TEACHING INNOVATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY SHOWCASING UJ TEACHING INNOVATION PROJECTS 2022
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 2 FOREWORD Khan, S 3 INTRODUCTION Menon, K, Naidoo, K, Castrillon, C & Magabane, A 5 EDUCATIONAL TEACHING VIDEOS AND YOUTUBE’S SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS Baron, P 17 VISUAL METHODS TO ENGAGE SOCIAL ACTION FOR 2022: RESPONDING TO THE STORIES AND INSPIRATION OF WASTE-RECLAIMERS ON THE STREETS OF JO’BURG Berman, K 23 VIRTUAL ASSISTANT: WHATSAPP DEPARTMENTAL BOT FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF Bolton, J & Patel, Y 27 CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MATRICULATION MARKS AND FIRST-YEAR NEWTONIAN MECHANICS MISCONCEPTIONS Cornell, A, Carleschi, E, Chrysostomou, A & Naylor, W 31 CHANGED PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO FACILITATE AND ENHANCE LECTURER TEACHING AND STUDENT LEARNING Darsot, F 35 LABVIEW SHORT COURSE FOR THIRD-YEAR PHYSICS STUDENTS: “HOW TO BUILD SMART MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS” Hearne, G 39 THE DRUM MAGAZINE PROJECT Mchunu, K
45 USING OPEN AND ARTIFICIAL PEDAGOGY TO TEACH ACADEMIC LITERACY AS A GAME FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION STUDENTS Meintjes, C, Pritchard, M, Louw, A, Joshi, H, Dampier, G & Mabada, R 49 UNEQUAL STORIES: RESEARCHING GENDER INEQUALITY IN DESIGN DISCIPLINES Moseley, A & Bediadko, K 57 MULTILINGUAL TUTORIAL INTERVENTION FOR SECOND-YEAR AT-RISK STUDENTS IN AUDITING AND INTERNAL CONTROL Nevhutanda, M, Boyce, L, Kuzwayo, B, Dube, M & Nzama, L 61 CO-DESIGNING EQUITABLE LEARNING EXPERIENCES: UNIFYING ENGAGEMENT ACROSS DIVERSE SPACES Pritchard, M & Meintjes, C 69 THE ANALOGUE MEDIA ARCHIVE AT FADA Raubenheimer, L & Khoza, B 73 PREPARING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS FOR A FASTCHANGING WORLD: A COURSE ON LESSON DESIGN van der Merwe, D 79 INTRODUCING LAWBOT: A CHATBOT THAT SUPPORTS THE TEACHING OF THE LAW OF CONTRACT van Eck, M & Ade-Ibijola, A 85 WRITING TABLETS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Venter, J 89 GPS TRACKING FOR RESCUE STUDENTS COMPLETING THE PHYSICAL PREPAREDNESS MODULE Vincent-Lambert, C
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 4IR Fourth Industrial Revolution 3-D Three dimensional ADC Academic Development Centre AI Artificial Intelligence AIC Auditing and Internal Control ALS Applied Legal Studies AIS Applied Information Systems ACMR Advanced Certificate in Medical Rescue CAT Centre for Academic Technologies CBE College of Business and Economics COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 DCE Department of Childhood Education DTE Division for Teaching Excellence ECSA Engineering Council of South Africa FADA Faculty of Art Design & Architecture FCI Force Concept Inventory FEBE Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment FFT Fast Fourier Transform GPS Global Positioning System HELTASA Higher Education Teaching & Learning Association of Southern Africa MIM Mobile Instant Messaging MLS Microteaching Lesson Study MOOC Massive Open Online Courses WIL Work Integrated Learning PER Physics Education Research POPI Protection of Personal Information SMA Social Media Analytics TAU Teaching Advancement at Universities TIF Teaching and Innovation Fund UJ University of Johannesburg UP University of Pretoria URC University Research Committee VA Visual Art VR Virtual reality Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 1
FOREWORD Super-charging teaching and learning: A UJ Showcase The exhilaration of swimming upstream in teaching and learning is navigating with and against the currents. The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has set a fast-paced agenda in pursuit of teaching excellence, anticipating and preempting future tides of change. Pivotal to this journey is the constant innovation in teaching seeking new and exciting ways to harness and expand students’ knowledge, experiences and to serve as positive disruptors of growth. The 3rd edition of Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century presents vignettes of innovative practices across a range of disciplines, projects and activities funded through the UJ Teaching Innovation Fund 2022. The continual support from the University Research Committee in funding allocations is crucial to enable academics to revitalize pedagogies and practices. The university seeks to have inspired teaching that meets Ivan Illich’s challenge: to provide for “unhampered participation in a meaningful setting” (19711). Illich continues “most people learn best by being ‘with it’” (Illich, 1970). The sharing of innovative teaching practices serves to inspire and provoke new ideas in the academy. Our University is about looking ahead, and equipping UJ staff and students with skills and attributes that will be fit for purpose in the years to come. Learning about learning, and finding new ways to express this, is part and parcel of the package of excellence that UJ has come to be known for. Fueling and super-charging teaching is at the heart of the true purpose of the university’s raison d’etre. Recognition and acknowledgement of the many ways in which academics innovate their teaching practices is the purpose of this publication. It is my hope that if you do not appear in this publication, you will be inspired to supercharge your own practice. Professor Sehaam Khan Deputy Vice Chancellor: Academic 1Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society. New York: Harper & Row. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 2
