Blended Learning for Programming Teaching in the University of Nairobi Post Covid-19
Digital Learning and transformation, such as digital pedagogy, digital resources and platforms, micro-certification, etc.
Keywords: Blended learning, programming lab, asynchronous, digital learning,
Why is the practice promising?
Blended learning is a practice whereby learners can access learning both online and physically. Some part of learning is carried out using technology and some part is done in physical classrooms.
Blended learning is a promising practice because it offers an opportunity for the learners to access learning even when they are not physically present at the learning institutions. The learners are also able to review materials shared in class if they missed the physical class. Students can do their assignments online and submit them.
Blended learning offers more student-to-student interaction and student-to-instructor interactions. Provision of feedback is also convenient as the lecturer can access the assignment wherever they are.
What was the context of the practice?
With the onset of COVID-19 and the closing of higher institutions of learning, e-learning was introduced at the University. With the use of online learning, many advantages of online learning were realized such as learning anywhere anytime, the ability to track learning, ability to review learning materials as many times as one wishes. When physical learning resumed, it was important to blend it with physical learning to take advantage of both approaches to foster effective learning of programming.
Traditionally the programming lab was carried out by the lecturer giving the theoretical concepts and giving students programming tasks which they will do and physically demonstrate them for marking. This approach was time-consuming and required the lecturer to interact with students physically several times. With COVID-19 still a threat to learning, the need for reducing physical contact with the instructors was required hence the adoption of blended learning.
About the course
The programming lab is an undergraduate course offered to first-year students in their first semester. The course is offered to computer science students at the Department of Computing and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology to introduce them to practical programming concepts using the C programming language.
What was the problem (opportunity/challenges) that needed to be addressed?
With the physical classes, students were not able to review the concepts as they relied on the notes they had taken and what they had heard. Secondly, with the use of email and physical submission of the assignments, there was a high probability of losing the assignments and not being able to provide feedback on time. Thirdly With the physical class, it was not possible to know if the students were engaging with the learning materials and if they were submitting assignments on time. There was also a need to limit the interaction with the lecturer required to reduce the COVID exposure.
Which approach was taken and what objectives were achieved?
The approach taken was a blended approach where the learners would attend physical classes where demonstrations of the programming concepts were carried out by the lecturer. After the demos, the demo files were posted on the e-learning platform to enable the students to review the concepts learnt in the class on their own time. In addition, the students were assigned a task/s that would require them to utilize the concepts from demos and submit them to the learning management system where the lecturer would provide feedback.
The following objectives were achieved;
- First students were able to access learning materials before and after the physical class.
- Secondly the students were able to practice programming concepts beyond the physical classes.
- Thirdly the lecturer was able to track student engagement with the learning materials and follow up with the students who were lagging.
What were the main activities carried out?
The following activities were carried out to offer the course effectively.
- Design of the course taking into consideration the blended learning approach. The concepts to be included in the course were extracted from the curriculum for the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. The course design included when certain concepts and tasks would be offered and how the learning was going to be assessed. A course design template from the digital transformative learning course was used to redesign the course.
- In-class demonstrations of the concepts were carried out during the physical classes as per the department timetable. An example of the demonstration file done in class is provided below.
- Demonstration files were posted on the learning platform for students to review and they would have an opportunity to ask questions
- Assignments were posted on the e-learning platform and students were required to submit them online
- Forum discussions were created so that learners would post challenges they were experiencing while programming and other students could help in sorting out the issues
- Quizzes to check the learners' understanding of the concepts were posted on the learning management system after every major concept. The quizzes were automatically graded.
What were the methods/models of digital teaching and learning applied?
Forums: Forums were used to help sort out the challenges that students are experiencing. The students will post in the forum their challenge and other students will provide solutions and the teacher could provide feedback and guidance
- Assignments-Tasks
- Quizzes- To assess the students learning progress
- Group work for collaborative problem-solving
- Use of rubrics to guide the assessment of the programming tasks
When and where the activities were carried out (including the start date and whether it is ongoing)?
Start date: 04/10/2022
End date: January 2023
Who were the key implementation actors and collaborators (stakeholders)?
