The impact of covid has brought with it the potential to rethink, maybe radically, traditional pedagogies. However, the emergence and adoption of new technologies may not necessarily be used in a consistent manner across modules, courses and institutions. This diversity of teaching and learning situations in which learning technology might be used, coupled with the heterogeneous nature of the tools themselves, can also have a bearing on how we understand the impact of technology within education.

A plethora of data (gathered through surveys or interventions) highlight the benefits of technology -enhanced learning, particularly the way in which they can facilitate student engagement both within and outside the classroom, but there is a lack of scholarly consensus on the impact of technology on student engagement with their learning. In this chat, I explore how we might define or differentiate different types of engagement with technology. For instance,

1. Is academic engagement (time on task, completion of assignments) distinct from behavioural engagement (attendance in online forums) or cognitive engagement (strategies for learning, self-regulation)?
2. Should emotional engagement (enjoyment, enthusiasm) be subsumed within affective engagement (a sense of belonging to an online group)?

Biography

Momna Hejmadi is a Professor of Bioscience Education & Technology, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Science, University of Bath. She oversees the Faculty of Science’s undergraduate and postgraduate taught learning, teaching and student experience for the 7 departments within the faculty. She was awarded the UK National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) in 2015.

Given the current gap in literature, Momna has a thematic analysis underway on student engagement with learning technology. In the meantime, the reviews by Christenson and Reschly 2019 might be of interest.

Links: University of Bath, NTF

Curation of the chat:

The Wakelet from this week’s chat is now available!