You cannot beat a drum with one finger INTRODUCTION Gloria Castrillón Dr Gloria Castrillón is Director of CAPQP and a Research Associate in the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. Kirti Menon Dr Kirti Menon is Senior Director in the DTE and a Research Associate in the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. Kibbie Naidoo Dr Kibbie Naidoo is Director of CASD, University of Johannesburg. Angie Magabane Dr Angie Magabane is a project manager in the DTE, University of Johannesburg. UNICEF defines innovation in education as the solving of problems in both new and simple ways to “promote equitable learning. 2 The value of innovation in higher education is not simply newness in pursuit of its entertainment value. Rather it is the application of creativity in service of achieving the most socially just higher education possible. In this publication the academics at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) showcase the innovative teaching and learning spaces they have created to bring to life the University’s ‘learning to be’ philosophy. Judge each day not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant The Division for Teaching Excellence (DTE) sees in its work the planting of seeds – of creativity, of innovation, of excellence and of quality. Its mission – to enable and support teaching excellence - is a wheel in the complex design of UJ’s achievement of its mission. Through the Division and its two centres (the Centre for Academic Planning and Quality Promotion (CAPQP) and the Centre for Academic Staff Development (CASD)), the ongoing development of teaching and learning and teachers is realised. The provision of multilayered interactions between the staff of the Division and lecturers, as well as between lecturers at all levels of academic maturity means that sharing skills in a collegial and enabling environment is achieved. 1. 2 https://www.unicef.org/education/strengthening-education-systemsinnovation#:~:text=Innovation%20in%20education%20means%20solving,way%20 to%20promote%20equitable%20learning. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 3
Through its many areas of work, the Division is proactive and responsive to developments and trends in the higher education ecosystem. It creates dynamic and interactive spaces where the high degree of complementarity between academic staff development initiatives and activities, academic planning and quality, and the work of the University’s faculties is evident. This publication is a proud reflection of the excellent ways in which UJ’s lecturers take the opportunities provided to benefit the students, connecting their own expertise as university teachers with the learning and teaching experiences of their students. In a herd of cattle, it doesn’t matter which is ahead It is a truism that many aspects of the lecturer’s journeys are undertaken alone. But it is equally true that there is enormous value in sharing and in creating together. Innovations in teaching and learning explore the ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK) and leverage each discipline’s unique concepts, which the students then use to construct their own meanings. Each discipline is most effectively taught through the use of its own distinctive teaching approaches and every student who comes to the University comes with a clear wish to study a specific discipline. Most lecturers seek to inspire in their students a love of the discipline they have made theirs. Innovations in teaching and learning are the disciplinary rungs in a bridge that connects the students to lecturers, and the present to the future. The teaching and learning bridge means that while students acquire the discourse of their discipline, lecturers acquire new skills in teaching and learning, and in their interactions with each other, both lecturers and students acquire, create and share new knowledge. The first of these publications came out in 2021. In the Introduction to the first edition, we wrote that the “great majority of students at UJ come from the poorest sectors of our society, from schools known as fee-free schools located in communities where families can afford few of the necessities, let alone the luxuries, of higher education”. Two years later, this is still the situation and the increasing pressure on the system continues to spur lecturers and students to new levels of creativity, to further transformations of curricula, to more activities and shared spaces from which meaningful and impactful learning and teaching is created. The collaborations across the University’s domains seek to build on the parties’ prior knowledges and experiences, developing understandings of students’ and lecturers’ needs, and setting in place the basis for PCK. The publication promotes sharing of learning ideas, cultivating a culture of trust in which conversation and collaboration is able to flourish. 2. 3. When a bird builds its nest, it uses the feathers of other birds The Teaching Innovation project at UJ is driven by an intense commitment to valuing teaching and learning and by the need to develop scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The quality of university programmes is only ever as good as that of its lecturers and students. The professionalisation of university lecturers remains a priority or UJ and for the DTE. This publication sets out the achievements of those lecturers who responded to the teaching innovation impetus. It depicts a variety of teaching and learning projects propelling us collectively into an uncertain future gilded by technological advances whilst remaining grounded in a pan-African vision. The projects showcased in 2022 are a snapshot, a glimpse into the creative and pioneering ways in which UJ’s lecturers lead in their fields. Each of the submissions suggests in its own way a set of practices which can move outside of their disciplinary confines to engage other disciplines and practitioners to further develop the ways in which teaching and learning catalyses change in the learning processes for the students. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 4
Dr Philip Baron Dr. Philip Baron is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering Technology, FEBE at UJ Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 5
YOUTUBE’S SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS AS AN EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL TEACHING VIDEOS Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 6
