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ENGAGEMENT PATTERN OF COURSE PARTICIPANTS IN AN
ERASMUS+ BLENDED LEARNING PROJECT FOR TEACHER
EDUCATORS
Md. Saifuddin Khalid 1, Sabbir Ahmed Chowdhury 2 & Pär-Ola Zander 3
1Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark1
skhalid@health.sdu.dk
2Institute of Education and Research, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
sabbir.ahmed@du.ac.bd
3Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
poz@hum.aau.dk
ABSTRACT
This paper reports engagement pattern of the participants, who are mostly either teacher educators or
teacher students, in a cross-national blended learning project, within the context of an EU-funded
project. The goal of the project was to support teacher educators’ professional development to increase
the ability in teachers’ technological and pedagogical skills. The method includes the collection and
interpretation of learning management system usage and the content within it, and the workshops are
organized to animate the courses. LMS-supported blended learning courses engage the teacher
educators mostly when the activities (i.e. online quiz, forum post, peer-group assessment) are applied
as part of the face-to-face workshops, which may also be mediated by online video-conferencing.
Further study should investigate the underlying factors behind the low online engagement, for
instance, preferred level of technology blend and interaction design factors.
Keywords: Learning Management Systems; Blended Learning; Moodle; Teacher Education;
Teacher Educator.
1. INTRODUCTION
Blended learning is one of the approaches to achieve student teachers’ and teacher educators’
continuous competence development objectives. The interpretation and application of the concept of
blended learning vary — ‘combining both face-to-face and digital media’ is the definition applied in
this study. The study of the development of activities, outcomes, and the engagement of students in
learning management systems (LMS) and face-to-face sessions as part of blended learning courses
have received sufficient attention in the literature on e-learning or educational technology (Filippidi,
Tselios & Komis, 2010; Padilla-MeléNdez, Del Aguila-Obra, & Garrido-Moreno, 2013). However, the
teachers in higher educational institutions, particularly teacher educators, are a different target group
that does not have the same certification necessity, struck with higher time-pressure, and additional
obligations at work and family. So, the engagement of the teachers of higher educational (HE)
institutions is likely to have a different pattern in the blended learning courses.
Blended learning for teacher educators in Europe and Asia (BLTeae) is an Erasmus+ project conducted
from October 2016 to September 2019. One of the central contributions of the project is the
development of a blended learning platform primarily for and in collaboration with teacher educators
from three European countries (Denmark, Estonia, and France) and four Asian countries (Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Malaysia, and Pakistan), involving eleven higher educational institutions. The goal of the
project is to support teacher educators’ professional development to increase the ability in teachers’
technological-pedagogical skills. Ten pedagogical and ten technological competency-focused courses
are developed using the open-source LMS Moodle. The project partner institutions organized
workshops/training session facilitated by instructors from the same or other partner institutions to find
inspiration and gain understanding of the content and activities quickly. The course content structure
includes the course objectives and outline of activities, introductory video(s), one or more academic
literature, individual or group-wise activities, submission of a reflection on the learning activities and
key lessons learned, and completion of a multiple-choice quiz. The estimated workload of each course
is between 3.5 to 10 hours. Enrolled students are eligible for a certificate issued by the Aix-Marseille
University through active participation in a course by submitting at least a reflection on the learning
activities through forum post and/or attending quiz.
This paper investigates the engagement pattern of the course participants through face-to-face
workshops and online course activities. The pattern of participation is explored based on the news
posts regarding the face-to-face workshops on the project website and the logs of the courses in
Moodle LMS. The research questions are:
1. Which events can be reported to show the engagement pattern of the participating teacher educators
of a blended learning platform using Moodle LMS?
2. What generalizations can be drawn regarding the engagement pattern of the participating teacher
educators of a blended learning platform based on face-to-face workshops and the logs of the courses
in the LMS?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Bonk and Graham (2012) reviewed and reported three most commonly mentioned definitions of
blended learning: (1) combining instructional modalities (or delivery media), (2) combining
instructional methods, and (3) combining online and face-to-face instruction. They identified six major
issues that are related to designing blended learning systems: “(1) the role of live interaction, (2) the
role of learner choice and self-regulation, (2) models for support and training, (4) finding balance
between innovation and production, (5) cultural adaptation, and (6) dealing with the digital divide”
(Bonk & Graham, 2012, p. 47-49). They also categorized blended learning systems in three categories,
which are shown in Table 1. The project and this paper report the use of Moodle LMS as enabling
blend — enabling knowledge-sharing between the teacher educators in Europe and Asian partner
institutions of the project. The engagement of participants depends on the reviewed LMS design
issues, but the scope of this paper is limited to studying the quantitative variables on engagement.
Table1. Categories of Blended Learning Systems
Enabling
blends
Primarily focus on addressing issues of access and convenience, for example,
blends that are intended to provide additional flexibility to the learners or blends
that attempt to provide the same opportunities or learning experience but through a
different modality.
