The aim of the current approach was to enhance fist year students’ learning experience and improve their writing performance and motivation to learn by using a powerful technology-enhanced learning approach (Digital stories - DS) and an inclusive collaborative group assessment strategy (ICGA). ICGA was used to promote peer learning/mentoring and help students better understand the assessment criteria and develop valuable professional skills i.e., negotiation. The researcher argues that a constructionist perspective (Papert & Harel, 1991) involving the use of expressive media for DS (a Digital Serious Game-based approach) and ICGA offer an appropriate frame for designing learning activities fostering individual creativity and collaborative learning (Vygotsky, 1978; Piaget, 1929) which also involve some form of peer mentoring (fostering inclusivity - Meletiadou, 2022) in learning how to write. DS were employed to:
• increase students’ interaction and foster inclusion and Social Justice,
• engage them as partners in learning by allowing them to take responsibility for their own learning,
• decolonise the curriculum by celebrating their multilingual identities through translanguaging, and
• develop their digital skills by experimenting with multimodal literacies.
In terms of this initiative, 400+ first year students had to prepare a DS in the form of a website or a blog in which they could use text, videos, podcasts etc. to present their views on a topic and support them with arguments. They were then involved in ICGA, received feedback from their lecturers, wrote a paragraph reflecting on their achievements, challenges and areas for improvement and submitted their DS. DS were used to assess students’ performance and engage students in ICGA and self-reflection to help them better understand the assessment criteria, the task requirements and the topics taught in terms of the module.
In terms of this initiative, which was funded by London Met (£5,900), I compared L4 students’ performance in the experimental module in which I used a combination of DS, translanguaging (TRL) and ICGA to improve students’ learning experience to another control module (with the same students) which ran in parallel but did not use this scheme. The control module used the traditional written assignment (report), encouraged the use of English, and provided only tutor feedback to students. I compared students’ final marks in the two modules and the difference was statistically significant. Students were able to improve their performance by 10% in only 1 semester (12 weeks) and 21% in 2 semesters (I extended the implementation in other modules) and the effect of the intervention was moderately positive (Cohen’s d=.6). Moreover, students managed to increase their performance by 30% (I compared students’ pre-tests vs post-tests in the experimental module) in one semester. Students’ satisfaction in the student module survey was 91% (compared to 75% last year) which clearly indicated that students enjoyed the experience.
Student comments revealed that they felt that this intervention increased their interest in the module and allowed them to better understand the assessment criteria and the theories involved. They were then able to apply them to prepare their DS and share it with their peers during the CGA sessions. Students were also eager to share their stories in terms of an online mini-conference I organised to provide a taster of first year modules to foundation year students aiming to support students’ transition from L3 to L4 and support recruitment and progression to the next level.
Considering my findings, DS seems to be a powerful tool for Management lecturers who would like to enrich traditional courses and allow students - especially at the undergraduate level - to have access to and become proficient in the 21st century multimodal literacies. Finally, the present initiative may assist Management Education faculty use technologically suffused pedagogy to meet module aims successfully.