Background During the COVID-19 lockdowns in South Africa, undergraduate in-person laboratory sessions were prohibited. In turn, video-based tutorials were proposed as a temporary solution to address the lack of in-person practical demonstration sessions. Many educators uploaded their content to the university’s teaching and learning platform. Last semester, I asked a colleague if I could use his class time for one of my assessments; he advised me that it was not a problem as his students “have the videos” so they can watch them anytime. This meant this lecturer was fine with his videos used in place of his in-person teaching. My next question was how good are these videos? Have they been reviewed? Do they have thousands of views on YouTube and thousands of likes or thumbs up? Are his videos on Udemy 3 being offered as part of a short course? Unfortunately, the answer was no to all these questions; the videos are only on the university’s Ulink (Blackboard) platform and owing to the pandemic, this seems to be an acceptable form of teaching. This is not an isolated case. The reliance on videos in place of teaching concerned me as such videos are unreviewed and there are no internal metrics to verify the quality and impact of these videos. Blackboard, for example, does not provide adequate metrics to measure the videos in terms of the usage and impact, that is, there are insufficient analytics for the educator to evaluate their videos. There are also no in-house university regulations regarding quality control for videos provided for students. Social media platforms have become popular platforms to publish videos and the most popular platform is YouTube. It is estimated that in 2022, almost five billion views take place each day on this platform, making YouTube the largest media sharing platform (Arthurs, Drakopoulou & Gandini 2018) and the second largest social media network 4. One of YouTube’s features is its extensive analytics—providing educators with at least 60 different metrics to measure the usage of each video posted on the platform (Baron 2022). 3 Udemy is an online platform for massive open online courses (MOOC) aimed at professional adults and students. 4 https://www.statista.com; https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/ Introducing YouTube’s social media analytics to educators YouTube tracks user activity across the platform. For example, when a user attempts to watch a video on YouTube, data points are created across several categories. YouTube tracks user behaviour to determine the quality signals for videos across the entire platform, while also learning topic frequencies from user feedback (Bendersky et.al. 2014). Video quality signals assist YouTube in ranking and recommending videos. Video quality signals are created irrespective of whether the user performs explicit or implicit actions. Explicit actions include liking or disliking a video, sharing a video, or commenting on a video. Implicit actions include the user’s demographics (age, location, gender), viewing history, hovering over thumbnails, among other activities. Users also implicitly show their interest in a video by how long they stay tuned to that video—measured as a percentage of the video that is viewed (higher percentage indicates more interest in the video). When the aggregated The reliance on videos in place of teaching concerned me as such videos are unreviewed and there are no internal metrics to verify the quality and impact of these videos. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 7
percentage viewed for several users are computed against the search query, YouTube continually ranks and pairs certain videos to certain queries by tallying which videos had a higher watch time percentage, indicating a better match to a search query under that topic cluster. Many of these quality signals are presented to the content creator (people who upload content to the platform - educator). The clustering and presentation of these different data sets is called social media analytics (SMA). SMA are thus powerful tools, used not only for YouTube’s algorithms to provide search results and recommendations, but are also available to educators to understand how well their educational content is being utilised on the platform. When educators track each of their videos, they can determine the impact their videos are having. They can also get both qualitative responses and quantitative data which are helpful in measuring each of their video’s which in turn provides the educator with evidence for whether their video is useful or not. My premise is that by understanding and using these metrics as provided by YouTube’s analytics, educators can improve their videos and provide higher quality content for their students and the public (Baron 2022). To test this assertion, practical videos were created for an electrical engineering course which were then evaluated by the students and by YouTube’s SMA. Research Questions 1. Are electrical engineering educational videos useful for students studying highly practical work? 2. Can YouTube’s SMA provide educators with metrics to evaluate the impact and quality of their videos? Methodology The aim of this project was to use YouTube’s SMA to evaluate five educational engineering videos. The videos are specifically aimed at South Africans owing to the use of the South African wiring standards. The videos, which range from two minutes to 19 minutes, are meant to be step-by-step high-resolution tutorials showing technical steps that include narrations and captioning. Topics include the wiring of plugs and plug outlets, the wiring of a stove isolator, and the wiring of distribution boards. The videos would first be evaluated in a traditional manner (student surveys and staff peer review), and then by using YouTube’s SMA. Filming Filming took place in August of 2020. Four videos were filmed at the University of Johannesburg’s Doornfontein campus and the fifth video was filmed in the writer’s studio. All videos are tutorial based and relate to practical electrical wiring. The videos were filmed and edited in 4k resolution with semiprofessional videography gear. The reason for using a 4k resolution was based on the need for high quality imagery that should clearly show parts as small as wire strands, labels of the circuit breakers, or even just a nick in a wire. At least ten hours of footage was needed for the five videos which were then edited using Vegas Pro software. The videos were reviewed by the course leader and an electrician prior to them being shared with students publicly published on YouTube. The videos were used as part the practical curriculum for the module called Workshop Skills in the Bachelor of Engineering Technology degree. Since the videos are in the public domain and were available prior to the class starting, it may seem like a flipped class; however, the lecturer and lab instructor first explained the theory and then advised the students to watch the videos thereafter. Thus, students had theory lectures, then were advised to watch the videos, then they attended the laboratory session to practice their practical work. The videos were thus used to support the students in their preparation for their practical assessments. The videos could be watched/downloaded freely on the university’s WiFi; thus, students did not need to use their own data. The filming did not require any participants as the videos show only the electrical devices. Figure 1 shows the camera setup for one of the videos and an example of the image recorded . Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 8
