Best practice example

Title: The English online course via MSTeams 

University: University of Silesia, Master Study Program (Mamet-Michalkiewicz, M. (2020). Conversation in English course. Based on personal experience)

Section of the framework: B - Metacognitive strategies to measure students’ academic success (e.g. Discussions are organised to identify successful learning factors; learning activities facilitate students’ perception of their role, self-concept and academic success)

What competencies and learning outcomes of the DigicompEdu Framework are we addressing?

Key issues: This best practice is based on an English language course focused on conversation. The course is an online course taught via MS Teams. The teacher has designed various learning activities that help collect evidence about learners' academic success. Group work, individual work, pair work and discussion helped engaging learners. The teacher showed students introductory presentations and provided reflections and continuous feedback during the course. At the beginning of the course, students were given a rubric for speaking assessment criteria to affect students’ cognition.

Figure 6. Speaking assessment criteria. MS Team image from Master Study Program, University of Silesia.

To learn about students as learners, the teacher asked the students to watch a short film on introducing themselves and then to record a short film individually:

Figure 2. Watch a short film and think of the best way of introducing yourself. MS Team image from Master Study Program, University of Silesia

In order to get to know one another, the following assignment was to prepare a presentation on the student’s hobbies, interests, talents, passions, likes and dislikes.

Figure 3. Description of a task and a sample presentation.  MS Team image from Master Study Program, University of Silesia.

Figure 4. Description of a task and a sample presentation. MS Team image from Master Study Program, University of Silesia

Introductory slides, students’ presentations, general conversations within the group and small group conversations were also very useful for teachers to take into consideration the issues that affect students’ learning. Students are thus actively engaged in peer learning activities.

Relevance for teachers: Students received continuous feedback and evaluation. The first evaluation took place after the first two meetings in order to verify whether students' expectations were fulfilled; afterwards, the teacher conducted a mid-term evaluation and, at the end of the project, there was the final evaluation. After the implementation of the project, the teacher did a self-evaluation on the basis of a student satisfaction questionnaire. To evaluate the course, the teacher adopted the Delphi evaluation method.

Figure 5. Delphi evaluation method. Image based on personal experience submitted by University of Silesia.

Active communication between students and teachers and students themselves is crucial in facilitating the language learning process. Discussion forums, breakout rooms, Padlet, Menti, and group work results allow teachers to follow the progress of students. During this course, the most useful MS Teams tools to create metacognitive learning strategies for students were discussion forums. Students and teachers participated in discussions and the forum allowed the teacher to check the level of participation of students. Last but not least, using MS Teams allowed for communication with students and was a good way to continue the conversations that started in class. MS Teams favoured group online interactions as it resembles popular social networks that are so common among students.

Figure 6. Chats between the students and the teacher on MS Teams group account. MS Team image from Master Study Program, University of Silesia