Electronic learning- virtual
E. Jafari; M. RezaeiZadeh,; R. Shahverdi,; B. Bandali; M. Abolghasemi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Today, teachers need a set of broader and more complex qualifications than before. In order for e-learning to be successful, front-line teachers must employ the necessary technological knowledge and effective pedagogical strategies to use ICT in the classroom. Also, to accompany ...
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Background and Objectives: Today, teachers need a set of broader and more complex qualifications than before. In order for e-learning to be successful, front-line teachers must employ the necessary technological knowledge and effective pedagogical strategies to use ICT in the classroom. Also, to accompany young learners in the development of digital competences, it is necessary that their teachers have the necessary digital literacy and competence in the first place. Therefore, digital competence is one of the key competences for teachers. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the status of digital educational competencies of teachers based on the European Union framework.Methods: The current research design was quantitative and the participants in the research were 182 teachers from all over the country from 20 provinces and 46 different cities. To evaluate the digital educational competencies of teachers, a virtual workshop entitled "Teacher; On the way to digitalization" was held. After introducing and explaining each competence, the teacher provided the question related to the competence to the participants through the link of Google form, so that the questionnaire could be completed in this way. The questionnaire included 3 general competencies and 10 sub-competencies. Each competency had three levels: Novice and Explorer, Expert and Integrator, and Leader and Pioneer. In fact, the teacher evaluated him/herself based on these three levels of each competency.Findings: The results showed that the competence status of teachers' digital resources in the field of managing, protecting and sharing digital resources and creating and modifying digital resources was at the level of "novice and explorer" and "integrator and expert", respectively. In relation to teaching and learning competence, except self-regulated learning competence, which was at the "novice and explorer" level, other competences were at the "integrator and expert" level. Competence of "assessment strategies" and "analyzing evidence" was also at the level of "novice and explorer". Regarding other competencies, no significant relationship between levels was observed. Also, no significant relationship was found between demographic components (occupation, age, gender, and province) and competencies.Conclusion: In the current research, in addition to familiarizing the teachers with this framework and the types of digital competencies they need in the teaching profession, the evaluation of the digital competencies of the participants was also considered. Since the evaluation was done along with the training, it can be said with more confidence that the obtained data was more accurate. Also, evaluating teachers' digital competencies based on a spectrum or progression model helps to better and more accurately evaluate teachers and develop their digital competencies. In this case, training will be need-based and personalized in some way. Also, investigating the relationship between demographic components and the state of competencies leads to a more accurate understanding of the current situation of teachers in the country. In general, the results of using this self-evaluation can be used to adjust training courses and empower teachers and help teachers' educational preparation. One of the suggestions of this research for future researchers is to consider the evaluation of other competencies of the DigCompEdu framework. In the current research, the main focus was on basic competencies, that is, digital resources, teaching and learning, and assessment.
Education technology - Lifelong learning
F. Fathi Hafshejani; H. Zeinalipour; A.A. Shikhi Fini; K. Fathi Vajargah; E. Jafari
Abstract
Background and Objectives: With an awareness of the era that entails the day-to-day changes, the organizations must constantly keep up with technology and technological changes and implement them to survive and achieve the best possible results. One of these changes is making decision about the implementation ...