Enhancing
blends
Allow incremental changes to the pedagogy but do not radically change the way
teaching and learning occurs. This can occur at both ends of the spectrum. For
example, in a traditional face-to-face learning environment, additional resources
and perhaps some supplementary materials may be included online.
Transforming
blends
Blends that allow a radical transformation of the pedagogy, for example, a change
from a model where learners are just receivers of information to a model where
learners actively construct knowledge through dynamic interactions. These types of
blends enable intellectual activity that was not practically possible without the
technology.
Source: (Bonk & Graham 2012, p. 47-49)
In many contexts, blended learning is proven to be more effective than fully face-to-face or online
learning — in terms of students’ satisfaction and interaction, (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004;
Wingard, 2004) time and place flexibility, ease of using resources, increase of interactions (Lock,
2006), and effectiveness of interaction between peers and instructors (Chamberlin & Moon, 2005). In
teacher education programs, blended learning is an effective instructional strategy with exclusive
features to improve discussion skills, develop their communities of practice, and achieve their course
purposes (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009; Zander et al, 2016). However, the
engagement and perception of teacher educators in relation to their own competence development
courses, both Asian and European, remained under-emphasized in existing literature. This paper
attempts to contribute the engagement pattern of teacher educators’ own competency development
blended learning courses from Asia and workshops held in Asian contexts and LMS logs on learning
activities. Moreover, according to Chanchary, Indrani, & Khalid (2008), Moodle log analysis is very
useful and insightful in researches relating to educational data science, hence, the Moodle log is used
in this study to summarize the engagement pattern using descriptive statistics.
3. METHODOLOGY
The data for face-to-face activities of the different courses of the BLTeae project have been identified
from the official website’s articles section (http://blteae.eu/articles). The assumption and intention
are to identify relationship between the participation in the face-to-face activities and the
online activities.
We also analysed parts of the logs of the LMS http://moodle.blteae.eu/ to analyse participants’
enrolment and access pattern in 10 technological and 10 pedagogical courses. Participants’ enrolment
data are obtained by clicking Dashboard->Courses->Module-> and then selecting the individual
course->Participants. Again, participants’ activity data are obtained by following Course
Administration->Reports->Activity Report. For feedback, evaluation, and encouragement through
certification, the courses include forum post submission on the learning activities as a task and
participating in at least one quiz. So, the logs of forum posts, quizzes and feedback activities are
analysed for identifying the engagement pattern of the enrolled students (i.e. teacher educators). Due
to the lack of clarity associated with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ongoing
policy revisions, analytics involving individual-level log for devising engagement pattern has not been
conducted.
4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this project, training/workshops took place in F2F mode and the teacher educators participated in
the LMS for the learning resources and assessment-related activities. The following sections illustrate
the engagement pattern of both the teacher educators and pre-service teachers primarily affiliated with
the partner institutions of the project.
4.1 Engagement in Face-to-Face Sessions
Table 1 shows that the project’s website articles informs about 15 workshops/training events
conducted during a period of ten months (October 2018 to July 2019) in Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Malaysia and Pakistan. The articles inform about the events, participants, the host institutions, and the
workshop/training facilitators. These events varies from two-hour workshops to four-day workshop
series. The table might exclude face to face sessions if those events are not reported in the form of
articles in the project website.
Most of the courses covered during the face-to-face sessions fall under the category of technological
courses. Participants were relatively homogeneous — teacher educators and teacher students. The
participants were from Asian and European countries, mostly participated by and hosted in Asia, and
involved pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and administrative persons like school
principals. In addition, multiple workshops in Bangladesh were facilitated by European course
instructors through Skype. Furthermore, faculty members of a computer science and engineering a
Bangladeshi university participated in two workshops and extended impact of the courses beyond
teacher educators.
Table1. Training & workshops held (01.10.2018 to 31.07.2019)
Events Courses/Topics Location Participants Host Institutions
Training Blended Learning:
Facilitating a Higher
Learning Experience
Bhutan 28 participants:
school Principal,
Vice Principal, 22
teachers and 4
trainee teachers
Wanakha Central School,
Paro Bhutan
Workshop Software Clicker Bangladesh 23 faculty
members
Institute of Education and
Research (IER),
University of Dhaka
Workshop Interactive Radio
Instruction
Pakistan 20 Prospective
teachers of BS
Education program
Department of Education,
International Islamic
University Islamabad,
Pakistan
Training New competence for
online learning and
teaching: activities for
online tutors
Pakistan National University of
Modern Languages
(NUML), Islamabad,
Pakistan
Training New competence for
online learning and
teaching: activities for
online tutors
Malaysia Universiti Teknologi
MARA Sarawak
Workshop Blended Learning,
Software Clicker –
Socrative and Design
Science Research
Bangladesh BGC Trust University
Bangladesh
Training Overview of the
BLTEAE project
Malaysia 42 teacher
educators
Malaysia, IPGKBL
Training Learning management
system (LMS)
Malaysia 42 teacher
educators
IPGKBL, Malaysia
Training Facebook in Teaching Malaysia 42 teacher
educators
IPGKBL, Malaysia
Training BLT training course Bangladesh Bangladesh Open
University, Bangladesh
Training Training on E-portfolio
and Use of Animations in
Learning
Pakistan National University of
Modern Languages
(NUML), Pakistan
Training Developing instructional
materials for blended
learning
Pakistan International Islamic
University, Islamabad,
Pakistan
Workshops 1. Flipped Classroom &
2. The Integration of
Open Educational
Resources
Bangladesh 14 teacher
educators & 12
teacher educators
respectively.
