ACQUIRED: An Innovative Asynchronous Modality to Increase Quality Teacher-Learner Dialogue and Overcome Classroom...

Area of Science:

• Educational Technology
• Instructional Design
• Medical Education

Background:

• Learners face psychological and temporal barriers hindering participation and learning.
• Traditional classroom settings may not adequately address diverse learner needs.
• Asynchronous learning models require careful design to maintain engagement and interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and evaluate an asynchronous instructional design modality, ACQUIRED, aimed at addressing learning barriers.
• To retain active learning and foster quality teacher-learner interactions in an online environment.
• To inform the design of future asynchronous learning systems.

Main Methods:

• Developed individualized online lessons with flexible navigation, short videos, formative assessments, and reflection questions.
• Utilized a descriptive coding approach to analyze 3075 narrative student comments from 33 basic science sessions.
• Evaluated the ACQUIRED (Accessible Quality Interactions and Responsive Design) model across three student cohorts.

Main Results:

• A majority of student comments (76.6%) were positive, with 43.5% specifically praising the ACQUIRED modality.
• Key strengths identified included formative practice questions (18.6%), modular format (17.3%), and teacher responsiveness (7%).
• Areas for improvement, particularly within the ACQUIRED model, included a need for more formative questions (30.5%).

Conclusions:

• The ACQUIRED model effectively addresses psychological and temporal learning barriers in asynchronous settings.
• The design fosters meaningful, bidirectional teacher-learner interactions, enhancing the overall learning experience.
• Student feedback directly informed the iterative design and success of the ACQUIRED model.