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Background and Objectives: With an awareness of the era that entails the day-to-day changes, the organizations must constantly keep up with technology and technological changes and implement them to survive and achieve the best possible results. One of these changes is making decision about the implementation of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in digital learning area at the workplaces, which is regarded as a complicated issue. Awareness of and informing about the effectiveness of educational services of this type of technology, as one of the manifestations of virtual education, is not inconclusive in choosing this path due to the key role of MOOCs as a potential educational strategy in organizations and companies in developed and developing countries. The purpose of this research was thus to identify the technological pedagogical functions of MOOCs to employees in the workplace.Methods: This basic research was conducted using a qualitative research synthesis technique. The corpus included documents (books, research and review articles, dissertations and Internet resources) retrieved by searching the authentic Persian (Islamic World Citation Database (ISC), Magiran, Noor Database (Noormags), CIVILICA Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Barakat Knowledge Network System, Iran Scientific Information Database (GANJ) and Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IranDoc) and Latin web databases (ProQuest, Springer, Scopus, Science Direct, and also Google Scholar search engine) retrieved from 183 sources using a criterion sampling method (From corporate MOOCs 2014 to 2022). A total of 45 samples were selected. Theoretical saturation of themes was reached by the 32th sample. In order to collect data, the library research method was used. The collected data were then analyzed using a thematic analysis technique that is used in qualitative research studies. Finally, to validate the proposed model, a total of six experts in different fields, such as curriculum and educational planning, educational technology, and electronic learning were selected using a purposive sampling method. The researcher-made questionnaire for content validation of conceptual model was then sent for them. The final model was approved after modifications.Findings: Based on the findings of this research, three main components were obtained. The first group was the educational process with six sub-components (Educational targeting of courses, Contents of training courses, Various professional learning methods, Professional educational activities, Educational resources of the courses, and performance evaluation); the second group was the supporting part with five sub-components (training coverage of staff, Educational support, Educational expenses, Educational stimuli, and capabilities of the educational method); and the third group was the operational part with three sub-components (Educational areas, Complementary skills training, and Creating professional soft skills).Conclusion: This study showed the probable consequences of educational functions of MOOC in the workplace. The beneficiaries, including organizations, companies, and employees, can reliably employ these functions in their education system by paying more attention to them because it can be said that most organizations in Iran seem to be still unaware of its potential educational benefits. In a world where with the rapid development of technology, being online is considered a necessity both personally and professionally in Iranian organizations, and the today's workforce is expected to be highly skilled and to continuously improve their skills based on the today's global standards, they can acquire these new skills through life-long learning, i.e. MOOCs, in an advanced digital environment.Methods: This basic research was conducted using a qualitative research synthesis technique. The statistical population includes documents (books, research and review articles, dissertations and Internet resources) retrieved by searching the authentic Persian (Islamic World Citation Database (ISC), Magiran, Noor Database (Noormags), CIVILICA Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Barakat Knowledge Network System, Iran Scientific Information Database (GANJ) and Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IranDoc) and Latin web databases (ProQuest, Springer, Scopus, Science Direct, and also Google Scholar search engine) retrieved from 183 sources using a criterion sampling method (From corporate MOOCs 2014 to 2022). A total of 45 samples were selected. Theoretical saturation of themes was reached by the 32th sample. In order to collect data, the library research method was used. The collected data were then analyzed using a thematic analysis technique that is used in qualitative research studies. Finally, to validate the proposed model, a total of six experts in different fields, such as curriculum and educational planning, educational technology, and electronic learning were selected using a purposive sampling method. The researcher-made questionnaire for content validation of conceptual model was then sent to them. The final model was approved after modifications.Findings: Based on the findings of this research, three main components were obtained. The first group was the educational process with six sub-components (Educational targeting of courses, Contents of training courses, Various professional learning methods, Professional educational activities, Educational resources of the courses, and performance evaluation); the second group was the supporting part with five sub-components (training coverage of staff, Educational support, Educational expenses, Educational stimuli, and capabilities of the educational method); and the third group was the operational part with three sub-components (Educational areas, Complementary skills training, and Creating professional soft skills). Conclusion: This study shows the probable consequences of educational functions of MOOC in the workplace. The beneficiaries, including organizations, companies, and employees, can reliably employ these functions in their education system by paying more attention to them because we can dare say most organizations in Iran are still unaware of its potential educational benefits. In a world where with the rapid development of technology, being online is considered a necessity both personally and professionally in Iranian organizations, and the today's workforce is expected to be highly skilled and to continuously improve their skills based on the today's global standards, they can acquire these new skills through life-long learning, i.e. MOOCs, in an advanced digital environment.
e-learning
E. Jafari; N. Homayooni Bakhshayesh; J. Alamolhoda
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Nowadays, virtual education has become one of the most important applications of information and communication technologies in the world and extensive activities have been started in this field. This can be one of the favorite options to fill the educational gaps, in the unavailability ...
