Towards an Engaging and Gamified Online Learning Environment—A Real CaseStudy^†

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The main objectives of the research are defined at the introduction of the study.
2. The authors described the study problem and research questions, the importance of the study, and the hypotheses as well.
3. The literature review covers the most important and relevant international literature sources in an appropriate structure. The literature sources are highly acceptable and most of the relevant literature sources are used, the in-text citations are used well, citation style is correct. I suggest adding this reference:
4. Fedushko S., Syerov Yu., Tesak O., Onyshchuk O., Melnykova N. (2020) Advisory and Accounting Tool for Safe and Economically Optimal Choice of Online Self-Education Services. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Conflict Management in Global Information Networks (CMiGIN 2019), Lviv, Ukraine, November 29, 2019. CEUR-WS.org, Vol-2588. pp. 290-300. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2588/paper24.pdf. Add DOI for all references.
5. All the tables and figures are clear, understandable, and relevant, sources are indicated in each case well.
6. The authors have completed the necessary evaluations. Conclusions and recommendations are well structured, those are in relevance with the analysis and discussion. Conclusions are suitable for gaining new results and initiating further or new research. The new results are drawn up in an understandable way.
7.  In materials and methods are a good and comprehensive overview of the topic, based on a wide range of literature. The methodological contains a correct description of the methods applied, is well documented and supported.
8. The conclusions show that the authors have good and deep knowledge of the topic. Novel findings and recommendations are well articulated.
9. The authors must use the journal template!

Thank you for a good job.

Author Response

Dear editors and reviewers,

We appreciate all the comments and suggestions provided. They were helpful and allowed us to improve the article.

First, it is relevant to mention that this article is an extended version of a conference paper. So, the focus is well defined and aligned with the first paper, which arose in the sequence of the leading work entitled "TechTeach - An innovative method to increase the students' engagement at classrooms

Regarding Reviewer 1 issues:

1. The literature review covers the most important and relevant international literature sources in an appropriate structure. The literature sources are highly acceptable and most of the relevant literature sources are used, the in-text citations are used well, citation style is correct. I suggest adding this reference: Fedushko S., Syerov Yu., Tesak O., Onyshchuk O., Melnykova N. (2020) Advisory and Accounting Tool for Safe and Economically Optimal Choice of Online Self-Education Services. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Conflict Management in Global Information Networks (CMiGIN 2019), Lviv, Ukraine, November 29, 2019. CEUR-WS.org, Vol-2588. pp. 290-300. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2588/paper24.pdf. Add DOI for all references.
• This reference was added: “To the stakeholders enjoy a complete experience of e-learning, it is essential to have conditions to promote online classes. e-Learning and in particular online platforms allow studying a particular area or discipline as a whole by promoting a self-education that must need to be safe and with quality. ~\cite{fedushko2019advisory}”
2. The authors must use the journal template!
• We are using Latex Information Journal Template. We will validate it with MDPI.

Dear reviewer, thank you for your kind and good revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

Towards an engaging and gamified online learning environment - A real case study

General comment:

The paper is interesting and focused on a topic with current relevance.

However, it needs to make several improvements:

- Improve the theoretical background section (see specific comments);

- A better organization of the sections is recommended, clearly distinguishing what is a pedagogical contextualization of the research methodology;

- There is a lack of a clear research methodology section, with the identification of objectives, and procedures and instruments for data collection and processing;

- Better organization of how the results are presented, the creation of analysis dimensions is suggested;

- The discussion is weak and needs to be articulated with the theoretical background.

The paper appears almost as if it were a report, lacking alignment for features of what is expected in an paper.

Revise the numerical order in which bibliographic references appear, which do not appear sequentially in the body of the paper.

Specific comments:

Abstract:

“This paper shows the work performed through a  real case study, explains the strategy used to implement this paradigm, shows students opinions,  and dissects the achieved results”.

Is necessary provide the reader with the first contact with what the paper contains:

• What is the purpose of the reseach?
• It is not identified in what context these real case study were carried out?
• Indicate the strategy adopted?
• What is the methodology adopted for collecting and processing data? How were the students' perceptions and other data obtained?
• “three rescues requests and twenty-eight cards” – Clarify, what are 3 rescues and 28 cards ?
• “These results prove that a classroom is no longer a boring place; it is a place to learn and enjoy regardless of whether it is physical or not.”

What data support this conclusion?

