Description of the project: As a result of recent global and natural events, our student body has experienced changes in their education path, including but not limited to the worldwide pandemic, earthquakes and hurricanes. As students return to the classroom or switch to hybrid learning modalities, several academic lags and stress factors have been identified, and it is essential that faculty and academic support units be aware of these stress and risk factors to have all resources and tools in place to support them emotionally and academically. This will ensure academic progress and retention, two critical analytical metrics that must be measured and controlled.
In today’s classroom we will find students with special needs and emotional distress, reason why differentiated instruction and assessment techniques must be considered and managed to address diverse needs and academic lags that students may have. Among students with special needs, we have a growing population of students with Asperger and Autism syndrome joining the regular classrooms. These students, along with students with emotional distress needs additional support and encouragement to overcome these challenges and excel academically. Gamification techniques can be used to deal with these issues while delivering classroom instruction in a diversified fashion.
This study took place on August, 2023 when students were returning to the classroom for in-person instruction to attend the first technical courses, Hardware and Networking Course, and Operating Systems course. The student body was diverse, including veterans and students with autism syndrome. This diversity presented challenges and opportunities for team assignments, team collaboration and leadership. With the use of gamification tools, it was possible to engage student teams and foster collaboration while completing their assignments and developing the expected skills and competencies. By flipping the classroom to diversified instruction and assessment provided the opportunity to identify and address students with academic lags and emotional distress caused by diverse personal situations. Students who were at risk of failing one or both courses felt encouraged to engage and work in teams and successfully completed the course, with few exceptions.
The IT undergraduate students recognized the significance of ethical practice throughout the delivery experience and team collaboration in project management. The course instructor must foster and engage with students towards recognizing the importance of ethics in the business environment by taking ethical values seriously.
Presenters:
Sandra Fonseca-Lind
Dr. Fonseca is an Information Technology Professional with over 30 years of experience in the IT field industry, 15 of them as Systems Security Manager, Project Manager, and later on as Data Architect at a federal agency in Washington, D.C. Her academic career spans 28 years, having taught in all modalities, undergraduate and graduate on traditional brick and mortar classroom, hybrid, teleconference, and online. She has also served as Program Director for IT and Cybersecurity Programs for an Online University in the US. Dr. Fonseca also works as a subject matter expert in course development, oversees SME’s course contents, and collaborates in program assessment mapping. Dr. Fonseca has a doctoral degree in business with a specialization in management information systems (DBA-MIS), and a second doctoral degree in education with a specialization in instructional design (EdD-ID). Her areas of Specialty are: IT, Accounting, Audit, Project Management, Operations Management, and Quantitative Research Methods.
Carmen I. Figueroa-Medina
Carmen I. Figueroa-Medina has Ninenteen (19) years of academic experience teaching human resources management in higher education with years of student career development, leadership advising dedicated to SHRM Student Chapters (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus & University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus). Fourteen (14) years of SHRM Volunteer Leader and HRM Diversity and Inclusion Advocate. 2016 Best Paper Award ABWIC Conference. SHRM Recognition on five (5) Outstanding Student Chapter Merit Awards and five (5) Superior Merit Award (2012-2022). Traumatic Brain Injury Advocate and Member of the Board of Directors of LSG Foundation