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Background and Objectives: Nowadays, virtual education has become one of the most important applications of information and communication technologies in the world and extensive activities have been started in this field. This can be one of the favorite options to fill the educational gaps, in the unavailability of face to face education and eventually leading to the promotion of educational justice for people in rural and remote areas. The aim of this study was determing whether those who were the target audience for this form of education have perceived it as a fair experience. To be more precise, which part of this type of education has led to a feeling of justice in these individuals and which part has led to a significant feeling of injustice in their experiences. In short, the aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of virtual students of Tehran’s comprehensive universities of the state of educational justice in virtual education in order to determine its aspects and dimensions. Methods: This study was conducted as a qualitative research using the phenomenology method. One of the suitable cases to apply the phenomenological method is providing an answer to the following question: Is there any need to further clarify a specific phenomenon? The state of justice in virtual education has not yet been properly studied in any research; therefore, the researchers in the present study selected the above approach to study this issue. Based on its goal, in this study, standard sampling was used among virtual students who have experienced virtual courses of Tehran Comprehensive Universities (Amirkabir University, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran University of Science and Technology, K. N. Toosi University of Technology and Tehran University) and met the criteria for being included in this study. The sampling process continued until the data were saturated in 32 interviews. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The interviews were analyzed using the Smith method. In order to confirm the validity and accuracy of the research, the reliability and verifiability of the data were examined. To ensure validity, the findings of this study were presented to the participants and they expressed their views to the researcher on the correspondence of the findings with their experiences; moreover, collaborative reflection on the emerged themes was conducted by the researcher. The researchers ensured the validity of this research by maintaining the documentation at all stages of the study. Due to ethical considerations, before starting the interview, the participants were informed of the goals and importance of the research and participated in the research with informed consent. Participants were also assured that their identity would be kept confidential during and after the study. Findings: The main question of this research was: What experiences do students have regarding justice and injustice in virtual education? In analyzing the interviews, the main concepts were extracted from the sentences expressed by the participants and were represented in a reduced conceptual form, resulting in 153 descriptive codes. In the next step, by reflecting on the descriptive codes, overlapping, similar, and related codes were identified. These concepts were integrated in the form of 20 interpretive codes based on commonalities, similarities and semantic overlaps. Finally, in the last step, the interpretive codes were reduced to 7 explanatory codes: students' equity with different characteristics (geographical condition, job status, and learning competence), students' equality in their interaction with professors (equality despite differences in appearance features and cultures), lack of real interactions (short and fragile interactions), content problems (non-practical content, lack of supervision in content development and lack of codified and specific planning in presenting courses), organizational misconceptions toward virtual students (having capitalistic attitude to students and not paying attention to students' real abilities), inequality in the use of facilities and costs (high educational costs and inequality in the use of facilities), and inequality in providing educational services (lack of appropriate organizational behavior patterns suitable for virtual teaching, low staff number to meet the educational needs of students, high number of students in classrooms and the use of inappropriate teachers for teaching). Conclusion: Justice and its realization has always been one of the main slogans in the field of education. Participants in the present study have sometimes focused on communication and sometimes focused on the facilities provided in the training process. If we take a general look at the themes obtained, we can divide them into two spectrums of justice and injustice although more examples have been found in the section on injustice. Another main conclusion that is drawn from the present study is the predominant link between the instances of justice and the inherent characteristics of virtual education and the predominant link between the instances of injustice in the way the virtual teaching is managed and lack of facilities appropriate for this form of education. Finally, it should be noted that due to the increasing use of virtual education and its fundamental difference from face-to-face education, ethical issues also appear differently in its process which require accurate recognition and study.
e-learning
E. Jafari; K. Fathi Vajargah; M. Arefi; M. Rezaeizadeh
Abstract
Background and Objective: Not only has MOOC been able to reach a valuable place in the world of teaching and learning as an online educational tool, but it has also been recognized as a wave of thought that has attracted the attention of many writers and researchers. However, this issue is questionable ...
