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A practical guide to providing flexible learning in further and higher education
PrefaceThe approach to quality and standards in higher education (HE) in Scotland is enhancement-led and learner-centred. It was developed through a partnership of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Universities Scotland, the National Union of Students in Scotland (NUS Scotland) and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Scotland. The Higher Education Academy has also joined that partnership. The Enhancement Themes are a key element of a five-part framework that has been designed to provide an integrated approach to quality assurance and enhancement. The Enhancement Themes support learners and staff at all levels in enhancing higher education in Scotland; they draw on developing innovative practice within the UK and internationally. The five elements of the framework are:
The topics for the Enhancement Themes are identified through consultation with the sector and implemented by steering committees whose members are drawn from the sector and the student body. The steering committees have the task of establishing a programme of development activities that draw on national and international good practice. Publications emerging from each Theme are intended to provide important reference points for HEIs in the ongoing strategic enhancement of their teaching and learning provision. Full details of each Theme, its steering committee, the range of research and development activities and the outcomes are published on the Enhancement Themes website (http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk). To further support the implementation and embedding of a quality enhancement culture within the sector – including taking forward the outcomes of the Enhancement Themes – a new overarching committee has been established, chaired by Professor Kenneth Miller, Vice-Principal, University of Strathclyde. This committee has the important dual role of supporting the overall approach of the Enhancement Themes, including the five-year rolling plan, and institutional enhancement strategies and management of quality. We very much hope that the new committee, working with the individual topic-based Enhancement Themes’ steering committees, will provide a powerful vehicle for progressing the enhancement-led approach to quality and standards in Scottish higher education.
Norman Sharp Table of ContentsAcknowledgements AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements go to the following:
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‘that many teachers do not possess a vocabulary for articulating and sharing their pedagogic strategies and designs with others, particularly beyond their cognate discipline areas’ (Beetham, 2004). |
We think that the HE and FE sectors have much to learn in this respect from the open learning and instructional design communities and their team-based approach to developing learning designs. The provision of a shareable model of flexible learning, as presented here, is a step in this direction.
Perhaps surprisingly, we do not think that technology is the primary determinant
of flexibility, although it is an important enabling factor. We are critical
and sceptical about the claims being made for technology in education,
and think that this is a healthy attitude to counteract the recent excesses
of the ‘e-learning bubble’. It is much better to regard technology
as a set of generic ‘services’ or tools that may be called
on to support flexibility, and instead concentrate our efforts on the
far more profound issues of designing for flexible learning. This also
means designing for flexible teaching, as learning and teaching are both
different sides of the same coin.
As we have already highlighted, it also means examining the institutional
change required to actually implement flexibility as well as the pedagogic
skills needed to service it. Technical issues are not the hardest problems
to solve, which partly explains their attraction to management. Organisational
aspects of flexibility such as team teaching, sharing of learning materials
and joint ownership of courses, new working relations, internal reorganisation
and control of service departments are, however, much harder to deliver.
This guide takes a rather informal tone and has a bit of an ‘attitude’
which is critical of some aspects of the status quo and uses of technology.
We also squarely advocate the continuing importance of teachers in our
educational systems. No claims are being made that we are discovering
anything new here – indeed, there is an element of flexibility in
‘traditional’ learning settings. You are not expected to follow
the recommendations in this guide slavishly; there are plenty of ‘exceptions
to the rules’, but they are intended to provide you with clear support
to help in finding solutions for your own working situation. The ambition
is to help to provide a solid foundation in this area which you can develop
to suit your own needs and interests. In Section 5, ‘Sources and
references’, we provide a recommended ‘core’ list of
further reading and resources for you to follow up on.
This guide is intended to help and encourage you to make more flexible
learning opportunities for your students, and to do so in an efficient
and sustainable way that will enable you and your colleagues to keep your
workloads under control. The guide advocates a pragmatic, rational, coherent
and educationally valid approach to flexible learning. It also subscribes
to the view that working in such complex environments as educational institutions
requires a holistic approach to understanding the problems and developing
solutions. Despite the adoption of the rhetoric of enterprise by educational
institutions and those who manage them (as we note in Section 4), there
is little use of business-like methods such as systems analysis or reliable
means of measuring what actually goes on. To effectively implement changes
such as flexible learning and e-learning in this environment needs a managerial
philosophy that moves beyond a simplistic concentration on outputs to
an understanding of process. In this respect, the education sector does
indeed have much to learn from some parts of the world of business.
As a rule, you should only think of authoring new content as a last resort.
Remember, the ‘value’ in flexible learning – as in face-to-face
teaching – is in the teaching and interaction with students and
creating the right conditions in which they can learn. It is a common
mistake to equate the creation and delivery of content with teaching (both
on-line and face to face) – it is not the same. Do not be afraid
to use textbooks and third-party resources to support your e-learning
content strategy; this is very common in the e-learning ‘hotspots’
of the USA and Australia. Following this strategy allows you and your
team to concentrate on teaching and developing your students’ understanding,
and avoids you getting sidetracked into content creation.
A quick note on terminology: we use both ‘student’ and ‘learner’ as terms in this guide. We tend to use the term ‘student’ from a provider’s perspective when we are talking about something that students use or consume, or if we have to do something for them or with them. We tend to use the term ‘learner’ when discussing or speculating about aspects of the learning process from an educational point of view.
The production of this guide has been funded by QAA. The guide reflects
the perspectives and needs of two very different HE institutions (HEIs)
– UHI and the University of Dundee – which both need more
flexibility in their course offerings, for different reasons. Dundee is
primarily a single campus-based university whereas UHI is a geographically
distributed federal organisation, some of whose partners also include
FE provision.
You can dip into the guide as you please. It has been written to support
this type of use and hence there is some repetition, as we do not assume
that you are reading it from start to finish. However, to get the most
out of it you should read the Introduction and Quick Start sections straight
through from start to finish at least once.
Figure 2.1: The relationship of flexible learning to other ‘genres’ of learning
There is no single definition for flexible learning within the literature. In fact, it is often used synonymously with the other terms shown in Figure 2.1 to encompass other approaches, including ‘open learning’, ‘distance learning’, ‘e-learning’ and so on. This is not surprising, as within any programme of study there may be elements of all of these modes of delivery. But this vagueness about definition and the use of terminology can be counterproductive, since an important question underpinning any definition is ‘who is asking?’ – ie ‘for whom is the learning flexible?’
We present here a useful model that we have adopted. It focuses on flexible
‘learning’ as having certain key characteristics; these are
described in the following section.
In this section we introduce a model of flexible learning based on the
work of Collis and Moonen (2004). They introduce the idea of there being
five basic ‘dimensions’ of flexibility (Table 2.1), which
can be further split down into 19 categories (Table 2.2).
As you will see below, the model is fairly straightforward and intuitive
and, perhaps most importantly, can help to support analysis and discussions
among those who are charged with providing flexibility. The grid in Table
2.2 summarises the model, which has been used with seven different programme
teams at UHI and the University of Dundee to provide a way for them to
self-assess the extent of flexibility in their programmes. The results
of four completed case studies are included in Appendix 10. The grid is
reproduced in an extended form in Appendix 3 for you to use as a self-assessment
tool. You will also find other useful tools and tips in the Appendices.
Five main dimensions can help to describe and measure the type and amount
of flexibility in a course, as shown in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: The five dimensions of flexibility
| Time |
| Content of the course |
| Entry requirements |
| Instructional approaches and resources |
| Delivery and logistics |
Figure 2.2: The five dimensions of flexibility
Each of these dimensions contains a continuum along which you can place your course offerings. The diagram in Figure 2.2 is presented as a visualisation tool for you and your colleagues. These five dimensions of flexible learning, which are further subdivided in Table 2.2, essentially represent a shift from teacher-led to learner-led educational processes and choices. This perspective reflects the drive for learners to have control over their own learning, and is supported by an educational philosophy (constructivism) that many lecturers in FE and HE subscribe to.
According to this model, learner choice must be regarded as a central
component of flexible learning – which gives us the answer to the
question posed earlier of ‘who is asking?’. In other words,
for whom is the learning flexible? This in turn provides a useful perspective
from which to assess and measure the type and degree of flexibility. But
perhaps the most important aspect is the potential to offer a shareable
model of flexible learning/teaching to those involved in implementation.
