Uncovering Instructors' Diverse Practices and Perceptions: A Field Deployment of a Customization-Sharing Platform that Supports Course Management

Title of the Paper

Revealing Teachers' Diverse Practices and Cognitions: A Field Deployment Study of a Personalized Sharing Platform Supporting Curriculum Management

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction, Educational Technology, Learning Management System (LMS) Design, and Teachers' Personalized Practices
• Keywords: Software Customization, Customization Sharing, Personalization, Educational Technology, Learning Management System, Digital Classroom Tools

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  1. Teachers face a complex learning process and time costs in customizing classroom software, especially in Learning Management Systems (LMS).
  2. Teachers tend to seek social support from peers, but remote teaching during the pandemic has increased corresponding barriers.
  3. Few existing tools effectively support teachers in sharing and exploring customized content for specific tasks.
  4. There is a lack of in-depth understanding of how teachers use shared customization tools in their actual workflows.

• Significance:

  1. Teachers' software customization not only affects their own interface usage but also directly impacts students' learning experiences.
  2. Addressing these issues can improve teachers' efficiency, enhance their ability to use educational technology, and ultimately improve teaching quality.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  1. Previous research has mostly focused on students' use of classroom software, with less attention to teachers' experiences.
  2. While a few customization sharing tools have been evaluated, they are often limited to laboratory environments, lacking contextual and long-term usage analysis.
  3. A design approach is proposed to integrate experimental customization models into teachers' daily workflows.

Solution

• Proposed Method or Solution:
  The authors designed and extended a platform called "Customizer," a sample-based customization sharing system that allows teachers to browse, try, and import their peers' course customization settings.

• Innovations:

  1. Supports teachers in viewing peers' customization examples through a "peeking" feature.
  2. Provides a "trial mode" that allows users to experiment with customization settings without affecting actual courses.
  3. Adds community-based social features, such as customization Q&A, likes, and favorites, to promote teacher interaction.

• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:

  1. Feature Expansion: Added customization tags, user favorites, view counts, and other metrics to enhance content discovery; integrated Canvas LMS to provide a "trial mode" from the student perspective.
  2. Deployment Design: In the study, badges were used to mark key customization locations, increasing transparency and user trust.
  3. Research Framework: Validated the system's usability and practical impact through two phases (pre-deployment customization content generation and a two-week field study).

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  1. The customization sharing tool facilitated knowledge exchange among teachers and helped raise awareness of software functionalities.
  2. The "trial mode" effectively reduced teachers' hesitation about customization, boosting confidence in exploring new features.
  3. Against the backdrop of pandemic remote learning, the tool helped teachers adapt to diverse challenges across different disciplines and technical backgrounds.

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  1. Compared to forums and tutorials, it provides more specific and intuitive examples, reducing the social cost of teachers' learning.
  2. Contextual recommendations for key features improved the efficiency of discovery and usage.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  1. Data showed that all participants used the system's features, with an average session duration of about 20 minutes.
  2. Survey results indicated that most teachers found the customization sharing feature significantly improved the convenience of personalized design.
  3. Many teachers described comparing examples from peers within their institutions to ensure course content consistency and adaptability.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Privacy concerns remain a major issue for teachers when sharing customizations, necessitating exploration of more transparent sharing methods in the future.
  2. The system may require resource filtering to meet the needs of teachers with varying levels of experience.
  3. Long-term studies and cross-institutional expansion could reveal broader usage patterns and regional differences.
  4. In post-pandemic face-to-face teaching scenarios, teachers' usage behaviors may change, requiring reevaluation of the need for customization tools.