Leveraging Mobile Technology to Achieve Teaching Goals | Teaching & Learning - EDUCAUSE Review

Near-ubiquitous mobile-device ownership and widespread internet connectivity offer opportunities for mobile learning to take center stage during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond. ___________________________________________________________

Introduction

The sudden move to remote online instruction, coupled with social justice issues plaguing the United States, has forced college and university instructors to grapple with what it means to be a good teacher in socially distanced, unpredictable, and emotionally charged circumstances by Mindy Colin, Instructional Consultant at UC Santa Barbara, Samantha Eastman, Instructional Design Consultant at UC Riverside, Margaret Merrill, Senior Instructional Design Consultant at UC Davis and Alex Rockey, Instructional Technologist Instructor at Bakersfield College.

Photo: emojoez / Shutterstock.com © 2021

As instructional designers, we have noticed an undercurrent in our interactions with new and experienced university instructors that indicates they are doubting their teaching skills, confronting uncomfortable questions about their roles, making pedagogical decisions on the fly, and trying to use technologies that were once only written into science fiction novels. While the move to remote teaching has been challenging, it has also provided an opportunity to reenvision pedagogy. As colleges and universities have collectively moved online, teaching and learning professionals can leverage mobile learning (m-learning) to inform and facilitate effective teaching in a virtual environment.

Near-ubiquitous mobile-device ownership and widespread internet connectivity offer opportunities for mobile learning to take center stage during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.

Mobile learning: Using portable computing devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablet PCs, personal digital assistants [PDAs], and smartphones) with wireless networks enables mobility and mobile learning, allowing teaching and learning to extend to spaces beyond the traditional classroom. Within the classroom, mobile learning gives instructors and learners increased flexibility and new opportunities for interaction.^Footnote1

Contemporary m-learning definitions and discourse focus on using technologies that support the mobility of learners and teachers and that are based on constructivist and learner-centered pedagogies that promote individualization, flexibility, and communal engagement with content regardless of whether a course is online or face-to-face. To benefit from affordances like these, Yu (Aimee) Zhang, CEO of WEMOSOFT in Wollongong, Australia, recommends using m-learning in formal higher education to supplement face-to-face or online classes.^Footnote2 Near-ubiquitous mobile-device ownership and a stable combination of agile technological infrastructure and widespread internet connectivity offer opportunities for the key affordances and strategies of m-learning to take center stage during the coronavirus pandemic.^Footnote3 That is not to say that all students (or instructors) have fully equitable opportunities to access tertiary education through mobile devices—as the pandemic has revealed—but it does emphasize the current collective ability among colleges and universities to maintain a somewhat reasonable level of instructional continuity—something that would not have been possible just ten years ago.^Footnote4

Takeaways

While the use cases in this study are all unique, span disciplines, and largely represent m-learning within face-to-face courses, m-learning strategies could also help to guide instructors' pedagogical balancing act during emergency remote teaching and beyond. This study demonstrates the variety of ways that m-learning technologies can help instructors in their ongoing efforts to become better teachers:

• Build and maintain classroom community by creating safe spaces that allow for peer interaction as well as anonymity.
• Increase student interest and motivation by providing multiple means and opportunities for participation.
• Illustrate concepts or topics more clearly.
• Develop students' emotional, cognitive, and technology-based skills for their future careers.
• Increase engagement by having students use their mobile devices to generate, collect, and analyze data.
• Identify and adapt to gaps in student learning.
• Facilitate a more efficient feedback cycle for student learning.
• Get through basic concepts more quickly, allowing students more time to engage deeply with complex concepts.

Although our study focused on faculty members' experiences, research on student perspectives demonstrates that m-learning benefits students in similar ways (by creating safe spaces for peer interaction, increasing student interest by offering multiple opportunities to participate, and supporting students who increasingly rely on mobile technology).^Footnote18 

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Source: EDUCAUSE Review