The ability of such constructs as our model to be used by the different
parts of an institution as a focus for discussions and shared meaning
is a potentially powerful one, and fits in with the views of a variety
of writers (Wenger, 1998; Conole, 2005).
Table 2.2: Dimensions of flexibility (from Collis and Moonen, 2004)
The dimensions of flexibility |
|
More fixed <<----------------------------------------------------------->>
More flexible |
|
| Time | <<-------- Fixed
| Flexible -------->> |
1 Starting and finishing a course |
|
2 Submitting assignments and interacting within the course |
|
| 3 Tempo/pace of studying | |
| 4 Moments of assessment | |
| Content | <<-------- Fixed | Flexible -------->> |
| 5 Topics of the course | |
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | |
| 7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) | |
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | |
| 9 Assessment standards and completion requirements |
|
| Entry requirements | <<-------- Fixed | Flexible -------->> |
| 10 Conditions for participation | |
| Instructional approach and resources | <<-------- Fixed | Flexible -------->> |
| 11 Social organisation of learning (face to face; group; individual) |
|
| 12 Language to be used during the course | |
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) |
|
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) |
|
| Delivery and logistics | <<-------- Fixed | Flexible -------->> |
| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | |
16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact |
|
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required |
|
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course |
|
| 19 Delivery channels for course information, content, communication |
|
What you know about teaching your subject is still very relevant. But
as we have already mentioned, there is a need for new design skills and
to work as a team which shares the same teaching materials. The amount
of contact that you and your colleagues will have with students on the
course will vary according to the design of the course and the options
you give to learners. You might have less contact with your students,
but instead invest the accumulated teaching expertise of yourself and
your colleagues in the actual design of the course. This approach takes
quite a bit of getting used to at first for those moving from ‘normal
teaching’ – it’s a bit like teaching by remote control
and can feel a bit disorientating. So this is why we stress the importance
of the support that a team can provide and the need to develop the appropriate
design and student management skills.
In Appendix 6 we have included some useful models of teaching from the
work of Paul Ramsden (Learning to Teach in Higher Education) and Dianna
Laurillard (Rethinking University Teaching), which are intuitive, useful
and capable of extension and modification to local needs. We would strongly
recommend their two books to those working in this area.
The outputs of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) e-learning
programme are also well worth a look. They address many of the pedagogic
questions we are discussing (see http://www.elearning.ac.uk/resources/).
For institutions the benefits may not be primarily financial (at least
not at first), but can include: access to new markets that would otherwise
be difficult to reach; retaining existing student groups; improving retention
and progression among students; catering for non-traditional students;
better use of physical resources such as labs and lecture halls; and better
use of human resources such as subject experts and lecturers and tutors.
An important driver for some institutions is the need to cater for an
increasingly diverse student population.
For students there can be a wider choice of subjects, study modes and
providers by making the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’
of learning more flexible. Increasingly important are more basic issues
such as the cost of the course, ways of paying (instalments etc), the
type and cost of course study materials, and the amount of on-line activity
that may be required. Flexibility over time and place of study and assessment
methods continue to be major factors for students. The ability to access
appropriate learning opportunities (certificated and non-certificated)
over the course of an employed lifetime which now typically involves several
career changes has been growing in importance over the last decade or
so. And the same increasingly applies to those not in paid work, where
changing lifestyles and situations can create new demands for access to
learning.
For students the new choices of which provider and what study mode bring
new responsibilities – especially how to pay for it all. Not all
students want to have a choice and some are not in a position to exercise
it. Support and guidance have vital roles to play for both learning providers
and students. In the UK, The Open University (OU) provides extensive support
and advice to prospective students to make sure that they make the right
choice for their circumstances. This upfront investment pays dividends
further down the line in terms of progression and retention, and contrasts
with arrangements for dealing with prospective students in ‘mainstream’
education.
In the popular vision of lifelong learning, students take more control
of their own learning. This is a fine ambition, but we need to recognise
that the capacity to do so varies at different points in an academic career.
There can be a danger of projecting an inappropriate learner model onto
prospective students. This happened during the e-learning bubble and the
ill-fated UK e-University (the UK e-U), in which the dominant model was
of an autonomous, self-motivated, confident, information technology (IT)
literate and financially comfortable student – which does not represent
the large majority of potential learners today. Instead, it is better
to recognise the increasingly diverse nature of the student population
and make plans to accommodate their needs. ‘Designing for diversity’
might be a good catchphrase, but doing it can be quite tricky.
For institutions the big challenge is making it work and doing so in a
way that is sustainable. We touch on some of these matters in Section
4. There is a considerable way to go for most of our institutions, where
internal communication and coordination is a major challenge and a ‘silo’
mentality among academic and service departments is often the norm.
Flexible learning presents some quite profound challenges to existing
institutional structures. In many of our institutions, accommodating e-learners
into existing administrative processes is still a big problem. A classic
example is the inability of the registry to process students quickly enough
for the central information/computer services to issue an ID card at the
start of their academic career or arrange membership of a new programme
module – a situation often exacerbated by the two service departments
having incompatible record-keeping systems operating on different timescales.
Even a leading global e-learning provider like the University of Southern
Queensland (USQ) experiences these kinds of problems. USQ has produced
an excellent case study (Postle et al, 2003), sponsored by the Australian
government, on introducing e-learning into traditional universities; we
have provided a link to it in Section 5. To cope with these kinds of problems,
bottom-up initiatives have produced a rich variety of ‘workarounds’
which testify to the ingenuity and determination of teaching staff. Unfortunately,
this kind of activity is often not sustainable, and the parent organisation
neither learns nor changes as a result.
An issue we face in discussions about flexible learning and e-learning
is that we tend to focus on the surface issues, and often the technical
ones, when the problem is really one of introducing pedagogic and structural
change into educational institutions. Universities and colleges are large,
complex, slow-moving and loosely constituted, with a high degree of autonomy
and independence at local levels. In research sponsored by the Economic
and Social Research Council, researchers from the University of Newcastle
upon Tyne (Pollock and Cornford, 2000) found that the real underlying
problem surrounding the introduction of technology into HE was a mismatch
and clash of organisational models and cultures. However, the change that
flexible learning and e-learning requires from institutions is highly
unlikely to be achieved by staff development alone. Both these forms of
learning require a more coherent, centralised and corporate style of organisation,
which conflicts with deeply entrenched pedagogic values and cultural attitudes
in the sector. There is an important role for top-down action here, which
is why we have included a link to a discussion of this issue by Professor
Mark Stiles in Appendix 5.
Designing for good-quality, efficient and economic flexible learning depends
on the experience, expertise and resources your team has at hand. It also
needs an acceptance that there has to be upfront investment in terms of
time and resources to make it work.
To help in conceptualising this design problem, picture it as existing
on a continuum of flexibility that runs from a very traditional ‘closed’
and inflexible face-to-face, campus-based course towards more ‘open’
and flexible learning opportunities. The two ends of the continuum might
be represented in an exaggerated manner as a ‘one-off’ approach
at the traditional end, with courses being ‘owned’ by individual
academics and tied down in terms of place and time. At the other end would
be a more reproducible ‘industrial’ process, where much more
effort goes into the design of the course and materials to make them more
flexible and easier to reproduce from year to year by different people.
Figure 3.1 represents this continuum.
Figure 3.1: A seven-stage continuum of flexibility
There are various levels at which teams may plan to develop their capacity
to make a course flexible. The seven-stage model really just represents
a conceptual ‘peg’ on which to hang our ideas about how to
develop whole programmes or courses. The degree to which courses are made
flexible may depend on the resources available, market demand and the
inherent nature of the subject matter, for example practical requirements
for access to specialist equipment and staff. The flexibility grid provides
a more detailed way of planning and analysing flexibility – see
Table 2.2 and Appendix 3.
The idea behind this is very simple: students are generally expected to
become more self-directed and independent as they progress through their
academic careers (Figure 3.2). The Scottish Credit and Qualifications
Framework (SCQF) provides a unified way of describing different aspects
of learning at different levels (see http://www.scqf.org.uk/index.asp).
Relevant aspects of learning that it describes are ‘Autonomy, accountability
and working with others’ and ‘Generic cognitive skills’.
