Abstract:

Nowadays, the teaching and learning processes can be improved by using a wide range of tools and frameworks that ease communication and collaboration. Each of them emphasizes benefits and downsides making them more or less appropriate for specific types of activities. This paper discusses the adoption of Slack platform in Computer Science (CS) classes, being part of an extensive research on adapting and integrating technology, i.e., software tools, in higher education classroom.

The first research question addresses the aspects that recommend Slack as a useful platform for teaching. Higher education course design is mainly focused on skill and competency acquisition. Bloom’s taxonomy of learning is used by many educators to map the educational objectives to six cognitive processes, being later adapted by Lorin W. Anderson to the following categories: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create.

As a matter of course, CS-based classes employ a plethora of tools and frameworks that help students to gain practical competencies. Current teaching indicates the need to additional tools that ease the teaching and learning processes. These tools are focused on improving essential soft skills required for a future career in the software industry. Ruben Puentedura proposes the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR) model that addresses the technology integration in the classroom. Following Bloom’s taxonomy and Puentedura’s SAMR model we study Slack platform characteristics that advocate for the classroom adoption. The case study considers CS-based courses taught at Babes-Bolyai Univerisity over several academic years.

The second research question aims to empirically investigate the approaches used by educators when employing Slack workspaces in the classroom. Four different perspectives are studied, their benefits and downsides being considered. Actual experiences of educators in using Slack platform in the classroom and the corresponding lessons learned are reviewed and summarized.

The contributions of this paper are two folded. First, we provide a framework for integrating Slack platform in the classroom following the connection between traditional approaches (Bloom’s taxonomy) and modern ones (SAMR model). Second, we explain Slack platform’s adaptability to the educational objectives by showing how different approaches on workspace design help gaining the learning goals.

Keywords:

Bloom’s taxonomy, SAMR model, technologies for teaching and learning, Slack platform, communication, collaboration.