Abstract:
Learning management systems have the capabilities
of creating, fostering, delivering, and facilitating learning at
anytime and anywhere, allowing students to engage in online
discussion and collaborative activities. However, many
researchers feel that the online space essentially remains a
repository for content. However, the fact that some academics use
such systems as a content dumping site cannot be generalized. No,
such a blanket statement would be a grave injustice to those few
academics that are trying to improve the teaching and learning
process, especially through reflective practice. The purpose of this
paper is to highlight how an academic in electrical engineering has
effectively used BlackboardTM to promote student engagement and
academic success through online reflective self-assessments. An
ex-post facto study is used with descriptive statistics of the
quantitative data. Two groups of students enrolled for different
electronic communication modules were asked to complete
biweekly online reflective self-assessments via BlackboardTM.
Results indicate that those who completed more than 50% of these
self-assessments were almost twice as likely to achieve academic
success as compared to those who completed less than 50% of
them. These results tend to suggest that some academics are using
educational technology more effectively than other academics, to
the benefit of students and higher educational institutions.