Together these can be used at the 12 different levels of the SCQF to provide
a shareable model of student autonomy and learning. As the SCQF states:
‘These descriptors set out the characteristic generic outcomes of each level. They are intended to provide a general, shared understanding of each level and to allow broad comparisons to be made between qualifications and learning at different levels. They are not intended to give precise or comprehensive statements, and there is no expectation that every qualification or programme should have all of the characteristics. The descriptors have been developed through a series of consultations and are offered as a first working guide which will be revised in the light of feedback on their use.’ (SCQF, 2003; Appendix 9). |
We may quibble with the terminology, but the descriptors do indeed provide
the basis of a shared model that can be used to describe the general characteristics
at different levels from schoolwork to doctoral levels. By using these
as a guide in the student profiler we can plan for the degree of flexibility
that should be provided to suit the level of student development, and
– just as importantly – use it as a means of describing the
support that students may need at the different levels.
Note: each level is intended to describe an end result for where we want
get to with our students; we can use an earlier level to describe where
we think our students currently are. This provides a handy – and
most importantly for us – shareable way to describe where students
are and where we want to take them. In turn, it can provide valuable guidance
in helping us to decide what type of flexibility may be appropriate for
that level and, of course, the particular students we are dealing with.
The ability to provide adequate support and guidance to students to make
the best use of flexible learning opportunities is likely to be a key
factor in successful implementation (as the OU and other distance-learning
providers have recognised). It is likely that with an increasingly diverse
student population the amount of guidance and support will need to increase
from current levels.
Figure 3.2: Student profiler
These simple tools follow on from our use of the student profiler and
describe two important aspects of designing for flexibility: ‘teaching
blend’ (Figure 3.3) and ‘specialist and general staffing’
(Figure 3.4). Again, we use the SCQF as a basis. Note: it is up to you
to arrive at your own position on these diagrams. For instance, the teaching-blend
diagram for a particular course might be a flat-line plateau up to SCQF
level 5 (Standard Grade), which would indicate nearly 100 per cent face-to-face
teaching, but thereafter on higher-level courses would start to slope
down to indicate more on-line/independent study. You could also place
different courses on such a diagram.
Figure 3.3: Teaching blend and Figure 3.4: Type of teaching staff
The main point we wish to make here is that people often turn to technology
for solutions to problems that are not really technical, but rather managerial
and educational. We introduce the notion of the need to develop ‘educational
expertise’ which should lead to the correct use of technology. At
present, many people seem to hope that the reverse arrangement will work,
despite ample evidence otherwise.
According to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE), funded
by UK universities, the whole education sector has lived through the ‘e-learning
bubble’ of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (OBHE,
2003), which shared many of the same characteristics as the ‘dotcom
bubble’ of the same era.
This tendency found its ultimate expression to date in the collapse in
late 2004, with debts of around £100 million, of the government-backed
UK e-U, criticised as a ‘shameful waste of public money’ by
the chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Dr Ian Gibson.
For more see: http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,10577,1190470,00.html
The overarching educational and social delusion in this period was that
one, rather elitist, model of learning was promoted with a vision that
saw students as isolated, individualist, competitive, financially comfortable,
self-motivated and autonomous learners. It was believed that this model
could be mapped on to the whole sector. As the UK e-U discovered to its
cost, very few people (including the elite) are attracted to this mode
of learning. The more realistic mood now is for blended learning –
a mix of face-to-face techniques and flexible/distance learning supported
by technology. As the head of the Higher Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE) admits:
‘We still need to understand a lot more about how e-learning relates to conventional and traditional forms of learning. I think there was a time when some thought that e-learning would replace conventional learning. But the community’s understanding is now this is not the case. But it is also the general view that e-learning will supplement and complement traditional forms of learning. There is more to higher education, for example, than merely sitting in front of a computer screen.’ (Sir Howard Newby interviewed in JISC Inform, Winter 2005). |
Many organisations got their fingers burned in this period, and unfortunately many seem not to have learnt the right lessons. Like moths to a flame, politicians and managers are drawn to the illusory prospect of e-learning reducing costs in the education sector. As a result, money continues to be spent in the wrong places, creating ever more ‘content’ and infrastructure – because this is easy. The really tricky area is to address the process of teaching and learning itself. Technology is not central to the control of costs, but developing educational and institutional expertise certainly is.
The flexibility grid can be found in Appendix 3. As you will see, it is
a simple adaptation of the basic model of flexibility that we presented
in Table 2.2. We have introduced the idea of a range of flexibility for
each dimension and given some examples, and have also left empty columns
for you to fill in. We would stress that the examples we have given are
not meant to be authoritative, but are intended to be illustrative –
you can change them to suit your situation. The most useful thing about
this grid is that it gives you a way in which to share your ideas with
others. We used the grid in helping staff involved in seven very different
programmes of study at UHI and the University of Dundee to describe what
they saw as the degrees of flexibility in their individual programmes.
Obviously, there is a degree of subjectivity in such a self-audit tool,
but the action of analysing, recording and sharing that it involves is
a very useful development exercise. A helpful further step we would suggest
you consider is to involve students and get their views on the degrees
of flexibility on offer.
The grid can be used to help to decide and articulate what type and degree
of flexibility you want to aim for. In this sense, the model and grid
can be a tool to guide an implementation exercise by helping to develop
a target to aim for and how to attain it. However, there is one question
that this grid and indeed the overall model we are developing do not answer
(although they may help), and that is the hardest question of all in education
– why? There is an old proverb which says that the simplest questions
are the best, and this one is certainly in that category. Where can we
look for some guidance? As Ramsden (1992) observes about teaching in HE
in general:
‘Half the difficulty with doing it better is knowing what the real
problem is.’
We suggest that it is well worth taking time to consider your own situation,
what degree and type of flexibility may be needed, what may really be
possible and why you are considering this in the first place – ie
what are the drivers? We provide a bullet point list below to help in
getting you started on answering these questions. But before that we need
to return to an examination of the question ‘why?’. This might
seem like an unnecessary and time-wasting exercise with obvious answers.
As Ramsden observes, busy academics, heads of departments and managers
will tend to respond: ‘Don’t give me theory: just give me
something that works’. It is tempting to try to supply the answer
to this request, but we would agree with Ramsden that this approach is
roughly the reverse of the right way to go about things.
To help us to answer this question we suggest that after reading this
guide you should consult another guide called Effective networked learning
in higher education: notes and guidelines, produced by Professor Goodyear
and the Networked Learning in Higher Education Project at the Centre for
the Study of Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT), Lancaster University
(Goodyear et al, 2001). We refer to it in several parts of this guide
and recommend it highly. The authors make the very important point that
deciding to implement a change like e-learning or flexible learning is
a major undertaking that has very large implications. So thinking about
this question of ‘why?’ at the start is essential, and asking
basic questions about the purpose of your educational provision and your
institution, both now and in the future, is vital. In the diagram we have
reproduced from the Lancaster guidance (Figure 4.3 below), the elements
which would help to answer the question ‘why?’ would be ‘philosophy’
and ‘organisational context’. As the Lancaster guidance points
out, carrying out this kind of exercise at the start helps to reveal differences
in outlook, assumptions and values that, left unattended, can wreck the
whole exercise:
‘But we would claim that some attention to the enacted philosophy of an innovative teaching project is required, at least in start-up and self-evaluation activities. Deep and unexplored philosophical differences within a team can lead to fatal divergence in the day-to-day operational work. It is not uncommon to find some members of a team believing that learners are poor at organising themselves and learn best by being fed information in small amounts, while other members of the team want to promote active, student-managed learning. The sooner such discrepancies are found, discussed and reconciled, the less likely is catastrophic failure.’ (Goodyear et al, 2001) |
The collapse of UK e-U would be a good example of this failing.
The drivers for such change can be many and varied. Here is a list to
get you started thinking about them; your situation may produce additional
drivers:
Being able to create and share educational designs for our courses is
an important foundation stone for introducing flexibility. Currently,
not many teachers do this, and nor are they required to do so. Current
practice might be characterised as the ‘teaching as telling’
scenario, which is consistent with the ‘subject specialist’
model of amateur teaching that has historically dominated HE in the UK.
The associated scholarly culture that ‘trickles down’ into
the student experience is often one of isolated, individualistic and competitive
activity (Crook, 1994).
The experience of students in this kind of environment is often unsatisfactory.