The above do not allow making such a statement (possibly the one relating to “active participants”)... But this conclusion calls for data related to motivational factors and satisfaction.

Introduction

• “Since 2017, almost four hundred (399) students have been questioned on whether they prefer the traditional or the interactive way of teaching (…).” - What or which theoretical references support this paragraph?
• “TechTeach started as a b-learning approach and evolved to a fully online experience.” What or which theoretical references support this paragraph?
• “in a Curricular Unit (CUnit) of Web Programming”. In which course(s)?
• “adds more details about and process, and presents more results.” - Why are these results only now appearing in this paper and not in the previous paper?

I recommend that delete this sentence. And just focus on the purpose of the paper.

Background

The theoretical background needs to be deepened and include important sections at the level of:

• Gamification; 2) motivational aspects in e-learning contexts (factors that make the teaching and learning process attractive, dynamic, and not boring - in line with the abstract) and the relationship learn in techteach ; and 3) detail what the related works reported, what important aspects were mentioned in these works and that are of support for this paper.

Material and Methods

• “TechTeach can be adapted to different lessons and environments.” - What studies report on the motivation and participation of students in the teaching and learning process. Are scientific evidence/studies on how it promotes active learning and how it makes learning "non-boring"?
• Project Based Learning; Team Based Learning; Gamification; Flipped Classes; the author explains in a synthetic way what it is but does not explain how he applied it concretely in this particular study.
• “Data Analytics” - So far, several sections have been explained from a pedagogical perspective (a pedagogical contextualization of pedagogical strategies and tools).

This point “Data analytics” refers to the research methodology, so it is recommended that it be included in the section referring to Research Methodology.

 Case Study

• This section mixes contextual pedagogical information with possible research methodology. Better organization of the paper is recommended.
• “The case study had the finality study the applicability of TeachTeach in an online environment and answer two questions:Is TeachTeach ready or adapted to classes 100% online?"; "What is the effort needed? Is it worth it?"” - According these research questions, what kind of research methodology was designed to answer? How do the results stated in the abstract and subsequently answer these questions? How do you relate the analyzed variables?

Context

“The teaching team designed the working/teaching plan of Web Programming based on the following premises:”

 With so many aspects mentioned, it remains to be seen what the students' activities/tasks were throughout the CU. There is also a mixture of activities that are inherent to the teacher and others to the student. A clarification and distinction between these activities is recommended.

There is a missing section on the Research Methodology, which clearly indicates the research objectives, the problems, the method, data processing and analysis procedures.

Data are presented in descriptive form, lacking some methodological rigor.

Discussion:

• Better alignment of the discussion with the research questions indicated is recommended.
• The discussion appears as if it is a synthesis of the results presented above, lacking maturity and relationship with theoretical background.

Conclusion:

• The answers to the research questions deserved greater theoretical support, in particular on the evaluation of pedagogical programs in the context of e/b-learning using techteach. In other words, what are the indicators that allow us to state that TechTeach is suitable for the online format? What indicators allow us to know if there are needs and adjustments to be made? What does the literature on program sustainability say for online?
• Some of the conclusions presented still appear as discussion presentation reports and not a conclusion.

Author Response

Dear editors and reviewers,

We appreciate all the comments and suggestions provided. They were helpful and allowed us to improve the article.

First, it is relevant to mention that this article is an extended version of a conference paper. So, the focus is well defined and aligned with the first paper, which arose in the sequence of the leading work entitled “TechTeach - An innovative method to increase the students’ engagement at classrooms”.

Dear reviewer, thank you for your revision and comments.

Before explaining the changes performed, we want to clarify an aspect. Some of the comments were not considered suitable to the work goal, so they were not addressed. The goal is to present the case study by extending the original work and not detailing TechTeach areas or doing an OLAP work. For example, to address some issues, we must repeat most of the content present in previous work.

- There is a lack of a clear research methodology section, with the identification of objectives, and procedures and instruments for data collection and processing;

1. Subsection 3.3 research process was added in order to detail the case study methodology

- Better organization of how the results are presented, the creation of analysis dimensions is suggested;

The goal of this work is not to do an olap analysis of the results achieved. A different study is being prepared to address other type of results like students performance. This new study will use ML techniques.

Revise the numerical order in which bibliographic references appear, which do not appear sequentially in the body of the paper.

Done

• What is the purpose of the reseach?