Figure 1: An example of the videography setup and the imagery. The lab technician who assists the students with the engineering practicals for the module noted that the videos had become an important part of the students’ preparation for the module. Since the students could pause, speed up, or slow down the video, they could work at their own pace and skip parts that they were already proficient in. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 9
Evaluation of educational videos using YouTube’s SMA: YouTube provides at least 60 metrics that can be used to analyse a video’s performance; however only the metrics listed in Table 1 were analysed for this project. The table reflects the metrics for a single video which was a video about how to wire an electrical distribution board. This video achieves an average of 440 views each day. Of the 128 comments posted by the public, a qualitative sentiment analysis shows that 98% of the comments were positive. The comments are mostly appreciative with many explicitly citing that the video is helpful. There are many comments requesting more tutorial videos on the associated topics. This video accrued 3423 likes and achieves an average of 11 likes per 1000 views. Another important metric is the likes to dislikes ratio. If the video is well liked, the ratio is higher. The distribution board video achieved a like to dislike ratio of over 94%. Since YouTube does not provide baselines for these metrics, determining what is considered a “good” result does depend on the context and purpose of the video, among other factors. Table 1 shows the metrics accrued for one of the five videos. Figure 2 shows the thumbnail of the video. The video in question achieved good metrics, which is one reason why this video is a recommended video on YouTube. The other four videos also achieved high ratings on YouTube. Evaluation of videos: A triangulation approach was followed to review the videos and their impact. First the videos were reviewed in a traditional format by students and peers, thereafter they were evaluated using YouTube’s SMA. Evaluation of educational videos using traditional methods: Using traditional evaluations such as student surveys and peer reviews, the videos were found to be useful. The standout feature was students personally contacting the presenter to express their gratitude for the videos. The lab technician who assists the students with the engineering practicals for the module noted that the videos had become an important part of the students’ preparation for the module. The videos had “improved the students’ ability and speed in performing their practicals”. The lab technician also reported that students often held their phones in hand watching one of the videos, while practising the practical steps. They listened to the presenter in the video by using earphones with the aim of using the video as a guide to practice their practical work. Since the students could pause, speed up, or slow down the video, they could work at their own pace and skip parts that they were already proficient in. Students noted that the videos showed the steps in a close-up view, which they said is helpful. Thus, the review of the videos by the UJ students was good and has become a critical part of their preparation for this section of their work. 1. 2. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 10
Table 1. Summary of key social media analytics for one video. Metric Value Video title How to wire a single-phase distribution board and load circuits - tutorial Online link https://youtu.be/6O90pFfHuOo Upload date 28 August 2020 Months active 31 Video duration 18 min 59 sec Total comments 186 Percentage positive >98% Total likes 3423 Likes per 1000 views 11 Likes vs dislikes 95,2% positive Total number of views 475 513 Average daily views ±440 Main traffic source Suggestions: 48% Subscribers accrued from video >8500 Subscribers per 1000 views 19 Total watch time >42 300 hours Average percentage viewed 29% Shares 4226 Shares per 1000 views 9 Audience 29% traffic from South Africa Figure 2. Thumbnail of the engineering video. Figure 2 shows the thumbnail of the video. The video in question achieved good metrics, which is one reason why this video is a recommended video on YouTube. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 11
Benefits of using videos for engineering praxis for teaching and learning Macro viewing angles and immediacy Close-up practical demonstrations that take place in person with many students are challenging and time consuming since much of the technique needs to be shown on a one-to-one basis. Even with a small group of students, not all students can get within 50 cm of a demonstration which is problematic particularly when demonstrations include hand skills and small movements. This means that most students will not see the in-person demonstration clearly. A further challenge is that in many electrical engineering laboratories, there is no media system to show the demonstration on a screen. A feature of high-resolution videos is that they offer close viewing angles. This was one of the benefits that students noted in their responses. The use of highresolution imagery assists in showing the students the intricate steps. For example, in Figure 3 a close-up view of wiring a plug pin is shown. Figure 3: YouTube screengrab from a video titled “How to wire a South African three pin plug top” 5 A feature of high-resolution videos is that they offer close viewing angles. 5 https://youtu.be/IC45yOzJHlo Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 12