Typically, a student on a course passes through the hands of different
lecturers all teaching from their own notes, not working as a team from
the same ‘script’. This has the effect of fragmenting the
learning experience and subject matter. It also places a higher load on
the student than is necessary, and presents obvious barriers to non-traditional
students. It is, however, all too easy to criticise this situation. There
are many reasons for the tenacity of such traditional models of teaching,
including, ironically, attempts at reform by introducing business models
into the public sector.
Being able to abstract and share our educational designs is a key component
of flexible teaching. Of course, teaching and design activities can only
take us so far. We need to think about what the learner may be doing,
and all of this is informed by the underpinning educational philosophy
at work. It is worth pointing out in passing that moving to the use of
flexible methods and the now closely related e-learning techniques forcefully
brings to the surface the good and bad aspects of that underpinning philosophy.
For those of us new to this area, or perplexed by it, here are some important
points to consider.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to make lots
of web pages in order to ‘do’ flexible learning, or commission
lots of fancy interactive multimedia. If you do, fine, but that’s
not the end of the story; it’s just the start. And before we go
any further in this area, it’s important to emphasise that we should
always start by seeing if we can use or adapt existing resources, so start
with a visit to your library. A common mistake in this area is to assume
that we no longer need libraries, since there are growing on-line collections
of digital resources that can be used for teaching. However, your librarian
might be able to point you in the right direction to more relevant resources
and can advise you on terms of use.
As a rule, you should only think of authoring new content as a last resort
– remember that the ‘value’ in flexible learning (as
in face-to-face teaching) is in the teaching and interaction with students
and creating the right conditions in which they can learn. It is a common
mistake to equate the creation and delivery of content with teaching (both
on-line and face-to-face) – it is not the same. Do not be afraid
to use textbooks and third-party resources to support your e-learning
content strategy; this is very common in the e-learning ‘hotspots’
of the USA and Australia. Following this strategy allows you and your
team to concentrate on teaching and developing your students’ understanding
– and avoids getting sidetracked into content creation.
The commonplace error that ‘the content is the learning’ really
just represents a still-common idea about teaching in HE. This is what
Ramsden (1992) describes as the lowest form of teaching in HE: the pushing
of information at passive consumers, sometimes ‘jazzed up’
with a bit of technology. Of course content is required in HE learning,
but it has to be accompanied by activity and interactions with the teacher
and often other students. If we see teaching generally, and on-line in
particular, as a process or system that consumes or uses content during
a course’s life cycle as learners pass through it, we move towards
a better understanding of the role of content in supporting teaching and
learning.
It is quite possible to have successful flexible learning modules that
are ‘content lite’. An example of such a module is one that
references extracts from a textbook and directs students to read them
on a weekly basis, and also provides links to relevant public websites
such as government legislation or free public collections. Students are
given tasks to do individually and collectively, and they receive feedback
from each other and the teacher. Seems too simple doesn’t it? Yet
these modules exist in UHI and elsewhere and students actually learn from
them – the value is in the design and the teaching. If you are on
a tight budget, this model has many attractions. Sharing such a course
entails producing items such as teaching aims and learning outcomes, describing
the teaching values and activities; a teaching plan with tutor notes,
for a tutor to teach from; assessment criteria and worked examples; and
sample feedback to students for common problems.
Sustainability is something we have not often thought about in mainstream
teaching. But because flexible teaching and learning is a move away from
what is currently considered the mainstream and is frequently operated
on a separate basis in our institutions, we have a greater need to think
about how we can keep it going. Here are some useful questions to consider.
• Can the module be run repeatedly without major alteration (for efficiency), for several years?
• Is there going to be enough continuing student demand to cover the costs?
• Will the fees/income cover the costs of operation?
• Do you know the real costs of operation? Mainstream course costs are often far from transparent or even discoverable; they are buried deep in an institutional accounting system and so not available. Flexible courses tend to be ‘bolted on’ and may be more visible to the ‘bean counters’, and hence are an easy target for cuts.
• Is the teacher workload realistic? Does it rely on enthusiasm and commitment? If so, what happens when that runs out or people move on?
• Can the module be taught without the original author?
• It is important to think about continued access to any linked learning resources and whether they are copyright cleared for the period. Is a continuing institutional subscription needed for any linked electronic materials?
• How self-contained is your course? Is it connected to other courses that might change? Can you design your course so that it has no dependencies?
• Where are the materials and supporting notes going to be stored?
• What arrangements do you have for course evaluation, and how does it feed back into the operation?
• What arrangements do you have for course maintenance and redesign?
Being able to answer these questions implies a well-developed evaluation
framework that can feed back into the planning process.
QAA provides distance-learning guidelines that are very useful, and it
makes excellent sense to incorporate them into our design, development
and delivery activities. If we do this, we make the self-audit process
for quality assurance much easier. The guidelines can be found at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeofpractice/distancelearning/default.asp
We recommend that they become part of the toolkit of anyone undertaking
flexible learning and e-learning.
Four main components are required to support flexibility:
• technology
• pedagogy
• strategy
• organisation.
These components are really the building blocks for providing flexibility,
both in learning and in teaching. They all need to be addressed and they
are all inter-related (Figure 4.1). We expand on this topic in the following
sections and make some observations about the components and their relationships.
Figure 4.1: The ‘building blocks’ of flexibility
Technology is best seen as an enabling infrastructure that needs to be
reliable, adequate and usable (networks, VLEs and so forth). The technology
must not be seen in isolation or as an end in itself (a tendency among
IT service departments). It is essential to see technology in the context
of users and an integrated system that works with the other three components
of flexibility. Goodyear et al (2000) in Effective networked learning
in higher education: notes and guidelines make the interesting and challenging
observation that it is possible to deliver this kind of flexible learning
using a ‘minimalist’ technical approach, as long as you have
the educational expertise to support it. There is plenty of anecdotal
evidence that this is just what some HE and FE teachers and departments
are doing with email, free discussion boards and the like – often
outside existing ‘official’ institutional administrative and
technical structures, which are perceived as being too slow, inadequate
or unresponsive.
Pedagogy is usefully defined as the ‘art and science’ of teaching.
We have already mentioned some of the new pedagogic skills and approaches
that are required to support flexibility (Section 3.6). In addition, we
can usefully employ the idea of ‘pedagogic approaches’ to
develop a set of categories that can be used to describe and measure flexibility,
such as:
In addition to the pedagogic approaches referred to above, there is a
useful concept of the overall model(s) of teaching and learning that may
underpin the approaches which might be adopted and justify them. Our preferred
and recommended models of teaching would be those based on the work of
Paul Ramsden (1992) and Diana Laurillard (1994) because of their clarity,
intuitive appeal and ability to incorporate many pedagogic models, support
analysis and enable sophisticated approaches to teaching. We explain these
models below and in the Appendices.
Ramsden introduces three theories of teaching in HE – which also
have application in FE – that need to coexist and build on each
other to supply a complete learning experience. They are:
In Learning to Teach in Higher Education (1992), Ramsden develops his
ideas and provides some well-argued, clear and (in our opinion) passionate
ideas for improving the quality of teaching in HE. His work on design,
assessment and evaluation is particularly useful and would be an excellent
preparation for reading the very helpful Module and Programme Development
Handbook (2002) by Jennifer Moon. A more detailed discussion of Ramsden’s
theories is presented in Appendix 6.
Diana Laurillard’s conversational model of instruction builds on and extends that of Ramsden. It should be noted that this model is intended for HE, and is derived from Pask’s ‘conversational’ theory of learning (Pask, 1975) and her own stress on the observable aspects of teaching and learning (ie a phenomenographic approach). Like the work of Ramsden, Laurillard’s model is both intuitively attractive and capable of considerable sophistication. It serves as a good foundation for analysis, design and evaluation of teaching activities and courses. From it she has developed a 12-stage model of teaching and learning which covers the key points in her model of the instructional process. Figure 4.2 summarises Laurillard’s model; a more detailed diagram containing all 12 stages appears in Appendix 6.
Figure 4.2: Overview of Laurillard’s conversational model of teaching showing the basic teacher/student interactions set within the overall ‘learning flow’ indicated by the circle and arrows
Laurillard’s model of instruction concentrates on the observable
interactions between tutor and student (note that ‘tutor’
can be a human agent or a learning resource which takes that role, such
as a text, a simulation or a video). She rejects the ‘classical’
transmission of abstract ideas (which is still widespread in HE) and instead
stresses the need for students to learn through experience. She puts the
emphasis on the mediated and conversational nature of learning, after
the work of Vygotsky and Pask (for more information, see http://tip.psychology.org/pask.html
and http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html).