It was presented in the introduction “This case study had as its primary goal to assess the viability of Tech Teach in an e-learning context, monitor all the activities performed online, and collect the students’ opinions.”

• What is the methodology adopted for collecting and processing data? How were the students’ perceptions and other data obtained?

All the details were already presented in the paper. Figure 5 showed it

• “three rescues requests and twenty-eight cards” – Clarify, what are 3 rescues and 28 cards ?

It was already explained in section 4.3

• “The above do not allow making such a statement (possibly the one relating to “active participants”)... But this conclusion calls for data related to motivational factors and satisfaction.

 Figures 6, 7,14, 15 and 17 addressed motivation and satisfaction factors

• “Since 2017, almost four hundred (399) students have been questioned on whether they prefer the traditional or the interactive way of teaching (…).” - What or which theoretical references support this paragraph?

Paragraph was revised to better clarification.

This point “Data analytics” refers to the research methodology, so it is recommended that it be included in the section referring to Research Methodology.

It is a case study, so the data collection process is explained inside of case study: the acquisition process was defined to include only digital data automatically collected from online platforms: Kahoot (spreadsheets), BlackBoard (spreadsheets), ioEduc (database), ioChat (database) and Google Analytics (reports) and the answers provided by the students in the surveys. Both data were anonymised and followed General Data Protection Regulation rules. For example, students were asked to allow data collection since the beginning of the CUnit.

I apologize for not addressing some of the reviewer issues, however, in my opinion, and, although the comments are relevant, they are inconsistent with a case study project where all the work is regarding a particular experience.

Reviewer 3 Report

This article reports a case study on a teaching approach that is potentially relevant and interesting for teachers and for researchers, even if it is not entirely innovative.

There however some aspects that need to be addressed and improved.

Using IEEE reference system, I expected the first reference in the text to be [1], instead its [9] and the second one is [11]. The refence numbers should be consistent throughout the article and this needs to be revised.

The results given in the second paragraph of the text (L23-28) should either be identified as unpublished or a reference needs to be provided.

The background section is to schematic and some of its subsections add little relevant information. For example, subsection 2.1 on e-learning, does not provide a relevant definition and cites marginally relevant literature on the subject. Subsections 2.2 and 2.3 are also mostly irrelevant, in terms of providing theoretical context.

The background section should provide a review of the research literature on interventions similar to the one reported in this paper and not just the previous work by the author of this study.

This being a case study, it should detail the problem(s) that TechTeach intends to solve, the rationale for its development, how it was implemented and an evaluation of how it solved (or to what degree it solved the problems identified in the first place). The current version of the article is not very effective at doing this.

Some assertions should be avoided, such as those in lines 85-88. It’s probably open for debate whether TechTeach is “a paradigm”, as well as if it really is “the best learning environment for the students”. This is probably not the meaning intended by the author, but it’s how most readers will interpret it.

The definitions provided for PBL, TBL and “flipped classes” (not the most frequent designation) are probably not very enlightening for readers not familiar with these concepts and some of the references used may not be the best choices in this context (e.g. [7]; [14] is given in the reference list with an incomplete journal title). Gamification is much more effectively explained, even if in a very concise and schematic manner. Skills are not explained at all, and I find the following sentence difficult to understand: “In the educational scope, it elevates the cognitive and constructionist of pedagogical perspectives [18].” (L115-116)

I would like to see some things clearly stated. It seems that the author is the founder and CEO of IOTECH, the firm that develops some of the main tools used in this study (ioEduc and ioChat), but there is only a thank you note to IOTECH in line 543. I think there is a clear potential Conflict of Interest, that should be stated in the following line (544). It is also important to know if the “coordinator professor and mentor of TechTeach” (L172) is the author of this paper.

It is said in lines 236-7: “Each lesson had 20 rooms with an average of 5-6 students each.” But in line 183 it is said: “One hundred and sixty-eight students registered (90% participants);” Well, 90% of 168 is 151, well below the 120 students in the 20 rooms in Zoom. In line 382 different numbers are provided. How many students participated after all?

Line 280 uses the word “Assaults”. Please check if the intended meaning is really “physical attacks”.

Line 355: what does it mean “reprove to this component”?

Interpreting the labels in figure 5 is difficult without knowing the question asked.

Apparently only results from surveys Q1 and Q3 are provided. Why not for Q2? It would be interesting to understand what changes were implemented after Q2.

