Poster Session
Aulario A Hall - Ground Floor
Featured Advancing STEM in Early Education. View Digital Media
Poster Session Haley Neuhausen
STEM topics and careers have become pivotal as we have moved into the 21st century. As we work to innovate and change our technologies, it is important that we have the knowledge and technology to keep up with those needs. Right now, there is a projected 2.5 million jobs that are expected to be vacant in STEM by 2038. In order to fill that gap, we need to look at the education element of this. It is important that this be filled in, not only, higher education, but also in secondary and early education. When looking at specifically early education, we can work to develop interests in careers early. A lot of the fundamental memories and interest are formed at this age, and can ultimately project where a student will go from there. With the assistance of AI and human technologies, we will be able to see movements towards a more well-rounded education, including STEM, if our educators were to take that step.
“I Feel that I Learned More about the Truth”: Integrating VR/AR Headsets into Criminal Justice and Cybersecurity Classrooms View Digital Media
Poster Session Jennifer Breese, Katherine McLean
Virtual and Altered Reality (VR/AR) technologies have been recognized for their potential to improve students’ workforce readiness across multiple disciplines, including criminal justice and cybersecurity; they may also function as an example a signature pedagogy in these disciplines, namely, experiential learning. Yet, little empirical research has been published concerning their impact in the related coursework, with only a handful of scholarly studies reporting net-positive effects on student learning, class satisfaction, and empathy. This study reports on a multi-year pilot program to integrate VR/AR headsets into three criminal justice and security classes taught at the introductory and advanced levels. In each class, VR/AR headset assignments (employing 360° videos) were deployed to increase student engagement, stimulate critical reflection, and improve familiarity with emerging technologies used in professional practice. Associated reflection assignments were designed to capture self-reported student learning, perceptual changes, and barriers to headset use, while a brief survey was distributed to measure student satisfaction with the technology. A rapid assessment of this quantitative and qualitative data revealed consistent evidence of “added value” for students, as well as strong affective responses to the content presented in virtual reality (ex. solitary confinement, immersive international tours). Few barriers to headset use inside or outside the classroom were documented. While this study reports on a limited sample of students, future research should investigate student learning and affective outcomes within a wider range of subject areas, with view to headsets as a flexible form of experiential learning in the post-COVID era.
Admission Assessment Strategies for Higher Education View Digital Media
Poster Session Denise Hileeto
We compare the performance of professional school applicants assessed by different interview formats. We compared the admission interview data of two classes of professional school students, one, admitted using standardized multiple mini interviews (MMIs), and the second, admitted using a free style interview conversation. All interview scores were presented on a 10-point scale. For the MMIs cohort, an average of the scores of the 6 independent interviewers’ scores was calculated. We compared the scores of the top 20%, and the bottom 20% admitted with the two different interview format respectively. The data was analyzed using t-test assuming unequal variance. The majority of students performed extremely well on both the standardized MMIs and the free style conversation interview. The mean interview scores on the free style interview and the MMIs were 8.73 ± 0.15 and 8.91 ± 0.1 for the top 20% and 8.69 ± 0.2 and 8.44 ± 0.12 for the bottom 20% respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the performance scores on the MMIs vs the free style interview, neither for the top 20% group (p<0.3) nor for the bottom 20% (p<0.2) of the applicants. The free style conversation interview and the MMIs were equally adequate and similarly evaluated the overall communication skills, knowledge, and dedication to the profession of applicants. Both interview formats comparably allowed the applicants to demonstrate their abilities and passion for the profession regardless of the interview style, duration of interviews, or number of interviewers.
From Observation to Participation: Investigating the Learning Potential in Interactive Documentaries View Digital Media
Poster Session Elcin As
Interactive documentaries are an innovative narrative form that has the potential to transform the transmission of knowledge into a more creative and dynamic learning experience by centering on the participation and interaction of the audience. With its interactive nature, it transforms viewers from being passive observers to being part of the story and makes them active participants and even users. In this context, the main purpose of the research is to analyze the role of interactive documentaries in the docu-game format in knowledge transfer processes and to evaluate the impact of this narrative format on learning from the perspective of users. In the research, mixed methods were used to explain the perspectives of the users. In this direction, seventeen participants were determined by purposeful sampling methods and then they experienced an example of an interactive documentary. Qualitative data were gathered through post-experience interviews, while the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was administered both before and after the experience. The research findings show that interactive documentaries motivate participants to take an active role in the learning process, enrich the learning experience by presenting information in a variety of ways, and enhance learning motivation by increasing both physical and mental engagement. Moreover, positive emotions statistically increased (P<0.001) and negative emotions decreased (P=0.02) after the experience compared to before the experience. In conclusion, interactive documentaries effectively play a role as an innovative knowledge sharing tool and can enhance the learning experience.