At this point it is worth mentioning that very useful guidance for implementing
e-learning at institutional and individual level is provided in Effective
networked learning in higher education: notes and guidelines (Goodyear
et al, 2001), as it deals with many of these issues in detail. Produced
by Professor Peter Goodyear and the Networked Learning in HE team at the
Centre for the Study of Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT), Lancaster
University, it was commissioned by JISC through its Committee for Awareness
Liaison and Training (JCALT). This guide is widely used in the UK and
abroad and is well regarded by those concerned with the pedagogic aspects
of e-learning. It is free and is highly recommended, and can be found
at this web address: http://csalt.lancs.ac.uk/jisc/
The guide gives a useful diagram (Figure 4.3) for describing the relationships between the high-level aspects of pedagogic models and frameworks and the practical work of teaching. The Lancaster team make the observation that it is not often that lecturers/teachers and institutions think about the pedagogic models and philosophy of what they do, but that it makes very good sense to do so before embarking on the kind of major changes involved in adopting flexible learning and e-learning. More detail explaining the components of this framework is available in Effective networked learning at the web address referred to above.
Figure 4.3: Pedagogical framework, educational setting, organisational
context (reproduced from Goodyear et al, 2001)
The difficult business of introducing change into large, complex organisations is increasingly seen as the main issue in flexible learning and e-learning. We have seen many instances where well-thought-out pedagogic approaches and strategies using tried and tested technologies fail because people would not or could not use them. Without addressing these implementation issues at the level of the institution we shall be restricted to staying at pioneering work at ground level. To progress we need to understand the context; have an effective implementation strategy which deals with management and policy issues as well as a method for involving lecturers and teachers, using incentives; and effective management. This process will play out differently in different contexts.
The institutional framework affects the other components (technology, pedagogy and implementation). Understanding the management structure (real and imagined) of the institution is clearly vital, but so too is the need to see the institution in terms of its requirements, its component cultures and the positions of key people – this is essential for any successful change.
Collis and Moonen (2004) have some good advice about introducing flexible
learning, based on their own experiences. The following is a short summary.
• Be clear and specific – in particular, avoid hype and generalisations. Express goals in measurable forms so that progress can be evaluated.
• Flexibility implies a move to greater student autonomy and responsibility. Make sure that the pedagogy and administration can foster and support this move.
• Recognise when a move towards flexibility becomes inevitable.
• Have a plan for change, and remember that change in these institutions can take a long time and be an iterative process. Be on the lookout for unintended consequences and adapt the plan accordingly.
• The influence of key people is critical.
• Have support and development activities and materials just in time for the task in hand – without a practical need, staff are unlikely to learn.
• Make sure that any use of technology is not restricted to enthusiasts.
• Don’t try to attempt too much at once.
• Try to adopt technology systems that can support a wide range of flexible learning – this makes adaptation easier.
• Keep the pace of change manageable, as overloading lecturers, teachers and service departments can be counterproductive.
• Think about using students as an educational resource – they can help to produce new learning materials for the course.
• The role of lecturers and teachers moves from didactic towards that of activity planning/designing, monitoring and quality control of a pre-made course. Managing assistant tutors is an important development.
• Course design should concentrate on creating learning activities and opportunities. Try to use existing course content and learning resources as much as possible.
• Try to measure the right things – people often measure what is easy, not what is useful. Retention, progression, student results and meaningful student feedback are good, but so too are ratios of students to staff, cost of learning resources and student time spent on tasks.
• Technology will not save time or money in the short term.
• Identify the factors that matter most to the different stakeholders. Measure the amount of relative change in each factor to evaluate progress.
It is common for new initiatives to be ‘bolted on’ (Twigg, 2005) to existing structures, and this is often made possible by extra funding or enthusiasm. A common outcome is that once the funding stops or the enthusiasts move on, the system reverts to ingrained norms of practice. To avoid this tendency to institutional entropy we need to (a) understand how the organisation actually works, and (b) intervene in it to achieve sustainable change. Currently, most activity is in the bottom-up approach; more needs to be done in a top-down manner. A good foundation for this is understanding the views and concerns of the different actors and stakeholders in a more holistic and integrated manner. To do this well, it helps greatly to be able to have a shareable mental model of how we think our institutions work. By doing this we have been able to develop analysis and planning tools. We describe the process in an article in Appendix 11, which provides some web links to working examples of such tools in the TrustDR project (looking at the legal aspects of managing e-learning).
As well as the all-important learner’s perspective described earlier, three other important perspectives of actors within the institutional provider need to inform our exploration and understanding of flexibility. These are:
As you can see from the above descriptions, this hierarchy of actors has to deal with increasingly detailed operating contexts as we move towards the teaching level. As the TrustDR project’s literature review makes clear, the successful implementation and ‘mainstreaming’ of flexible learning requires these different institutional levels to be in alignment and to work as a coherent whole (Normand and Littlejohn, 2006). Based on this solid foundation we have built our model.
For now, the main point to be made is that these different levels in an
institution naturally tend to have different perspectives or ‘filters’
on the process of flexible learning:
To develop our model we have taken the work from the project’s literature
review and built on it by adding the work of van der Klink and Jochems
(2004) regarding the successful implementation of e-learning, which we
think applies equally well to flexible learning. They suggest adopting
four perspectives at each level, as described below.
A technological view
This perspective takes account of the use of technology in such a way
that it can support actors at different levels to carry out their functions
and achieve their targets. Until now, the premise has been that supplying
staff and students with an adequate infrastructure would be enough to
improve educational programmes; this has not been upheld. Technical aspects
have been focused on without understanding how they would support pedagogy
and strategic goals or taking into account the organisational context.
A strategic view
The strategic perspective focuses on organisational strategy and business
processes that have to occur to support the change, and how embedded they
can become in the organisation. E-learning cannot be regarded as an isolated
issue – it is expensive and impacts on a large number of institutional
processes, and good reasons are needed for implementing it. Awareness
of what might realistically be delivered is needed, and clear goals are
required in relation to internal strengths and weaknesses and external
threats and opportunities.
A pedagogical view
This view is needed to determine the sensible use of the technology. A
considerable number of questions have to be answered, ranging from the
extremely practical to the more philosophical. Van der Klink and Jochems
(2004) recommend starting by rethinking views of learning, instruction
and teaching, to encourage staff to think beyond their current frameworks.
Interestingly, Goodyear et al (2001) also recommend this approach and
provide a very useful discussion on it, which we would recommend highly.
It has also been adopted by the University of Southern Queensland in Australia
(Postle et al, 2003).
An organisational view
The organisational perspective includes the ability to identify and evaluate
the interplay between personal, departmental, cultural and professional
viewpoints played out within an institutional context. The introduction
of e-learning is either an innovation – usually a bottom-up and
non-sustainable activity, which accounts for much of the present scene
– or a transformational change requiring top-down involvement and
affecting all aspects of the organisation. In the first scenario, little
changes – although tensions will increase but be unresolved. In
the second scenario, the roles, responsibilities and relations of the
departments and individuals in the organisation are strongly impacted
on and will change.
On this conceptual basis we have come up with a simple yet comprehensive
organisational model which is intuitive and can be easily adapted and
extended to describe most educational institutions. This organisational
model might also usefully fulfil an analytical and diagnostic role for
those tasked with implementing flexible learning in an institution.
Figure 4.4 illustrates the model. The top two levels might be described
as ‘flexible delivery’, with ‘flexible teaching’
below; ‘flexible learning’ is the perspective that the learner
brings to the combined institutional offerings. The fact that the three
levels of institutional organisation are in alignment indicates that they
are working well and coherently to deliver flexible learning opportunities
– the vertical lines indicate the channels of communication of the
four perspectives. The significance of each of the perspectives would
naturally vary across the different levels of any institution. But as
with our model of flexible learning ‘dimensions’, this organisational
model is potentially useful as an internal communication tool, and more
work is planned to develop it. See Appendix 11 for more about this model
and its development into analysis, planning and implementation tools.
