DISCOVERY TEACHING - A CLASSROOM APPLICATION FOR INTERACTIVE AND AGILE PEDAGOGY

This paper provides a detailed feature overview of a web-based classroom application called Discovery Teaching that is designed for use in the higher education classes to facilitate interactive and active pedagogy. We also present a summarization of several feasibility and intervention studies where features of the application were used to facilitate various pedagogical activities in introductory computer science courses. The goal has been to design a platform for interactive and agile teaching as a way to improve academic results and methods by using real-time classroom interactions, feedback exchanges, and adapting pedagogy based on evidence and insights from experience. Discovery Teaching offers functionality for real-time student-teacher feedback, assistance and discussions forums, formative assessments, group-based problem-solving activities, student peer-review on formative assessment activities, tracking students' engagement and performance levels, and timely prediction of, as well as intervention for, learners at risk of falling behind. The platform provides several open-ended tools for learning and teaching that allow several interactive pedagogy techniques to be practical and realized in the classroom. Over several studies, the application was successfully used to facilitate these techniques and demonstrate results with improvements in learning and teaching outcomes. These include the benefits of the flipped classroom model and active learning where students are subjected to increased engagement and participation through formative assessment, group-based problem solving, and regular sharing of cognitive and affective feedback. As such, the platform can enable instructors and institutions to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning through iterative practice and adjustment of pedagogy techniques that would otherwise be impractical to implement in the traditional classroom.