Figure 4 shows the contacts of a relay. If this was shown in a laboratory, students would need to get very close to the lecturer and this would take a lot of time to get all the students to see the device and how it works. With the video, the students can see the relay working and experience the sound that the device makes which is an important part of electrical engineering. Thus, while videos are not meant to replace practical work, they can provide excellent visuals and audio for the students. This leaf spring moves between the two other upright plates. If I pass the relay around the class, the students will not see it in action as it needs to be connected to a power source to operate. With the video they can clearly see the contact moving and hear it. Ability to replay the video and change the playback rate. YouTube allows the viewer to play the video at a slower or faster rate. The student responses noted that this is useful. Students can skip parts of the video they are proficient in, and parts that they are still needing to study, they can rewatch and even play back at a slower rate. This type of control is unavailable in classroom demonstrations. Improved practical knowledge and faster laboratory sessions. Since students were provided with the videos prior to performing their practical work in the laboratories, the finding was that they could perform the laboratory tasks more quickly and with improved skill. Students also tended to be better prepared due to watching the videos. Thus, the videos quicken the practical process paving the way for deeper engagement in the laboratory sessions. Allowance for better presentations with animation and/or overlays. Owing to the tools which are available in video editing software, one can animate and manipulate the imagery which is not easily available for live teaching. Figures 5 & 6 are some examples of basic overlays. Visual aids are memorable. When people see bright colours and large arrows on the image, it is attention grabbing. The green arrows show the students where they must re-tighten the screws. Figure 4: YouTube screengrab from a video titled “How does an electromechanical relay work?” Figure 5: Example of overlays for a distribution board video 6 6 https://youtu.be/SlUIdyjrJP4 Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 13
Improved quality control Utilising the videos as a single point of knowledge transfer confirms that the curriculum outcomes are controlled. For example, with numerous groups of students having to perform the same practical tasks, the use of tutors and other assistance is necessary. At times there is a breach in the knowledge levels of support staff, whereas the videos are certain to cover the curriculum correctly. Community service The public nature of online video sharing brings with it additional societal benefits. Judging by the popularity of the five videos and the continuous public requests for more videos, it could be argued that there is a need for tutorial-based engineering education that is freely available to the wider community. Since universities are in service of humanity, educational videos made freely available are an ethical imperative and a form of community service. Figure 6: Example of text overlays for wiring a video on how to wire a South African plug top. The text supports what is shown in the image. Since students were provided with the videos prior to performing their practical work in the laboratories, the finding was that they could perform the laboratory tasks more quickly and with improved skill. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 14
Benefits of using social media analytics for teaching and learning Performance measurements for each video Each video published on YouTube is tracked across at least 60 metrics. These metrics can be invaluable to educators in determining the success and impact of their educational content. This level of quantitative and qualitative measurement is helpful in improving one’s educational content (Baron 2023) as YouTube recommends videos that are well received by the community Bendersky et.al. 2014). Quantitative metrics can be used for comparing videos. SMA provide educators with metrics to compare each of their videos and also compare their content to that of others, to determine which videos are more effective. Metrics also provide the educator with tangible measures as to what parts of their videos are watched the most. This provides the educator with important data regarding what the community/ students preferred. Evidence-based impact Measuring excellent teaching is complex. Since impact is an acceptable measure for teaching, using social media analytics as an additional metric to measure teaching excellence provides further support to my premise that good teaching can be measured and compared using SMA (Baron 2022). Public review Uploading one’s teaching videos only onto the university platform for a small group of students precludes the option of public review. Peer review is a necessary part of academic improvement and public sharing provides this avenue. Some educators may think YouTube is an informal space aimed at laypeople, this assumption should not be supported since there has been a professionalisation of YouTube as audiences mature and their expectations increase. One should not assume that since the videos are aimed at students that only students are watching. Viewers often provide extensive critical commentary on videos which can be helpful to educators wishing to make a greater impact and improve their educational content. For teachers, this is important as students in a classroom rarely provide comments about their lectures directly to the lecturers. Funding Educators can realise funding from YouTube and also achieve industrial partnerships with interested companies. 1. 4. 2. 3. 5. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 15