Figure 4.4: Institutional perspectives on flexible learning
The ‘marketisation’ of parts of the public sector has had
many unintended side effects. Many of those managing educational institutions
are encouraged by the prevailing political climate to use the vocabulary
of enterprise, with terms such as ‘customers’ (students) and
‘value added’ (learning), ‘business plan’ (new
course proposal) and ‘business processes’ (administration).
This level of mystification can make rational analysis and discussion
difficult, and fits nicely into traditional patterns of institutional
obfuscation that make change difficult. Thus the introduction of business
rhetoric may become a tool of those determined to resist change and accountability.
It is notable that the ability to measure the actual activities of institutions
is mainly restricted to crude budgetary items. In fact this budgetary
focus is often rather coarse-grained and functions only at the level of
the department and above.
Few, if any, institutions are able to track and describe the cost of a
single course or the cost per student, or the efficiency of teaching staff.
This situation understandably makes analysis, evaluation and planning
quite difficult. Interestingly, Ramsden (1992) makes a powerful case for
the role of careful, thoughtful evaluation in improving teaching, in order
to provide useful feedback for educational development and improvement
at an individual and institutional level.
The situation is further confounded in HE by the loose and decentralised
organisational structures, which can make communication, planning and
coordinating change difficult. In this context the adoption of flexible
and e-learning is usually an add-on to existing structures, when what
is needed is a structural change to be able to take advantage of new technology
and teaching methods. Not surprisingly the result is often not satisfactory,
as van der Klink and Jochems (2004) put it:
‘The current situation can be best described as high-level ambitions with poor implementation.’ |
In relation to e-learning in particular the growing realisation is that it is not very sensible to invest in learning technology and not change the way we work. It is a bit like a company building a new production line and continuing to use handcraft production techniques. Yet many of our institutions and teachers find themselves in this situation. But this is not surprising: tradition, dominant groups and vested interests can delay and obstruct the adoption and dissemination of new knowledge, as the history of science shows (Kuhn, 1996). Implementation is likely to pose some significant challenges in the form of institutional and professional change. As Mayes (1995) reminds us:
‘Education is a social and political system, and the checks and balances that keep the system working may not be shifted by any technology.’ |
So we should not be under any illusions about the scale of the task involved in implementing flexible learning at institutional level; it requires high-level strategic engagement in a sustained, coherent manner. One of the current tendencies in our institutions is to avoid this engagement (effectively a type of ‘displacement activity’) by concentrating on comparatively trivial problems such as the production of learning materials content, or debating the relative values of open-source VLEs versus commercial products. This is understandable, as planning for introducing different employment contracts, introducing team teaching and sharing of teaching materials, making the different service departments talk to each other, and ensuring that all the administration processes and service units can keep up with the needs of a flexible learning system are not what many institutional players and managers would find an attractive option.
Hence considerable political skill and determination are required by those
in management positions in order to implement flexible learning successfully,
as well as a clear, well-informed strategic vision to guide it. This activity
and – most importantly – the required targets, in clearly
expressed forms, need to be factored into the development of institutional
teaching, learning and assessment strategies. These strategies need to
be expressed in clear, direct terms and linked to targets which are actually
evaluated, rather than the rather anodyne statements that are sometimes
produced.
Teaching in HE has traditionally been accorded a fairly low status, yet
for most institutions income derived from teaching is the major source
of institutional wealth, with figures of 80-90 per cent and above being
not uncommon. So for most universities, teaching is the de facto core
business activity. Yet the ‘marketisation’ of research in
the form of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has had the effect
of diverting institutional management away from teaching into the pursuit
of a dwindling pool of research money. As a result, the already low importance
and prestige attached to teaching in academia have dropped even further.
As financial constraints bring this reality to the surface, managements
are increasingly realising the strategic deficit in their position (Sampson,
2004) which is leaving them vulnerable to demographic and market change.
Collis and Moonen (2004) make a persuasive case for moving away from the
current concentration on coarse-grained financial data. They offer a useful
discussion on the difficulties of choosing what to measure and the problems
in arriving at meaningful conclusions in such a complex environment. They
propose a more meaningful and useful set of measures which take into account
the following perspectives:
This topic is beyond the scope of our current guide, but we shall be doing
further work on it for future versions and connecting to recent work in
the UK and elsewhere.
Introducing flexible learning in this type of context is bound to be an
iterative process, and it is important to be able to gather enough of
the right kinds of information to guide those charged with implementation.
Action research provides one way of getting the required information in
an effective way to provide feedback loops on the process of change. You
can find out more about using action research in Appendix 2.
As mentioned above, more needs to be done on examining the ‘making
it work’ aspect of introducing and sustaining change. As Mayes (1995)
points out, our educational institutions are part of the wider political,
economic and social web of our society, which is itself going through
a period of rapid change, aspects of which are being contested. The response
of our educational institutions so far to larger, more diverse numbers
of students and fewer resources has been ‘more of the same’
(Twigg, 2005): larger lectures, longer teaching days, put notes on the
web, create ever more ‘content’ (but not share and use it),
use VLEs to mimic classrooms, continue to teach as individuals, and use
expensive academics to teach at a low level.
As in any period of rapid change, the situation is often marked by contradiction,
paradox, opportunities and threats to the various players. The path for
those who want to change this situation needs some clear thinking, tact
and patience, and is not for the faint-hearted. Here is some useful general
advice from the economist J K Galbraith (2005):
‘I have learnt that to be right and useful, one must accept
a continuing divergence between approved belief – what I have
elsewhere called conventional wisdom – and the reality. And
in the end, not surprisingly, it is the reality that counts… |
With this general advice to guide us, we would recommend you to look at the guidance provided by Laurillard (1994) on developing an institutional framework. The guidance she gives is still extremely relevant and useful. Like Ramsden (1992), she stresses the need to take a holistic view, to see the institution as an interconnected ‘educational system’, and for that system to be able to learn about itself through proper evaluation of its own activities.
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1 Blended learning template
2 Using action research – an important aspect of understanding,
evaluating and promoting flexible approaches to teaching and learning
3 The flexibility grid
4 Benchmarking e-learning: an overview for UK HE
5 Embedding staff development in e-learning in the production
process and using policy to reinforce its effectiveness
6 Some useful models of teaching – to get started
with
7 The need for institutional and professional change to
accommodate technology – a staff development model mapped to the
uses of learning objects and learning design technologies
8 Discussion points from Digitalinsite
9 The student profiler
10 Case-study summaries
11 The organisational model
| A Teacher/tutor activity | B Student activity |
C Teaching and learning materials and resources |
D Teaching topic, concept, knowledge, etc |
E Learning outcomes (whole or partial) supported |
F Formative or summative assessment |
G VLE service – or classroom requirements: content delivery, discussion, chat, private mail, test, share files etc |
|
| 1 | |||||||
| 2 | |||||||
| 3 | |||||||
| 4 |
The idea behind this template is very simple and similar to many lesson-planning tools. In particular, it is meant to support teamwork involved in developing learning designs and to help in providing documentation to help others to pick up a course and redesign it if necessary. It is intended that the user would alter this template to their needs.
The template can be used for different time periods, from a lesson up to a complete course. Obviously, longer time periods involve more top-level information, while a weekly template might provide more lower-level detail, and a ‘class’ or lesson template would be more concerned with detailed pedagogic activity and tactics.
The column headings break the teaching and learning activities down into related chunks and provide a way for us to plan and record our designs – or, if you like, to choreograph the actions of students and teachers in relation to the resources and services they are going to make use of.
The template only allows brief entries – a good thing in our view. The letters at the head of the columns and the numbers at the start of the rows allow us to reference any square on the grid (eg B1) to a Microsoft Word document, where more detailed information can be entered.
With this grid, the course reference number and any additional ‘grid square’ documents, we have a simple but useful design and reference system that can support individual or group work. Most importantly, it supplies a design archive for each course, to make maintenance easier.
This brief guide to action research does not seek to replicate the many
excellent texts and guides on the process of general educational action
research. It notes the importance of action research to the development
of an understanding of flexible approaches to teaching and learning, and
gives some guidance on key steps and considerations. Further resources
are indicated if you decide that this is a possible route for you to usefully
pursue and integrate with a reflective approach to evaluation.
Carr and Kemmis provide a classic definition of action research:
‘Action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out.’ (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p162) |
Many action researchers are drawn to this understanding of the term because
it is firmly located in the realm of the practitioner and is tied to self-reflection.