Line 422: “The University achieves the official way of receiving feedback.” What does this mean?

The teaching approach, even if not entirely innovative, is interesting and worth reporting. However, one aspect that merits discussion is whether the approach would work with platforms other than IOEDUC, say Moodle for example.

Another aspect that should be addressed is that the results and the discussion are centered in the perceptions of students and teachers and some of the learning results, but I think that only in the abstract are we told what the global approval rate was: “98.15% of active participants got approval” (line 11). This is a remarkable figure, but it is never discussed in the text and it should be explained how the percentage was calculated (relative to the number of participants? I already commented above that this is not at all clear) and how it compares to previous years in the same CUnit.

There are some typos and other minor mistakes (e.g.: digitals (L20); HackerRanck (L39)) and some sentences that I did not understand. A thorough revision by a native speaker would surely enhance readability. The reference list should also be revised (e.g. references [14] and [22]).

Author Response

Dear editors and reviewers,

We appreciate all the comments and suggestions provided. They were helpful and allowed us to improve the article.

First, it is relevant to mention that this article is an extended version of a conference paper. So, the focus is well defined and aligned with the first paper, which arose in the sequence of the leading work entitled "TechTeach - An innovative method to increase the students' engagement at classrooms".

Dear reviewer, thank you for your valuable comments and global appreciation.

Using IEEE reference system, I expected the first reference in the text to be [1], instead its [9] and the second one is [11]. The refence numbers should be consistent throughout the article and this needs to be revised.

You are right, it was corrected now.

The results given in the second paragraph of the text (L23-28) should either be identified as unpublished or a reference needs to be provided.

It is not a result it is a context of this work. To a better clarification the content was changed to “Since 2017, the leading professor of this study has promoted a questionnaire every year at the beginning of classes. Until the present study, almost four hundred (399) students have been questioned on whether they prefer the traditional or the interactive way of teaching.”

The background section is to schematic and some of its subsections add little relevant information. For example, subsection 2.1 on e-learning, does not provide a relevant definition and cites marginally relevant literature on the subject. Subsections 2.2 and 2.3 are also mostly irrelevant, in terms of providing theoretical context. The background section should provide a review of the research literature on interventions similar to the one reported in this paper and not just the previous work by the author of this study.

You are right; however, In both cases, it will repeat the background of the previous paper that is the basis of TechTeach. The idea is not discussed TecTeach again but tries to understand if the approach is, or not, suitable in an online environment. Regarding this section, the goal is to briefly define the terms to readers who are unfamiliar with them.

This being a case study, it should detail the problem(s) that TechTeach intends to solve, the rationale for its development, how it was implemented and an evaluation of how it solved (or to what degree it solved the problems identified in the first place). The current version of the article is not very effective at doing this.

Yes, you are right. All TeachTeach details are addressed in the previous paper; however, I added a sentence to clarify it better.

“According to the author ~\cite{portela2020techteach}, TechTeach can be adapted to different lessons and environments. It wants to make the learning environment more digital, fun, and attractive by increasing student engagement and using gamification. After a first successful experience in a face-to-face setting (2019/2020) with good results (the approval rate by the students was 81\%) ~\cite{portela2020techteach}), it was time to challenge this paradigm in a fully online mode using the same CUnit and course but in a different year (2020/2021).

The case study presented in this article explored this method in a non-presential space and tried to prove its adequacy for online teaching environments providing all the achieved results. The following subsections explain each one of the topics addressed and implemented during the classes.”

The explanation is in the previous and present work. For example, as can be observed in figure 17, achieved results can sustain the premises.

Some assertions should be avoided, such as those in lines 85-88. It’s probably open for debate whether TechTeach is “a paradigm”, as well as if it really is “the best learning environment for the students”. This is probably not the meaning intended by the author, but it’s how most readers will interpret it.

TechTeach was previously defined as a teaching paradigm that merges a lot of approaches. The idea is to put it all working together in order to proportionate the best learning environment. The text was changed to turn it more clear: “Originally, TechTeach was defined as a teaching paradigm that combines Blended-Learning, Gamification, Soft-skills, Quizzes and Surveys, Flipped classrooms, Project and Team-Based Learning in order to proportionate the best learning environment for the students”

The definitions provided for PBL, TBL and “flipped classes” (not the most frequent designation) are probably not very enlightening for readers not familiar with these concepts and some of the references used may not be the best choices in this context (e.g. [7]; [14] is given in the reference list with an incomplete journal title). Gamification is much more effectively explained, even if in a very concise and schematic manner. Skills are not explained at all, and I find the following sentence difficult to understand: “In the educational scope, it elevates the cognitive and constructionist of pedagogical perspectives [18].” (L115-116)

You are right, but for understanding, this article is essential to read the work's origin. This paper emerges in the sequence of "TechTeach - An innovative method to increase the students engagement at classrooms".

