Satisfaction Survey of students participating in blended courses organized by a secondary school through the e-learning platform IWT : Satisfaction Survey of students participating in blended courses organized by a secondary school through the e-learning platform IWT Antonio NAZZARO Computer science teacher White Board Interactive etutor (ANSAS/MIUR) elearning/mlearning researcher I.T.E. L. Amabile, Avellino (AV) info@antonionazzaro.it
Contents : Contents The phases of the e-learning solution offered by ITE L. Amabile (Avellino, Italy) The blended courses delivered The survey The results of the survey in relation to courses of: - Italian and History - Legal and economic subjects - Computer science and mathematics Histogram Conclusions and future developments Questions
: During the school year 2010-2011 there has been continuing relationship between the MoMA Centre of Salerno University and the ITE L. Amabile Avellino through a commercial contract; The blended courses have been designed and delivered according to the cyclic scheme of the blended model Teachers / etutor have: - shared the training programs of the courses; arranged and structured the same courses also through some pre-training sessions on the use of the IWT platform IWT coordinated and carried out by a teacher having the role of a system tutor; The results achevied so far can be considered over all good as the school has been able to embed within its training syllabus these innovative courses tailored on the IWT platform resources also getting some benefits from the technical support provided by the MoMA e-learning Centre The phases of the e-learning solution .
: An Italian /History course for pupils (age 17 to 18) from second year secondary high school; An additional Italian History course for pupils (age 17 to 18) from second year secondary high school; A Laws course for pupils (age ≥ 18) from the fifth/final year; An additional Laws course for pupils (age ≥ 18) from fifth/final year; A Laws course for pupils from first year (age 16 to 17); A course in Financial Science for pupils (age ≥ 18) from last/final year; A Computer Science course for pupils (age 16 to 17) from first year; A Mathematics course for pupils (age 16 to 18) from first two years. The first 7 of these blended courses, were attended by 10 pupils, only the course n. 8 was attended by 18 pupils. The total number of participants was 80 students Blended courses delivered to pupils at final three-year education cycle at secondary high school level during the school year 2010-2011:
: At the end of the delivering of the first set of courses the e-tutors recckoned to proceed to a course satisfaction feedback survey (from very little to very high) based on 10 questions and structured in 2 parts The first 6 questions were used to determine whether: - pupils consider useful and attractive both the online learning environments both digital contents in blended courses of recovery/development and during the educational trips; - pupils believe that online learning activities can improve school-family relationship and whether these activities should be integrated into social networking environments like Facebook The remaining 4 questions of the second part of the survey were designed to have quantitative and qualitative information on the style of e-tutoring in relation to the participation and attendance of pupils to: the asynchronous activities, social and community interactions and synchronous and asynchronous interactions between students and e-tutors. Furthermore, these 4 questions in the second part also served to get information about how the relationship between teacher and student is changing on the online courses. The survey
: The courses 1 -2 (Italian/History) were attended by 11 pupils (age 17 to 18) The responses provided by 11 participants of courses 1 and 2 showed that: at least 90% of the pupils showed a level of satisfaction from enough to very high in as much as 5 questions in the first part of the survey, namely, the usefulness of blended courses both in the use of digital contents into IWT environment or with the Interactive White Board ( possibly embedded in social networking environments), also for homework study relief. This percentage is not confirmed with respect to the use of IWT to improve school-family relationship. In this case, in fact, the 50% of pupils expressed a low level of satisfaction, while the remaining 50% expressed a level of satisfaction from enough to very high. In the second part of the survey, the 90% of pupils expressed a high level of satisfaction on the forum and from enough to very high on the blog. e-tutors have always supported the interaction between students through chat and e-mail , and, in this case, the level of satisfaction of all pupils was from high to very high. The survey results in relation to courses 1-2(italian/history)
The survey results for the courses 3-4-5-6 : The courses: 3, 4, 5 and 6 on Laws and Economics subjects, were attended by 25 pupils (age 16 to 18) . The first part of the survey proved that the 30% of pupils had not consider ed blended courses useful or very useful o, as well as, the digital contents and the use of Interactive White Board in curricolar teaching and does not appreciate the integration of the IWT platform with social networking environments like Facebook. While the remaining 70% pointed out a level of satisfaction sufficient to very high on the first part of the survey. Also in this case, the 30% of pupils believed that it can’t improve the school-family relationship through the use of the IWT platform. As regards the second part , the survey had provided the following data: - the forum was used by 40% of the participants with a level of satisfaction from sufficient to very high; - the blog was used by 10% of participants with a level of satisfaction from high to very high, while, the wiki has never been used. Requests for help sent by the pupils to e-tutors took was carried out through e-mail and chat mode with an approval rating that wen from high to very high. NOTE. 4 These courses were not designed for the recovery of deficiences retrieval of knowledge and skills but as a in-depth focus on curricular activities. The survey results for the courses 3-4-5-6