Bangladesh Open
University, Dhaka,
Bangladesh
4.2 Engagement in learning management systems
Table 2 shows an overview of the total number of participants enrolled, accessed, and engaged in
activities of each of the 20 courses. Due to manual bulk enrollment by site administrator or course
instructor, the number of ‘accessed’ participants in the course is less that the total number of ‘enrolled’
participants. The table also shows the total number of unique users viewing the different types of
activities (i.e. forums and quizzes) and the assessment-related activities in the courses. On an average,
number of participants engaged in ‘discussion forum, resources, quiz, feedback and questionnaire’ is
around half of ‘accessed’ participants.
Table 2. Participant in Online Module
CourseCategory
Course Teachers Enrolled
students
Accesse
d
Access
% of
Enrolment
Number of unique
participants viewed
Discussion
forum (D),
Resources
(R)*
Quiz (Q) &
Feedback(F)/
Questionnaire
Pedagogical Course
Acquiring and
processing media
4 78 60 76.9% D: 24 Q1:44, Q2:19,
Q3:8, Q4:7
Scaffolding tool 3 63 43 68.3% D1:11,
D2:23
D3:12,
D4:13
D5:16
Q:12
Education for
sustainable
development
5 43 18 41.9% D1:9, D2:9 Q:10
Assessment practices 5 59 37 62.7% D1:13,
D2:5
Q1:23, Q2:13,
Q3:13
Blended learning
practices
2 60 39 65.0% D:13 Q1:12, Q2:9,
Q3:6, Q4:8
Project-based and
Problem-Based
Learning
1 31 8 25.8% - -
Place Based
Learning
6 54 38 70.4% - -
Active learning 4 92 81 88.0% D:26 -
Reflective learning 1 62 37 59.7% D:8 Q:9
Basics of Copyright
and Ethics in Online
Learning
1 38 12 31.6% - -
Designing in
Learning
Management
Systems
1 56 30 53.6% D1:13
D2:8
Q:3
F1:18
Introduction to ICT
and learning design
1 60 37 61.7% - -
Technological Course
Common Gadgets
for Teachers
6 52 28 53.8% - Q1:7
Q2:5
Social Media in
Teaching
8 60 48 80.0% - -
Open Educational
Resources
2 39 13 33.3% D:5 Q:5
Creating and using
video for teaching
and learning
1 63 44 69.8% - -
Video Conferencing
Systems
2 40 25 62.5% D:2 Q:1
Software Clickers 1 59 41 69.5% D:9 Q:21
Flipped Classroom 2 67 51 76.1% D1:2
D2:3
-
Interactive Radio
Instruction
6 40 16 40.0% - Q1:6
Q2:4
Q3:4
* Not reported but available in the Moodle report.
Figure 1: ‘Activity report’ from the ‘Active Learning’ course on Moodle LMS
Figure 2: Last six months’ ‘statistics’ of a course on Moodle LMS
The ‘reports’ function under the ‘course administration’ shows the ‘activity report’ (see Figure 1) from
the date of course creation and the ‘statistics’ function shows graphical and tabular summary of last six
months (from the date of query). So, the most comprehensive summary of engagement pattern can be
viewed from the ‘activity report’, which shows the number of views by number of users. It is argued
that activity is limited to participants mostly, activity rate is very low for guest users (see Figure 2).
However, the rate of completion of the tasks associated with resources cannot be ascertained unless
task completion option is activated and self-reported by the participants.
5. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND SCOPE OF FUTURE WORK
In summary, teacher educators, in-service and pre-service school teachers, school principals, and
faculty members of higher educational institutions from four Asian countries and course contributors
from the European countries participated in the face-to-face workshops and training sessions. Skype-
mediated workshops are facilatated by course instructors from Europe in collaboration with an
instructor or coordinator in Asia to assist participants. Face-to-face sessions were conducted mostly on
technological (that technological-pedagogical or technology integration) courses as opposed to
pedagogical courses. Based on the activitly reports and statistics from Moodle LMS, it can be
generalized that less than one-third of the students (i.e. teacher educators and others) accessing the
online courses have submitted a forum post or participated in a quiz. So, the learning through
reflection, assessment, and feedback activities of the technological and pedagogical courses on the
LMS are not attractive for the teacher educators. Most of the quizzes were attented during the face-to-
face sessions. Thus, LMS-supported blended learning courses engaged teacher educators when the
activities (i.e. online quiz, forum post, peer-group assessment) are applied as part of the face-to-face
workshops, which may also be Skype-mediated. Further study should investigate the underlying
factors behind the low online engagement, for instance, preferred level of technology blend and
interaction design factors.
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