Outputs emanating from this project. Reference List Arthurs, J., Drakopoulou, S. and Gandini, A., 2018. Researching YouTube. Convergence, 24(1), pp.3-15. Bendersky, M., Garcia-Pueyo, L., Harmsen, J., Josifovski, V. and Lepikhin, D., 2014, August. Up next: retrieval methods for large scale related video suggestion. In Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 1769-1778). Baron, P., 2022. YouTube’s Social Media Analytics as an Evaluation of Educational Teaching Videos. In 2022 IEEE IFEES World Engineering Education Forum-Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC) (pp. 1-8). IEEE. Baron, P., 2023. Using YouTube’s Social Media Analytics for Engineering Educators. In 2023 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) (pp. 1-10). IEEE. 2. Sponsorship From two of the videos published on YouTube; an industrial company who supplies the devices used in the video agreed to donate electrical equipment to our laboratories. They also agreed to sponsor our UJ student’s Projects Day 7 —a prestigious occasion for our final year students. Public video sharing also provides marketing for the university. 1. Publications The project led to two conference papers being published (listed in the references under Baron). 3. New educational videos Students rarely get an opportunity to see inside a large-scale industrial company. An application was made to film inside Eskom’s Kusile Power Station. Permission was granted to video at this national key point and the technical documentary is in the making. This video will provide students (and the public) with an in-depth view of how electricity is generated in the second largest coal-fired power station in the world. This is going to be used a teaching resource for our engineering students. Conclusion Using high quality videos was found to be useful for the practical teaching for the workshop skills module. These videos also achieved notable popularity on YouTube. YouTube’s SMA were found to be good at evaluating the educational videos based on the analytics data provided and thus the two research questions were positively answered. Owing to the success of the videos, an additional 14 videos were published on YouTube which have collectedly accrued over one million views and continue to achieve a steady viewership. From the extensive metrics provided by YouTube, educators may gauge how well their videos are being received, not only by their students, but by a global audience. By using the SMA, educators can determine what videos are well liked, what parts of the videos are watched the most, and what topics to cover in future videos. The SMA show that YouTube’s algorithms tend to prioritise the videos with good quality signals. This means that for educators to increase their impact on YouTube, they would need to aim for high percentage watch times, a high likes to dislike ratio, many shares, and continuous subscriber activity for their videos. The findings suggest that educators may consider evaluating their educational videos by using SMA. However, these analytics should be reviewed critically and should comprise of several metrics measured temporally. Understanding YouTube’s recommender system and its influence on the platform is also an important factor in evaluating one’s video content. The full publication of this project can be found in the reference list. 7 https://youtu.be/w8MiU0_CiRQ Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 16
Prof Kim Berman Prof Kim Berman is a Professor in the Department of Visual Art, FADA at UJ Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 17
VISUAL METHODS TO ENGAGE SOCIAL ACTION FOR 2022: RESPONDING TO THE STORIES AND INSPIRATION OF WASTERECLAIMERS ON THE STREETS OF JOBURG Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 18
Through the Photovoice process, the Honours VA students achieved a greater awareness of the socio-dynamics experienced by the street reclaimers and were tasked with arranging a participatory colloquium to share the content of this discussion, based on students’ semi-structured interviews with wastereclaimers. Introduction The project’s primary aim was to engage Visual Art (VA) Honours students in participatory research and visual methodologies to collaborate with street reclaimers, or to respond to their stories in ethical and productive ways that have mutually beneficial outcomes. An invitation was extended to the Visual Art Department by the University of Pretoria (UP) to produce a body of work for exhibition at a Summer School colloquium, as part of the international Documenta-15 symposium in Kassel, Germany in July 2022. Head of the Department of Visual Art, Gordon Froud, was able to travel to Germany with Avi Sooful from UP to exhibit and present the works and research project at the Documenta-15 symposium. Before the work left for Germany, the students assisted in arranging a colloquium at FADA to share the outcomes and learnings with the community and collaborating partners. Teaching & learning benefits for students Students across the three collaborating institutions, namely University of Johannesburg (UJ) Visual Art students (Honours and third-year printmaking students), UP Honours students, and third-year Artist Proof Studio (APS) students, achieved a range of learning opportunities and outcomes. The VA Honours students, together with the Art Therapy Honours students attended an eight-week module of visual and participatory methods for community interventions, presented by me and guest specialists. This is an online series of seminars during the first term, with practical assignments that stretched across the semester, including participatory exchanges, work placements, and reflective and visual presentations that were self-and peer assessed. The VA Honours students learnt participatory methods and the ethics protocol of conducting Photovoice interviews with reclaimers, which included full consent for the public display of imagery, anonymity as required, and fair material exchange for stories and photographs (ethics protocol provided). A fair exchange (not monetary payment) took the form of food parcels. The purpose of the exchange was to identify opportunities for developing cross-disciplinary community engagements, to enhance a student contribution in support of initiatives that improve conditions for the street reclaimers of Johannesburg. Through the Photovoice process, the Honours VA students achieved a greater awareness of the socio-dynamics experienced by the street reclaimers and were tasked with arranging a participatory colloquium to share the content of this discussion, based on students’ semi-structured interviews with waste-reclaimers. In addition, third-year printmaking students collaborated with senior students from APS in jointly producing three group artworks using ‘green’ /not-toxic etching techniques, by using recycled materials for the exhibition. The Honours students were further tasked with arranging a student-led colloquium at FADA, with all invited stakeholders as participants. Learning about others from this project All participating students from collaborating institutions (UJ, APS and UP) attended a colloquium and invited their community partners. The work was exhibited in the FADA Atrium, before being packaged and shipped to Germany. The students were interviewed about their learnings from the project, extracts of which were video-recorded and screened at the colloquia, which gave members of the UJ FADA community and local partners an opportunity to see the work. The platform in Germany enabled an international audience and exchange. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 19