PowerPoint Presentation : The first part of the survey of Computer Science repairing course in computer science, showed that almost 100% of participiants expressed a level of satisfaction from high to very high The second part of the survey, in relation to the course 7, it was found that 100% of the participants took part in all asynchronous activities (forums, blogs and wikis) set up by the e-tutors with a very high level of satisfaction Also from the collection of data on the course 7, what came out that all participants had interacted in chat or by e-mail in order to improve the sense of community by taking advantage of the technical and methodological support offered by the e-tutor. The survey results in the case of the repairing course in computer science (course 7)
PowerPoint Presentation : The survey results on the mathematics course (course 8) The last course was detected blended mathematics course which was attended by 18 pupils aged between 16 and 18 years in order to enhance the curricular activities. The survey showed a level of satisfaction from sufficient to very high on the effective usefulness of blended courses and the advantage of using digital contents in the traditional classroom and virtual classroom equipped with the White Board Interactive. Furthermore, the survey showed that the 20% of participants does not believe that: online courses are useful to reduce home work or that - IWT is useful the integration of IWT with social networking environments; - or that it can improve school-family through online environments. On the second part of the survey, the 18 participants expressed themselves as follows: - 20% used the forum with a level of satisfaction from enough to high, only one participant used the blog; - 30% used the wiki with a level of satisfaction from enough to very high - 60% of them interacted with group-wide e-tutor through chat and by e-mail to increase the sense of community and to enjoy the appropriate technichal and methodological support by the e-tutor .
Histrogram : Histrogram Levelof satisfaction ( from 1 very low to 5 very high) of the 62 participiants to the survey on: forum, blog, wiki and support through chat/email
: The collection of survey data provides interesting insights and useful items for the evolution on a larger scale of this model of e-learning solution. In the case of courses: 1, 2 and 7, it appears that the proposal of the e-tutors and the subsequent implementation of the courses is cohesive with the epistemological foundations of the teachings of Italian/ History and Computer Science because it stimulates the reading-written production in the students during the educational activities and because it ensures the continuous support in the requests for help sent to e-tutors. As regards to, the 4 courses of the group of laws and ecomics subjects (courses: 3-4-5 and 6), the survey showed that: - 30% of the students was not attracted by the available contents; - collaborative activities and construction of asynchronous type have not been attended successfully and that, practically speaking, the blog had not been used, thus compromising the growth of a sense of community on this group. This group of teachers on-line coincides with the teachers that make up the department of legal - economics disciplines . In the future, the latter circumstance can be an asset to this department because when these e-tutors will perfect their educational setting it will be for these teachers easier to implement good solutions with which to proceed in the design of courses based on competences. Conclusions and future developments
: The case of the Mathematics course (course 8) is different, where we can find a strong motivation by students in wanting to take up courses online, even if the members had not been able to do community and to benefit of the e-tutor support, perhaps, because the participants were numerous and heterogeneous (from different year of study). About the possibility of improving school-family relationship with the use of the platform, 30% of all participants was unfavorable. A plausible reason could be that the pupils prefer the traditional channel in the presence of parent-school meetings, during which the parents represent the needs of their children, tout-court especially, in the drop-out cases. The fact that there is at least 20% of pupils who do not appreciate the integration of IWT with social networking environments like Facebook could mean that these same students believe that online learning activities become invasive because these activities invade their interactions with family and friends . Conclusions and future developments
: How could this solution be optimized? In the case of this Technical Studies Institute (ITE L. Amabile secondary school) is it useful to continue through this e-learning solution which uses e-learning Center MoMA of Salerno University? ... ... ... ...? Thanks to all participaints in this discussions and to all those who want to share these topics in the future. Antonio Nazzaro info@antonionazzaro.it Questions and thankings