PERMANAND MOHAN, PH.D. SENIOR LECTURER DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES ST. AUGUSTINE TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO Pedagogy and m-Learning

What is Mobile Learning? Learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices (Crompton, 2013)

Opportunities of m-Learning Mobile phones provide relatively inexpensive opportunities for learning; mobile devices are widely used around the world Can make use of time spent waiting, commuting, etc. since it enables anytime / anywhere learning Rich variety of multimedia supported (sound, text, pictures, and video files) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth provide opportunities for collaboration while out in the “field”

How Best to Use m-Learning? Consider a typical mobile learner:  Learner is commuting  Learner is waiting somewhere  Learner is in a classroom with his/her teacher  Learner is at home

How Best to Use m-Learning? (Cont’d) m-Learning content and activities can be developed:  To support the teacher in the classroom  To support the teacher outside the classroom  For independent learning  For informal learning

How to Achieve Learning Objectives? Content Types m-Learning Content and Activities Learning Objectives Learning Objectives Mobile Learner Pedagogy

How Best to Use m-Learning? (Cont’d) Consider typical types of content:  Text  Pictures and graphics  Audio  Videos  Simulations and learning games

Understanding Learning Objectives Consider typical learning objectives in the cognitive domain:  Knowledge and comprehension  Application and analysis  Synthesis and evaluation Outcomes in the affective (attitude) and psychomotor (skills) domains are not considered

Knowledge and comprehension  State the formula for the area of a circle  Give the mathematical formula for the area of a circle, paraphrasing it in your own words Application and analysis  Calculate the volume of an irregular shape  Given a physics word problem, determine the strategies that can be used to solve it Synthesis and evaluation  Apply and integrate several different strategies to solve a physics problem  When you have finished a problem, determine the extent to which the problem was solved as efficiently as possible Understanding Learning Objectives: How They Relate to Content

How to take content and learning objectives from a syllabus and design suitable mobile learning experiences so that the learning objectives are efficiently achieved? The Real Challenge

In designing for m-learning, it is easy to lose focus and think that the technology, by itself, can achieve the desired learning objectives. However, it is the instructional design used in conjunction with the features of the mobile device that will lead to successful learning. Thus, instructional design principles must be considered when designing content for m-learning. Points to Note for m-Learning Developers

“Designing for mobile learning is not only about mobile devices.” Donald Clark Scientific m-Learning Workshop June 4, 2012 Put Another Way …

What is Pedagogy? Pedagogy is the art and science of how something is taught and how students learn it. It includes how the teaching occurs, the approach to teaching and learning, the way the content is delivered and what the students learn as a result of the process. Pedagogy involves creating an educational process that will lead to knowledge transfer to a new learner.

Common Pedagogy: Direct Instruction

More Recent Approaches Constructivism Social constructivism Learning by doing (problem-based learning, active learning, etc.) The father of learning-by-doing pedagogy, John Dewey, suggests: “They (teachers) give the pupils something to do, not something to learn, and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results.”

Affordances of Mobile Devices Four C’s (Quinn):  Consumption of content  Interaction with compute capabilities  The ability to communicate with others  Capture of our contexts (via video and/or audio, orientation, location, time, and increasingly more data

Four C’s (Quinn)

Pedagogical Strategies Different types of strategies based on the four C’s:  Strategies that involve consumption of content  Strategies that involve using the compute capabilities of the mobile device  Strategies that involve communicating with others  Stategies that involve the capturing of our contexts and sharing with peers (e.g., using GPS, accelerometer, camera, recorder, sensors, etc.)

MobileMath is mobile learning application for high-school algebra. It was developed in by Vani Kalloo as a research project at the University of the West Indies supervised by me. It offers the learner multiple strategies for learning algebra on a “feature phone”. MobileMath

MobileMath Screenshots

Evaluation Studies Three Evaluation Studies (20 students each) Study 1: Were taught algebra in a previous term: Used mobile learning on their own Study 2: Were taught algebra in a previous term: Used mobile learning with teacher support Study 3: Were taught algebra while exposed to m- Learning Used mobile learning to complement traditional teaching.

Results Bar graph illustrates the students who passed: Group 1 increased from 9 to 14 Group 2 increased from 2 to 7

Results (Cont’d) Group 1Group 2 Average % Increase8.8%10.2% Duration14.4 hours58 hours Frequency514861

Results (Cont’d) The bar graph shows the number of times each feature was used by the students of all three studies. It highlights the fact that the Games feature was used the most.

Results (Cont’d) Amazingly, there was no difference in the performance of students in Study 3:  Experimental group: teacher + mobile application  Control group: same teacher

Results (Cont’d)

“Students need to concentrate and work, concentrate and work …” Enrica Salvatori Scientific m-Learning Workshop June 5, 2012 Can we achieve the desired learning objectives with this kind of m-Learning behaviour? Now, it is true that …

Questionnaire

Suggestions from the MobileMath Evaluation Studies Mobile learning is best used after students are taught the main concepts in the classroom. Multiple strategies should be offered so that the learner has options. Games should be included as most students find it appealing. Teacher support should be provided to continually encourage the learner to use the application.

Concluding Remarks Mobile devices provide many opportunities for improving learning and retention However, they should only be used as part of a pedagogical process that will result in the transfer of the desired knowledge and skills more efficiently and more effectively than other approaches There may be other approaches, perhaps not involving mobile devices, that could be equally effective.