I would like to see some things clearly stated. It seems that the author is the founder and CEO of IOTECH, the firm that develops some of the main tools used in this study (ioEduc and ioChat), but there is only a thank you note to IOTECH in line 543. I think there is a clear potential Conflict of Interest, that should be stated in the following line (544). It is also important to know if the “coordinator professor and mentor of TechTeach” (L172) is the author of this paper.

This issue was already answered by email. Besides it, an explanation for the choices was written: “It was the primary communication tool and was selected because it is easy to customize and based on the open-source platform rocket-chat." … “This platform was chosen as the Learning Platform instead of Moodle or BlackBoard. The justification for the choice is easy; the author of this article is the same who developed the tool and included some gamification tasks (e.g. Cards and Rescue System). This choice put ioEduc in the centre of the process, allowing a real connection between professors, students and the subject.”

and a sentence added: “It is important to note that this team selected these tools as could have chosen any other. The idea was to test the TechTeach paradigm with platforms already explored and adapted to the environment.”

It is said in lines 236-7: “Each lesson had 20 rooms with an average of 5-6 students each.” But in line 183 it is said: “One hundred and sixty-eight students registered (90% participants);” Well, 90% of 168 is 151, well below the 120 students in the 20 rooms in Zoom. In line 382 different numbers are provided. How many students participated after all?

The number of students is 168; however, only 90% of them were considered active: 151. So, the classes participation (avg) was 85% of 151. Besides it, I updated the sentence to "5-7 students each".

To clarify it a sentence was written: “One hundred and sixty-eight students registered (90\% active participants, i.e. attended more than 50\% of classes and 5\% of inactive, i.e., the attendance rate was less than 5\%);”

Line 280 uses the word “Assaults”. Please check if the intended meaning is really “physical attacks”.

Corrected to robberies

Line 355: what does it mean “reprove to this component”?

Changed to "Student does not know the basics and should disapprove to this component (negative grade)"

Interpreting the labels in figure 5 is difficult without knowing the question asked.

The question was provided in the text, however I put it in the label.

Apparently only results from surveys Q1 and Q3 are provided. Why not for Q2? It would be interesting to understand what changes were implemented after Q2.

An explanation of Q2 and some results were added:

“ Between Q1 and Q3, the Q2 was performed. This short, intermediate questionnaire was used to understand students opinions about classes and professors performance. Almost one hundred students participated in Q2 realized in week number seven (average number of participants were 92). Regarding Q2, some results can be highlighted:

\begin{enumerate}

\item 98.86\% of students are enjoying having online classes

\item 76.53\% of students affirmed to learn a lot

\item only 2.17 \% of students stated that are not appreciate this CUnit.

A last open question was performed about what should be changed to the second part of the semester. Most students disliked having random groups and T classes, and it was removed.

\end{enumerate}

A last open question was performed about what should be changed to the second part of the semester. Most students did not like having random groups at T classes, so it was removed. Then professors made some minor improvements regarding online classes organisation by providing more examples and increasing project support. “

Line 422: “The University achieves the official way of receiving feedback.” What does this mean?

English was revised to “The University also have an official mechanism of receiving feedback and preparing quality report.”

The teaching approach, even if not entirely innovative, is interesting and worth reporting. However, one aspect that merits discussion is whether the approach would work with platforms other than IOEDUC, say Moodle for example.

Yes, the article that presents TechTeach already mentioned it. ioEduc was chosen as can be another. The benefit is that the professor developed this tool and all the gamification rules were easy to implement. This sentence was added: "Although this article presents a rigorous case study, anyone can explore this approach. For example, the TechTeach paradigm is tool-less, so the professor can keep interaction and engagement by creating their rules and replacing the tools used to other well-known platforms:

\begin{itemize}

    \item ioChat –> Slack or Discord + Zoom or Team

  \item ioEduc –> Moodle or Blackboard + Google Forms (Gamification)

  \item Kahoot –> Voxvote or Mentimeter

\end{itemize}

Another aspect that should be addressed is that the results and the discussion are centered in the perceptions of students and teachers and some of the learning results, but I think that only in the abstract are we told what the global approval rate was: “98.15% of active participants got approval” (line 11). This is a remarkable figure, but it is never discussed in the text and it should be explained how the percentage was calculated (relative to the number of participants? I already commented above that this is not at all clear) and how it compares to previous years in the same CUnit.