Student learning outcomes included the following: The UJ students produced eight digital and printed posters of the Photovoice interviews, which were shown and approved by the participants at the colloquium and printed as large A1 banners that were sent to Documenta for the exhibition and Summer School. Students also made a collective artwork, inspired by this exchange with reclaimed waste for the Documenta-15 exhibition. Completed project of UJ printmaking students in partnership with third-year APS students. 1. 2. 3. Students from UJ and APS conducted research, collected waste materials, and worked in five teams of four to five students each (18 students). Students collectively developed group drawings and developed a series of stories that guided their combined images. UJ and APS third-year students learnt green, non-toxic etching processes, using copper sulphide salts on re-claimed waste aluminium or metal sheets, which they printed, using etchings and screen-prints. 4. 5. 6. Group prints were folded into artists books that visually respond to the stories, to honour the activities of the wastereclaimers in the city of Joburg. The student work travelled from Documenta-15 to two more international venues in Germany and Switzerland, before returning to South Africa. The booklet with the stories and images by the reclaimers, was subsequently produced as a printed and e-booklet and distributed to partners and participants as a record of the project (see Brochure attached) 7. 8. 9. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wwSMmt5gbdpAUA52Yubq1CvM8lgtxFDV/view?usp=share_link Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 20
Lecturers’ outputs/ innovations derived from the project: • I produced my own Artists book, which will be submitted as a creative output. This work, together with work from Gordon Froud, Diane Victor, and Avi Sooful, were exhibited at the Documenta-15 forum with the student work, as well as exhibited as part of the SA Visual Art Historians conference exhibition in Kimberley in August 22. • Professor Melanie Samson (Department of Sociology) has since established a UJ Reclaimers Network Group, which has expanded participation to an additional five FADA departments for 2023. • Kim Berman and Avi Sooful have written up the project and submitted an article on the project for publication. This initiative, funded by the UJ Teaching and Innovation Fund, achieved enormous success and has expanded significantly into a faculty-wide community engagement initiative, in partnership with the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO) for 2023. In addition, two of the Honours students have registered to pursue this communityengaged participatory research for their Master’s studies. Fig 1: Setting up for the Colloquium in the FADA foyer Fig 2a and 2b: VA Honours students sorting Photovoice images and interviews Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 21
Fig 3: VA Honours students with the ARO partners and their collaborative work Fig 4: Third-year APS and UJ printmaking students collaborating on group prints June 2022 Fig 5: Exhibition set up for the Summer School, Documenta-15: Beyond Waste July 22 Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 22
Ms Jordy Bolton Mr Yusuf Patel Ms Jordy Bolton is a Lecturer at the Department of Finance and Investment, CBE at UJ Mr Yusuf Patel is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Finance & Investment Management , CBE at UJ Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 23
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT: DEPARTMENT BOT FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 24
Introduction The College of Business and Economics (CBE) School of Management: Department of Finance and Investment Management is excited to introduce the first ever WhatsApp bot. The bot allows students ease of access to information in a fun and interactive way, by using a means they are all familiar with – their mobile phones and WhatsApp. 1. The WhatsApp bot, called Dottie, is a virtual assistant that streamlines information in the Department and University, to provide both students and staff with an efficient and central point to find information. The development of the bot is aimed at improving the teaching and learning experience for both students and staff within the Department, by assisting with the administration of queries and commonly asked questions. This helps alleviate the pressure on and distractions for both academic and non-academic staff who deal with numerous student queries on a day-to-day basis. In so doing, the learning experience for students is enhanced as they will feel less frustrated, knowing they can find information in a quick and easy way. Our lecturers’ teaching experience is enhanced, as they will be able to concentrate more on their teaching and be less encumbered by repeated or menial administrative queries. What we did and how it was executed The bot was developed in the same way as a USSD code that is used on a mobile phone to recharge, buy data, or check balances. By using the readily available WhatsApp, we created a simple and central place for students to access and quickly find information that relates to the Department, qualifications and modules, and the University. Working with an external company, we mapped out the common queries and FAQs experienced by staff, and collected other important information that would be beneficial for staff and students. Thereafter a WhatsApp bot was created with four main menu options. The menu leads to four main ‘maps’: Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 25
