Abstract:

The transition from face-to-face instruction to online learning during the COVID period posed multiple challenges to educational and professional institutions around the world. This transition was fast, it was unanticipated, and it involved mastering new applications, new professional training and pedagogical approaches, new learning environments, and the consideration of a different pace of teaching and learning. Research zooming on learners’ and educators’ experiences during this period revealed two opposite trends: the level of stress scaled, while the motivation for teaching and learning plummeted. There were multiple difficulties that learners and instructors faced. These difficulties varied from connectivity issues to the ability to embrace the new learning mode, pace, environments, and tools. The available teaching/learning applications needed to be acquired fast; they had to be conceptualized within the learning paradigm, and the paradigm itself has changed during this period. New teaching and learning approaches that would allow the active engagement with the learning community were in an immediate need. The challenge to support learners in their active engagement was evident more than ever. The remote learning that was optional before became required; it demanded not only new tools but a revision and reconceptualization of the concept of the environment in which education and professional training take place and active engagement in the experience of learning and skill formation.

This presentation will review specific applications that are available free of charge or for a low price to support active learner’s engagement. They have the potential to provide the instructors with the ability monitor learners’ interaction either between each other or with the learning materials during synchronous learning sessions or asynchronously. They also support the creation of a fair competition vibe that would increase motivation.

The review of these application is guided by the active learning approach. The active engagement of the learners is exemplified in the context of game-based learning and learners’ engagement with consideration of individual and cultural specifics. The presentation of each application includes specific active learning strategies that proved to be effective based on the presenter’s teaching experience and application accessibility in terms of cost. Four specific trends of active learning will be examined and exemplified:
(1) engaging learners in digital presentations of content material in asynchronous and synchronous modes,
(2) game-based learning in asynchronous and synchronous modes,
(3) group work support and accountability, and
(4) preview and/or review of class content material.

The presenter will share the outcomes of students’ course evaluations related to the use of the addressed applications as related to active learning.

In the post-COVID education (academic and professional), the lessons learned during the period of enforced remote learning are valuable. Many institutions aim to expand their learners’ experiences to computer mediated in-class learning, hybrid learning, or to a transition to remote learning all together. The lessons learned in the past two years should empower us; they have the great potential to inform and promote further reflections on the pedagogical approaches to active learners’ engagement.

Keywords:

Active learning, online apps, pedagogy.