As a way of working it is very closely linked to the concept of reflective
practice as developed by writers such as Schon (1983).
It is also perhaps important to think about what is not considered to
be action research. Ferrance (2000) outlines in concise terms how we can
think about this:
‘Action research is not what usually comes to mind when we hear the word “research”. Action research is not a library project where we learn more about a topic that interests us. It is not problem-solving in the sense of trying to find out what is wrong, but rather a quest for knowledge about how to improve. Action research is not about doing research on or about people, or finding all available information on a topic looking for the correct answers. It involves people working to improve their skills, techniques and strategies. Action research is not about learning why we do certain things, but rather how we can do things better. It is about how we can change our instruction to impact students.’ |
The flexible organisation of programmes, particularly those enabled by the use of technology, can have a level of complexity that is often underestimated and determined by implicit and explicit barriers and drivers. The main text of this guide to flexible learning unpacks some of these factors.
The development and implementation of successful approaches to flexible
learning and teaching often depend on a team approach across traditional
support and academic areas within an organisation, and to students’
and possibly employers’ actions outside the direct planned learning
environment. Shared vision and understanding of the aims and objectives,
learning environments, business processes, resourcing requirements and
teaching and learning approaches can be more complex in this less-established
delivery context.
Although not demanded by action research, it is important to involve a
relevant team in any collaborative research or evaluation activity when
seeking understanding of the processes and interactions that can be used
to inform pedagogic effectiveness, organisational efficiency and a positive
student experience. The importance of a team approach to designing, developing
and delivering flexible programmes is particularly rich in potential for
improving our understanding of this area. Three interlinked perspectives
of context, process and technology (Collis and Moonen, 2004) and the three-level
management ‘lens’ model proposed by Normand and Littlejohn
(2006) could, for example, be used to inform an approach to action research.
This can identify useful collaboration and focus at a horizontal level,
or in a vertical slice through the three management levels of institutional
management, operational management and teaching and learning management.
Our area of interest and concern is with approaches that integrate action
and reflection. The knowledge gained in enquiry is directly relevant to
the issues being studied, and there should be opportunities for increased
collaboration by all those involved in the research. Approaches to action
research should assist practitioners to develop skills of reflective practice
and help cross-organisational members to develop communities of enquiry,
as well as contribute to wider shared understanding of important factors.
This form of action research adopts a methodical, iterative approach involving
identification of problems, action planning, implementation, evaluation
and reflection (Figure 2.1). The number of iterations necessary depends
on context and need.
Figure 2.1: Action research as an iterative process (from Carr and Kemmis, 1986)
Action research puts educators in the dual role of producer of educational theory and user of that theory. This is both a way of producing knowledge about higher education and further education learning and teaching, and a powerful means of improving learning and teaching practice. No separation need be made between the design and delivery of teaching, the process of researching these activities, and reflective evaluation, thereby bringing theory and practice closer together.
Decide on a focus. The general idea may stem from considering a new idea
or the recognition that existing practice falls short of aspiration. The
question should:
• be a higher-order question – not a yes/no
• be stated in common language, avoiding jargon
• be concise
• be meaningful
• not already have an answer.
Develop a plan to gain insights. Who can best inform your area of focus?
Get early involvement from the ‘team’ in planning a methodology.
As action research is carried out in real-life situations, agree ethical
considerations of involvement and confidentiality. Check your own organisation’s
policy on research ethics. What is feasible, reliable and capable of interpretation
and analysis?
Collect and act on results. Using the information from data collection
and a review of current literature, design a plan of action that allows
you to make a change and study that change. It is important to alter only
one variable, so that possible resultant changes are not too confused.
Analyse the data by looking for patterns or themes across the evidence.
What conclusions can you draw from the emerging picture of this particular
situation?
Next steps and iterations: are there still outstanding questions and areas
for improvement? How can you amend or extend the methodology to further
inform actions?
Report on what you have learned. A key component of action research is
sharing what you have learned. A number of less formal techniques such
as posters, peer presentations, blogs or web reporting can be used, as
well as the traditional publication routes. The dissemination of findings
from action research concerning flexible learning is best shared in a
spirit of teamwork, evaluation and planning for future enhanced understanding
and action.
If you are new to action research, keep your enthusiasm and inherent interest
in ‘why’ and ‘how’. Contact someone in your organisation
who is experienced in action research and can be a mentor, or can point
you in the direction of suitable support.
The following resources give more detailed perspectives on getting started
in action research.
Resources
Coghlan D and Brannick D (2000) Doing Action Research in your own Organisation,
London: Sage
McNiff J, Whitehead J and Lomax P (2003) You and Your Action Research
Project, London: Routledge
Somekh B (2006) Action Research: A Methodology for Change and Development,
London: OU Press
Zuber-Skerritt O (1982) Action Research in Higher Education, London: Kogan
Page
References
Carr W and Kemmis S (1986) Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and
Action Research, Basingstoke: Falmer Press
Collis B and Moonen J (2004) Flexible Learning in a Digital World (2nd
edition), Abingdon: Routledge Falmer
Ferrance E (2000) Action Research, Providence, Rhode Island: LAB at Brown
University (http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/act_research.pdf)
Normand C and Littlejohn A (2006) A model for analysis and implementation
of flexible programme delivery, Gloucester: QAA (includes a literature
review)
Schon D (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in
Action, New York: Basic Books
| Not flexible | Medium | Very flexible | |||
| Time | |||||
| 1 Starting and finishing a course | Once an academic year | At the start of every term or semester | Any time | ||
| 2 Submitting assignments and interacting within the course | Assignment deadlines fixed and set times for interaction | Assignment deadlines and times for interaction are within stated brackets of time | Assignment deadlines and times for interaction are negotiable | ||
| 3 Tempo/pace of studying | Materials and tasks fixed – revealed on a weekly basis to students | All tasks and materials available to students at start; studying happens within broadly stated phases, allowing some leeway | Up to students | ||
| 4 Moments of assessment | Fixed | Adjustable within limits | Negotiable with students | ||
| Content | |||||
| 5 Topics of the course | Fixed | Some choice/options | Broadly negotiable | ||
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | Fixed | Some variability allowed | Can be completed in any sequence | ||
| 7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) | Fixed | Mixed, to suit the subject matter and institutional constraints | Students can choose the orientation that suits them | ||
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | Fixed | Core materials with options, and students allowed/expected to use other materials |
Students able to choose from a wide variety of sources | ||
| 9 Assessment standards and completion requirements | Fixed | Choice of assessment methods allowed, with reference to stated learning outcomes. Completion possible by a number of routes | Assessment criteria and methods negotiable, completion possible by a number of routes | ||
Entry requirements |
|||||
| 10 Conditions for participation | Fixed – a particular qualification or course is required for entry | A range of proofs of prior learning is accepted and accredited | No conditions on participation | ||
| Instructional approach and resources | |||||
| 11 Social organisation of learning (face-to-face; group; individual) | Fixed, often connected to institutional patterns of lecture – tutorial – seminar – essay and so on |
Some degree of choice and combination allowed | Course can be completed by a number of different routes which can be mixed and matched by students | ||
| 12 Language to be used during the course | One language | One language with one or more options – usually a range of three or so | Available in a wide range of languages | ||
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) | Fixed, usually instructor and institution centred | Most courses now have an on-line component, if only as web-link resources. Some degree of peer-to-peer instruction | Wide range of modes of access to resources and types of resources, including peers and earlier cohorts’ records | ||
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) | Fixed – usually around an institutional regime |
Can be determined to a degree by students, from a predetermined list of options | Can be designed and customised by students | ||
| Delivery and logistics | |||||
| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | Fixed time and place according to a timetable | Some flexibility, within limits – often related to mode of access such as a VLE | Course can be completed without ever having to visit the institution or meet a tutor | ||
| 16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact | Fixed and restricted range – academic office hours, tutorials, departmental secretaries | Wider range, including on-line peer forums and email to specialist academics, and access to course tutors | Wide range and adjustable to suit students’ needs, access to frequently asked questions (FAQs) and previous cohorts’ work | ||
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required | Tutor, secretary, institutional counselling, limited assessment feedback – face-to-face mode and print | Peer, academic and administrative support, study skills, more detailed assessment feedback, possible access to FAQs and previous cohorts’ work – VLE on-line, email, phone | All of the preceding plus the ability to specify type and mode of support required | ||
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course | Fixed place – face to face | Blended – some face to face and some on-line work; different locations possible | Location and technology for participating can be negotiated |
||
| 19 Delivery channels for course information, content, communication |
Fixed – notice-boards in department and lectures |
Mixture of face to face, on-line | Can be negotiated |
By Paul Bacsich
There is increasing interest from UK HE institutions and sector agencies
– HEFCE, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and JISC ¬–
in the use of benchmark self-assessment toolkits by an institution and
groups of partner institutions for analysing and comparing their level
of good practice with e learning. See in particular http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/benchmarking.htm
This overview document reports on work by the author which has analysed
the main traditions and proposes a ‘Pick & Mix’ model
which the HE sector is encouraged to discuss and refine. It is based on
a number of more detailed papers by the author and other workers, and
a bibliography is given at the end.