A sentence was added in the discussion.: Their grades were positive, and 98.15\% of the students got approved (i.e. professors disapproved only three of the students that attended more than 25\% of classes).

There are some typos and other minor mistakes (e.g.: digitals (L20); HackerRanck (L39)) and some sentences that I did not understand. A thorough revision by a native speaker would surely enhance readability. The reference list should also be revised (e.g. references [14] and [22]).

Thank you again for your valuable revision. I hope all of your issues are now solved.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author provides detailed responses to my comments. 

Your work has inspired me to study previous work on this topic.
I recommend the author add this topical work to the list of references: Tariq Bouzid, Fatiha Kaddari, Hassane Darhmaoui, El Ghazi Bouzid, "Enhancing Math-class Experience throughout Digital Game-based Learning, the case of Moroccan Elementary Public Schools", International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science (IJMECS), Vol.13, No.5, pp. 1-13, 2021.DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2021.05.01

Author Response

We would like to appreciate all the comments and interest in our work.

In a global overview, we added the last minor improvements following reviewers suggestions:
-new references were added, 
-the DLPCA strategy and Merrill's principle were explained
-the case study conclusion was sustained by DLPCA strategy and Merril principle

Thank you for your valuable contributions and help improve the manuscript's quality.

Reviewer 2 Report

The author made improvements to the paper, which in its entirety allowed the clarification of some doubts and the resolution of crucial aspects for the acceptance of the paper. I also think that it is an interesting paper to be published, as it is focused on teaching innovation and that can be useful to the teaching community.

The author made some of my previous recommendations that were crucial for the approval of the paper, in particular, the section research process.

Although some other recommendations could have been heeded. Such as:

“The case study had the finality study the applicability of TeachTeach in an online environment and answer two questions: Is TeachTeach ready or adapted to classes 100% online?"; "What is the effort needed? Is it worth it?"”

In my opinion and recommendation, it is necessary to deepen section 2.1. e-learning and 2.2. Online Context, so that it supports the validity of the results and arguments/conclusions presented.

It is recommended to include one to two explanatory paragraphs on instructional design in an online context that explain what are the necessary conditions to promote online teaching.

When the autor say “(…) it is essential to have conditions to promote online classes”, I believe it is essential to say what these conditions are supported by the theoretical background associated with online instructional design, aligned with the data collected with the case study.

There are some instructional design principles or models that can eventually help to provide the necessary theoretical support, for example, support with: Principles of instructional design by Gagner et al., or the ADDIE model, or the Merrill's Instructional Design Principles, etc.

It should be noted that the author says that he complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) however, the fact of using google analytics is not in accordance with the GDPR (with regard to data transferability - in this case, google is headquartered in the US). See for exemple : https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/joinup/news/privacy-shield-invalidation

(But I understand that there are many doubts about GPDR for all of us).

I wish the continuation of a good work!

Author Response

We would like to appreciate all the comments and interest in our work.

In a global overview, we added the last minor improvements following reviewers suggestions:
-new references were added, 
-the DLPCA strategy and Merrill's principle were explained
-the case study conclusion was sustained by DLPCA strategy and Merril principle

Thank you for your valuable contributions and help improve the manuscript's quality.

Reviewer 3 Report

I think most of my original concerns were adequately addressed and the paper is much clearer. Considering this and that it’s a case study about a teaching innovation, I think it has interest to larger community of teachers.

I would still recommend a thorough proofreading by a native speaker of English. There is at least one minor issue that needs to be revised: the author uses frequently approved/disapproved when referring to students passing or failing the course.

Author Response

We would like to appreciate all the comments and interest in our work.

In a global overview, we added the last minor improvements (including english) following reviewers suggestions:
-new references were added, 
-the DLPCA strategy and Merrill's principle were explained
-the case study conclusion was sustained by DLPCA strategy and Merril principle

Thank you for your valuable contributions and help improve the manuscript's quality.