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Background and Objective: Not only has MOOC been able to reach a valuable place in the world of teaching and learning as an online educational tool, but it has also been recognized as a wave of thought that has attracted the attention of many writers and researchers. However, this issue is questionable in Iran because not only is MOOC not used as a dominant educational tool, but so far no research has been done on this issue. But in order to establish the effectiveness of this system in universities and educational centers, a comprehensive view of its situation in other countries must be obtained. Given the benefits as well as the challenges and threats that MOOCs may have for the country's higher education, foresight and adopting measures and strategies in the field of proper management in the use of MOOCs and their local production is very basic. Also, due to the need for adaptation of universities and educational institutions in Iran to different learning methods and online and new educational plans to ensure quality in providing services to users and adaptation to technological spaces that grow and develop online, conducting academic research on developments Higher education is very vital. The purpose of this study was developing a conceptual model for Mooc-based curriculum in higher education. Methods: This was a qualitative study and conducted based on grounded theory approach. The statistical population includes educational technology and higher education technology experts. Using the purposeful sampling approach and interviewing 14 people, theoretical saturation was achieved in the categories. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. The reliability and validity in qualitative part of the research was through reviewing by experts who did not participate in the study. Findings: The important issue of current study is the higher education curriculum which is developed in four aspects of goal, content, teaching-learning methods and evaluation analysis and according to causal conditions, the underlying conditions and mediation terms of terms of developing strategies and based on that the final model is presented. Conclusion: The production of MOOCs in Iran is done by considering the contextual conditions and requirements of the environment, considering the philosophy of this matter, and adopting strategies in order to realize the MOOC-based curriculum model, which, if done correctly its effective consequences can be seen. In the present study, it was revealed that despite the weaknesses and challenges associated with MOOCs, the view of experts is positive about the existence of a MOOC-based curriculum. This means that the MOOC-based curriculum model can be used in higher education. Higher education, by taking appropriate measures in line with these challenges, can provide a suitable platform for this innovation in the field of teaching-learning. Also, due to the multicultural nature of Iranian society and the open space of discourse that exists in the MOOCs, it can be used for communication between cultures and subcultures in Iran considering these subcultures in the field of education.
e-learning
E. Jafari; K. Fathi Vajargah; M. Arefi; M. RezaeiZadeh
Abstract
Background and Objective:Although the fields of teaching and learning have changed very little compared to other categories more than two thousand years ago, today, with the help of information technology, it has undergone rapid changes. In recent years, virtual education has emerged as one of the most ...
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Background and Objective:Although the fields of teaching and learning have changed very little compared to other categories more than two thousand years ago, today, with the help of information technology, it has undergone rapid changes. In recent years, virtual education has emerged as one of the most important applications of new information and communication technologies in the world and extensive activities have begun in this direction. Virtual education has created a new paradigm and has enabled learning in any field, for any person, at any time and in any place. Among the various forms of e-learning, there has been a significant expansion of free online courses, MOOCs in recent years. The purpose of this study is to delineate the strengths, defects, opportunities and threats in MOOC-based curricula. This research is applied and used a qualitative method. Methods: The statistical population of the qualitative section includes experts who have been engaged in the process of providing educational services during MOOC-based educational courses. From among this population, 14 individuals have been chosen as the statistical sample through purposive sampling. The data have been gathered through semi-structured interviews. Findings: The findings show that the most significant strengths include: promotion of access to curricula, learner-orientation, the possibility of realization in learning society, enjoying high quality teaching and promotion of dynamism. Among the most important defects are the possibility of neglecting real situations in education, the possibility of lack of proper educational organization, the possibility of an increase in the financial burden of the curriculum, the possibility of exclusivity in curriculum development, the possibility of not being able to evaluate high order thinking skills, the possibility of taking teacher freedom away, the possibility of lack of organization in evaluation, the possibility of arising problems in precise verification of the evaluated person. The most significant opportunities are supporting the extension of educational justice, the possibility of investment, supporting up-to-date knowledge, extending international communication in higher education curriculum development, the possibility of revising university curricula, facilitating the promotion of evaluation methods efficiency and making the education more applicatory. The most prominent threats are disruption in university functions, making instructors’ professions questionable, lack of educational purposiveness, incompetency of curriculum objectives, opposition of values and superficiality of curriculum objectives, instrumental exploitation of MOOCs, incompatibility between content and the audience’s needs, evaluations becoming quantitative, disregarding the market requirements in the process of evaluation and doubtfulness and pessimism towards MOOCs. Conclusions: Based on the results of the present study, considering the contextual conditions and planning in the field of strengthening and its optimal preparation, as conditions affecting all the components and factors involved in the design of MOOCs in higher education; universities and higher education institutions should invest in the development of a culture that seeks to discover, invent, innovate, and create curricula based on MOOCs in order to establish a knowledge-based structure; expand the scope of MOOC-based curricula in academic settings through teamwork question and answer sessions between students and faculty, group discussions, and the formation of workshops and seminars in collaboration with other institutions and higher education centers.
