Abstract
Critical thinking skills, while vital for today's young people, are challenging to teach, particularly in a second-language medium class, and micro-lessons may improve students' comprehension and skills development. The impact of micro-lessons on student assessment performance in a second-language medium class was given an empirical test. University students (n = 33; 41) in an English-medium class in Japan were given a parallel set of lessons on logical fallacies during two classes. Traditional lecture methods were used to teach one half of the fallacies in the lessons while students were given video micro-lessons to study the other half, along with in-class instructor support and feedback. Students' ability to identify these common fallacy types was tested using pre- and post-tests in both classes. Test results indicate that both instructional methods proved effective, although student feedback showed a preference for an approach that incorporates lectures as well as micro-lessons.
TopLiterature Review: Microlearning In Context
Micro-lessons such as the ones used in the present research are situated in the tradition of microlearning which has a wide range of applications. A brief discussion of the key features and aspects relevant to the current study is presented below.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Flipped Learning: Broad term for the practice of engaging students' ability to explore educational materials independent of direct teacher supervision.
Fallacies: Common types of logical errors that are identified by shared characteristics.
Nondirectional Hypothesis: An assumption that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean (average) of two samples, but one that makes no prediction as to which is higher.
Critical Thinking: A set of skills that supports independent learning, key elements of which are the ability to evaluate and question information using previous knowledge of logic and the ability to identify trustworthy sources of information.
Flipped Classroom: An approach to teaching in which students are presented with materials for self-study ahead of a class meeting in which group work and instructor feedback supports the learning students have done in preparation for class.
Confidence Interval: A range of values that indicates a probability that, if a given dataset were analyzed 100 times, the result is likely to occur within this interval.
LMS: Learning Management System
Micro-lessons: Short, focused lessons that are self-contained and presented on a single topic.
Learning Objectives: Specific identifiable targets, e.g., the ability to perform specific tasks, that teachers help students to achieve by the end of a defined period of instruction.
DF: Degrees of freedom, i.e., the number of observations used to estimate a parameter of a dataset such as an average.