaks where they could seek direct feedback from me, especially when a new concept is introduced.

These results clearly indicate the importance of creating a discursive environment for students to ask questions.  I have encouraged my colleagues to try out this intervention providing an opportunity to seek clarifications later.