2. 3. 4. Benefits for teaching & learning 1. Most students have cell phones and WhatsApp, so this is a readily available service for them. 2. Students are able to access the information anywhere and at any time. 3. Students will be less frustrated, as they may be able to find information without having to wait for a response from a lecturer/ staff member. 4. It assists with the administration of queries and commonly asked questions. 5. The information is provided in an organised way, which assists students in finding information in a quick and easy manner. 6. It helps alleviate the pressure on and distractions for both academic and non-academic staff who deal with numerous student queries on a day-to-day basis. 7. Staff/ lecturers can assist students by directing them to the bot for assistance. 8. Staff can also use the bot to find information, such as how to complete ethics clearance forms, or who to contact in the faculty for various queries. 9. Lecturers will be less inundated with common queries, and can therefore concentrate better on their teaching. How can others learn from this project? This project allows us to use common and readily available tools and to find ways to assist our students and staff. By using technology, we can provide better and more efficient ways to provide information. One can always look for and find ways to improve on systems that will help reduce the administrative load on staff and students or provide opportunities that improve the way we do things. Any outputs/ innovations derived from this project The creation of the WhatsApp bot is a clear indication of the innovation that has materialised from this project. The bot was showcased at the CBE Board of College in April and is currently being used by staff in the Department. So, try it out! Add +27 79 265 2001 to your contact list. Or scan the QR code with your phone camera or Google lens, and then type Hi… One can always look for and find ways to improve on systems that will help reduce the administrative load on staff and students or provide opportunities that improve the way we do things. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 26
Prof Alan Cornell Prof Emanuela Carleschi Ms Anna Chrysostomou Dr Wade Naylor Prof Alan S Cornell is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science at UJ Prof Emanuela Carleschi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science at UJ Ms Anna Chrysostomou is a PhD Student at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science at UJ Dr. Wade Naylor is a Lecturer at the National School of Education, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MATRICULATION MARKS AND FIRST-YEAR NEWTONIAN MECHANICS MISCONCEPTIONS Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 27
It is a truth universally acknowledged that students entering their first university-level mechanics course carry with them some physics misconceptions, e.g., that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, a moving object will eventually come to a stop, and continuous motion is achieved only through continuous force, etc. Due to the widespread prevalence of such misconceptions, a significant proportion of physics education research is dedicated to the development of diagnostic tools designed to help to identify these misconceptions. Such tools usually come in the form of carefully structured multiple-choice tests, where incorrect answers are derived specifically from flawed logic, inspired by these known misconceptions. By critically examining the answers students choose, researchers are able to surmise the dominant misconceptions plaguing students. What we did In our study, we chose to utilise the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), a 30-minute multiplechoice test comprising 30 questions on elementary principles and applications of classical mechanics. The FCI is administered to first-year students enrolled in introductory physics courses at the beginning of the academic year to evaluate their baseline comprehension of Newtonian mechanics. Students are not expected to prepare for the assessment. We performed a questionby-question analysis of the FCI responses for five first-year physics cohorts (N=337 students), to identify the most popular or ‘dominant’ misconceptions. We also carried out a preliminary analysis of the correlations between students’ Matric marks and FCI scores. Specifically, we considered the correlations between FCI scores and the Grade 12 results for (i) Physical Science, (ii) Mathematics, and (iii) English. Note that through (iii), we assessed the impact of reading comprehension on academic performance. Though it is the language of instruction and the ‘lingua franca’ in academia, a meaningful proportion of students do not speak English at home. This may place students at an unfair disadvantage. How we executed the project With the permission of the various lecturers involved in each of the participating courses (see Table 1) and ethical clearance from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Ethics Committee, we launched the FCI test via the Blackboard interface and made it available to students for a total of five days, using the module page corresponding to each of the courses. Through this platform, we were able to track student activity (to determine whether test-takers left the browser page during the course of the test), time their test attempts, and force submission after an allotted time. We were also able to make the test visible for a set period of time. For our data collection, we enabled these features to reduce cheating and to ensure students submitted their responses after 30 minutes. Once the deployment period was over and each class had completed the assignment, the data was downloaded and processed within a single Excel spreadsheet for each of the individual classes. All data was anonymised in accordance with the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Act. For each question of the FCI, we recorded the dominant response (i.e., the most popular answer) and compared it to the number of correct responses. We considered a concept to be well understood by the participants when the correct response was the dominant response. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 28
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