As a group on the thesis project “The holistic sustainability of hybrid teaching, “we discussed the topic together and scheduled a kickoff online meeting with our collaborator Matias Nurminen and our supervisors Sirkku Kotilainen and Markku Turunen on 6 November 2023. We expressed our interest in this topic and explained the reason. Some group member has a clear thesis direction, such as accessibility. I didn’t decide on my thesis research direction but focused on work for the student side. We asked for some suggestions from collaborator Matias. He gave us some links from intra to read and get familiar with Hybrid Teaching, and Matias agreed to participate in our meeting once a month. The kickoff meeting went well, and then we made an appointment with Sirkku to make an online meeting on 16 November 2023 and made the second meeting with the collaborator and our supervisors on 11 December 2023.
I read the intra-links from our collaborator. Tampere University has the fundamental facilities for supporting hybrid teaching. Most auditoriums and some classrooms are equipped with fixed streaming and recording devices, which can be scheduled in advance on the Panopto video platform. Teachers are also getting training to become familiar with the Hybrid teaching method. As well as some information about accessibility, It’s pretty helpful information. Then I read some articles about enhancing effective student engagement and experience, investigating students’ engagement in a hybrid teaching, developing hybrid learning strategies for students engagement, student’ emotions and engagement in hybrid teaching, and harnessing AIED power in hybrid teaching, etc. one of articles shows that, currently, most universities are using two hybrid teaching model including synchronous or asynchronous delivery and blended delivery, it mentioned some factors which affect the efficiency of online learning, such as telecom network support in countries, and the social presence of teacher is essential to motivate students’ engagement. So, personal contact can increase the efficiency of online teaching. And one article mentions the artificial power in hybrid teaching, which interests me. I am in the stage of thinking about my thesis direction. From the student’s side, online participation in Hybrid teaching easily distracts students’ attention, so I would like to research how to improve students’ engagement while they are taking hybrid teaching courses. For instance, artificial intelligence, such as AI and AR, can be used in hybrid teaching to attract student engagement.
At this point, my challenge is narrowing down the topic or figure out the direction of the topic. I want to combine artificial elements such as VR and AI, which can be an exciting method to improve student engagement in hybrid teaching. So, I think my topic should be “Explore the future trends in hybrid teaching” or “Possibilities in Adapting Artificial Intelligence to Improve Student Engagement in Hybrid Teaching.” My research question should be, “Is it possible to adapt artificial intelligence elements to improve student engagement in hybrid teaching?”