- Course lecturer
- Students
- Technologists
What were the resources needed (budget and sources) for the implementation?*
-Learning management system
-Internet access
Results – Outputs and Outcomes
How did the practice of digital teaching and learning contribute to the enhancement of digital literacy, digital competency of teachers or to the change of the digital culture of HEIs?
- There was Less dependence on the physical classes and students were able to continue learning even after class
- The lecturer was able to track students' engagement on the learning management systems. It was possible to see if students were accessing the materials shared as shown in the diagrams below
What were the concrete results achieved concerning outputs and outcomes?
Has an assessment of the practice been carried out? If yes, what were the results (effective or not)? Please address some evidence of the results (e.g., self-reports of participants, change of lesson plans, lesson study notes etc). These could be attached as appendices. *
Though the evidence and the results from the implementation of the course have not been formally assessed through research studies, there is evidence of some outputs generated from the implementation of the course.
- The course was redesigned to fit the blended learning approach. From the analytics from the course, we can see that students engaged with the learning materials. In addition, there was an improvement in the timely submission of assignments and the number of students who completed the tasks,
- The assessment of the tasks was also improved because the lecturer could access the student submissions in one place anytime and anywhere. The course has not ended yet at the writing of this report but half of the student's assignments have been reviewed and feedback sent to the students.
Does the practice have the potential(s) of sustaining and scaling? If yes, what is (are) they?
The blended learning approach has the potential to scale due to the advantages that technology affords us. Many students will be able to access the learning materials anywhere through their mobile devices and laptops.
With the addition of automatic assessment of the student code using existing tools like Code Runner, the teacher's work on assessment will be reduced hence being able to handle large classes.
Lessons learnt
What were the key triggers for digital teaching and learning implementation?
The availability of digital resources such as learning management systems (e-class, somas), and video conferencing tools (zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams etc.) enables the students and teachers to be able to conduct blended learning.
Subsidized digital devices: the University of Nairobi enterprise services offer subsidized laptops to students enabling them to access digital learning resources.
Goodwill from the management- The University of Nairobi management is championing the use of digital learning. The management has championed the training of both students and lecturers on the use of digital tools for learning and teaching. It has also made sure that the tools for digital learning are implemented.
Availability of the internet- Kenya has high internet connectivity, during Covid-19 students and staff were offered free internet access in partnership with the local telco companies. With a lot of competition among telcos, the cost of the Internet has become affordable to many students and lecturers.
What worked well – what facilitated this?
Students were able to review what was taught in class and the Lecturer was able to identify the non-active students and follow up on them through email, phone calls and physical meetings.
There was active engagement of the students in the learning management system.
What did not work – why did it not work? *
For timed assignments, some students were not able to submit on time and resorted back to sending email.
In some cases because of the fee payment issues, the students were not able to access the LMS on time hence leading to late submissions.
What would you tell others about the pitfalls of digital teaching and learning from the practice?
Digital learning has its pitfalls as technology can fail anytime but with the blended approach, these pitfalls can be overcome as the failure of technology can be supplemented by the physical class.
Conclusion
Please describe why this intervention may be considered a “best practice”. What recommendations can be made for those intending to adopt the documented “best practice” or how can it help people working on the same issue(s)? *
Blended learning can be considered best practice because it offers an opportunity for learners to access the learning materials and assignments at their own pace and convenience. This approach makes learning flexible and accessible. Blended learning also gives the teachers the ability to reuse the learning objects created in previous learning sessions and utilize them with minimal modifications for the next cohort. In addition, blended learning allows the lecturers to interact more with learners beyond physical interactions.
Blended learning provides an opportunity to easily track the learning progress of the learners and provide interventions on time because of the capabilities provided by the LMS.
Further actions
Please describe your further plan or next actions beyond this practice
For further improvement of the blended learning, the lecturer plans to present the content in multi-model presentations by adding videos to further elaborate the demonstration files. In addition, more discussion forums will be included to provide more interactions. To provide quick feedback to students, automatic assessment will be added to reduce the time the feedback takes.
To document the success of the practice, a survey will be carried out among the students to get feedback. The results of the survey will be documented through a journal article.