The Development of Gen AI Instructional Assignments Using the Task Technology Fit Framework View Digital Media
Poster Session Lutfus Sayeed
Training to effectively use Generative AI or large language models (LLMs) based applications to solve business problems is necessary to enhance university students’ employability. Employers are actively implementing these tools in order to leverage the utility of the newly available technology implementations in workplaces. Therefore, universities need to integrate the use of LLMs into the curriculum. The study discusses two different Gen AI-based assignments that were developed and tested at a large public university in the United States. The assignments were designed to address two tasks that differed in terms of their structure and characteristics. One task involved summarizing a set of text documents, while the second task consisted of an image classification project. Both assignments required using multiple publicly available LLM tools to complete the activities. Based on the Task Technology Fit model (Goodhue and Thompson, 1995), the students compared the experience of completing each task on three dimensions. The three dimensions adopted by Gu and Wang (2015) were task complexity, satisfaction, and perceived task-technology fit between the LLM used to perform the two tasks. The presentation provides a description of the two assignments and student reactions to the three tasks. References: Goodhue, D.L. and Thompson, D. L. (1995) “Task-Technology Fit and Individual Performance,” MIS Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 213-236. Gu, L. and Wang, J. (2015) “A Task Technology Fit Model on e-Learning,” Issues in Information Systems, Vol. 16, Issue I, pp. 163-169.
Exploring Student Transformation and Acquisition of Epistemic Virtues: Presenting an Integrated Framework of Care Practices and Humanizing Pedagogies View Digital Media
Poster Session Joy Petersen
This paper challenges dominant framings of COVID-19 education as either a moment of crisis or an idealised opportunity to reimagine learning. Instead, it offers a counter-narrative of a Residential and Educational Support Programme (RESP) at Stellenbosch University—a historically white supremacist institution in the midst of transformation. Launched during the pandemic, one residence space was configured into a site of care, co-learning, and humanising pedagogy. Centring the voices of predominantly first-generation, Black women students, the study reveals how participants engaged critically with identity, navigated systemic inequalities, and cultivated belonging within a historically exclusionary institutional culture. These experiences show that meaningful transformation emerges through embodied relationships, solidarity, and collective empowerment. The research argues for contextually rooted, ethically driven care practices and humanizing pedagogies as a transformative force. In doing so, it contributes to global conversations on inclusive higher education and offers a model for reimagining residential education beyond the pandemic, and as a productive site to acquire worthwhile qualities and dispositions (epistemic virtues). Epistemic virtues include traits like intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, open-mindedness, and intellectual humility – qualities that help students engage with knowledge effectively. This research was part of a longitudinal ethnographical case study. We employed Joan Tronto’s ethics of care and Paulo Freire’s humanizing pedagogies to develop an integrated framework to analyze the students experience of the RESP. In essence, this study shows how students evolve intellectually and personally as they develop and refine epistemic virtues – which are essential for deep, life-long learning and academic growth.
Small Voices, Big Ideas: Linguistic Creativity and Expression in Early Childhood
Poster Session Petra Boumová
Language development in early childhood involves not only acquiring vocabulary and grammar but also the emergence of creative verbal expression. This study investigates linguistic creativity in preschool children prior to language training, exploring how age, gender, and morphosyntactic features influence creative verbal output. The research is relevant for designing early educational interventions and contributes to theoretical perspectives on language development and verbal creativity in the preschool years. The study is grounded in developmental psycholinguistics and early childhood education. A quantitative approach was employed with a sample of 17 children aged 4.7 to 6.3 years, using a verbal creativity test and subsequent morphosyntactic analysis of responses. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, t-tests for gender differences, linear regression to assess the impact of age, and correlation analysis for relationships between linguistic features and creativity. Results show no significant effect of age or gender on linguistic creativity, while a strong positive correlation emerged between total word count and pronoun usage. These results suggest that in preschool-aged children, linguistic creativity may be less dependent on demographic factors and more influenced by individual verbal expression patterns. Future research will investigate post-training outcomes to assess the impact of a structured intervention based on a custom-developed educational app focused on language development in preschool children.
Training and Transfer of Effective Learning in the Field of Biotechnology: Service-Learning - the Case of the Wine Sector View Digital Media
Poster Session Cristina Menéndez, Marta Dizy, Miguel Mejías Ortiz, María Del Mar Hernández Álamos
Today’s society is undergoing many changes and higher education teaching must be able to train students to acquire skills that offer sustainable solutions to these challenges. Oenology is a multidisciplinary science that, through vines and microorganisms, establishes a close and precise relationship between ecology and technology. This approach provides an ideal framework for understanding sustainable production systems at all stages of the production process. The overall objective of this work focused on reinforcing the learning of wine biotechnology as a useful tool to contribute to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and solve some of the current challenges of the sector through novel tools. For this purpose, a Service-Learning approach was used. Students of two undergraduate and master’s degree courses worked on the development of questionnaires to identify among professionals in the wine sector the perception of the potential of biotechnology. The questions were classified into 3 blocks, one on aspects of biotechnology in general and the other two on biotechnology applied to the grape production and to winemaking. Based on the answers obtained, the students conducted research and prepared short educational podcasts with the aim of disseminating and communicating to the wine sector the potential contribution of biotechnology for a more sustainable viticulture and winemaking with less environmental impact.