The document also summarises audience feedback from the workshop on benchmarking
tools held at the ALT-C conference, Manchester, 6 to 8 September 2005.
The document is being released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
2.0 (England and Wales) licence in order to facilitate comment and discussion.
Non-profit and commercial use allowed.
The main tools available for benchmarking e-learning that could be deployed
in UK HE are:
a The author’s ‘Pick & Mix’ system, described later in this paper.
b The National Learning Network (NLN) information and learning technologies (ILT) self-assessment tool – described in http://www.nln.ac.uk/lsda/self_assessment/files/Self_assessment_tool_Guidelines.doc.
c The ‘e-Learning Maturity Model’ work done for the New Zealand tertiary sector – see http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz/research/emm/documents/SectorReport.pdf
d The 24 US Institute of Higher Education Policy (IHEP) ‘Quality on the Line’ benchmarks – described on pages 25 and 26 of http://www.ihep.org/Pubs/PDF/Quality.pdf.
e The Australian HE benchmarks most relevant to e-learning described in the university-wide framework ‘Benchmarking in Australian Universities’ – see in particular benchmarks 9.1 and 9.2 in http://science.uniserve.edu.au/courses/benchmarking/benchmarking_manual.pdf
f The US APQC/SHEEO e-learning benchmarks in ‘Supporting Faculty Use of Technology in Teaching’ – see the section ‘STUDY KEY FINDINGS’ in http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=42890
The ‘Key references’ section below provides bibliographic
details and additional sources of information.
A wide range of literature was surveyed by the author in the period January-August
2005, including from the UK HE sector, UK FE sector, Australian and other
Commonwealth reports, and several US reports concerned with distance learning
quality. A wide range of agencies and so-called ‘benchmarking clubs’
was also reviewed. Much of this work was reported on in Bacsich (2005a,
2005b). The main conclusions were as follows.
• There is a considerable amount of work on benchmarking in universities, but it is mostly oriented to benchmarking administrative processes; very little is directly about e-learning and only somewhat more is relevant. It was surprising how little was focused even on IT.
• The most useful work of direct applicability was that carried out by the National Learning Network. This was oriented to the UK FE sector and there are concerns in HE about its applicability without extensive reworking. It is at present not clear how this work is being taken forward in FE. However, this work could still be of interest to those institutions which are close to or cross the HE-FE boundary (UHI, University for Industry, HE colleges, HE in FE, etc) as a companion system to an HE-focused system.
• There is recent innovative and theoretically-based work being done in New Zealand and a case study of its applicability to a range of New Zealand institutions (especially projects within institutions). This has a theoretical basis not dissimilar to but more modern than that for the NLN work.
• There is a considerable amount of US HE work on quality and good practice in distance learning and e-learning, which can (with some work) be transformed into benchmark criteria. This corpus of material includes reports prepared by the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) in collaboration with the State Higher Education Executive Officers and by IHEP entitled Quality on the line: Benchmarks for success in Internet-based education. This last, published in 2000 – which despite its title is more about good practice than benchmarks – is still useful.
• There are several useful recent surveys of benchmarking methodology, including one on the HEA site, one produced by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) for English FE, and one produced on behalf of the Australian government oriented to HE. These will be most useful when universities decide to take steps towards setting up benchmarking clubs for e-learning.
• There is material from NHS studies of relevance, not to provide an alternative benchmarking scheme, but rather to inform and round out existing schemes.
• Any benchmarking club could learn from the existing clubs, noting that these so far have been oriented to improvement of administrative processes and do not seem to have considered e-learning. They also do not seem focused on competitive ranking and metrics. The clubs include the European Benchmarking Programme on University Management and the English Universities Benchmarking Club.
• There is very interesting benchmarking work for e-learning in English schools organised under the auspices of Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), but it would be a large leap and possibly premature to adapt it to the HE sector. The goal which might be wished for by the Department for Education and Skills of a trans-sectoral approach to benchmarking e-learning is likely to remain elusive.
• There are several other studies of benchmarking in wider applications than HE e-learning, and many other sources of input (including on the related aspects of quality and excellence) that could inform benchmarking activities, but it is the author’s belief that the ones above are the most fruitful for the purpose of benchmarking e-learning in UK HE.
These guidelines have been developed from the literature search and conversations
with interested parties.
• The UK HE sector would not like a uniform sector-wide approach with published numeric rankings of named institutions.
• There are elements of ‘cultural relativism’ in that institution A’s view of institution B will not necessarily be the same as institution B’s view of itself – and vice versa.
• UK HE institutions will tend to focus on the issues relevant to them – eg there is no point in an institution worrying about lack of progress towards distance e-learning if distance learning is not part of the mission of the institution.
• Institutions will tend to focus on benchmarking themselves against those ‘comparator’ institutions that they perceive as most relevant – competitors for students, similar in nature (eg research-led, international, with a particular governance style), similar in size, collaborators in other projects, and role models. These comparisons will cross ‘home nation’ borders and for some institutions they will cross international borders.
• Benchmarks should focus on indicators correlated with good practice and success, not be merely ‘taxonomic’. (As example it is unlikely that the salary of the manager responsible for e-learning or the total spend per full-time equivalent on a VLE is closely correlated with success.)
• An element of ‘metricity’ (numeric measures) is useful (it is a competitive world), but additional narrative can always help. Metricity should not be forced (see above two examples).
• An underlying theory may be useful, but one theory is unlikely to support a comprehensive analysis. If over-used, theories can be a straightjacket (like metricity).
• Many e-learning benchmarks are not susceptible to determination by desk research from outside an institution. Several are so discoverable, others can be estimated by ‘triangulation’, others by analysis of research papers and agency reports, but many require direct observation of and engagement with an institution (Bacsich and Bristow, 2005).
At ALT-C 2005, a workshop on ‘benchmarking e-learning’ was
held by the author, with 33 delegates. These were mostly from UK HE, with
some from FE and a cohort from an organisation that straddles the boundary,
UHI. There was also a delegate from New Zealand, who had been a participant
in the New Zealand benchmarking study. By general agreement, he was asked
to make some remarks at the close of the workshop.
After a short general introduction to the subject, delegates were asked
to split into groups of about four to six, and each group to choose one
(only one) of the benchmarking methodologies on offer. These were the
Pick & Mix System, the NLN tool, the Quality on the Line guidelines,
the APQC guidelines and (for those specialists interested) the NHS approach.
Five groups formed. There was no taker for the APQC guidelines or the
NHS approach; most interest was in Pick & Mix or the NLN tool, but
two groups were encouraged to take up the Quality on the Line guidelines.
One large group split into two: one half looked at the NLN tool while
the other analysed Pick & Mix.
Quality on the line
For these guidelines, delegates were given some additional briefing. It
was suggested that they ignore any guidelines which (with the benefit
of five years more experience) can now be seen to be irrelevant to success
or best practice, and also to composite some together if this made sense.
It was also suggested that they try to rewrite each guideline into a form
which allows some kind of metric in the six-point scale with supporting
narrative. For example:
• The program’s educational effectiveness and teaching/learning process is assessed through an evaluation process that uses several methods and applies specific standards
becomes something like:
• Evaluation of educational effectiveness: frequency, depth and range of instruments used.
Comments on these guidelines from one group included the remarks that they were ‘of an era’ and ‘only a subset of what is required’; the other group noted that there was no real concept of governance or legal framework in the guidelines. (Regarding this second point, it is possible that this is to some extent an artefact of the different rhetoric used in the US and UK: in several US documents there is still a rhetoric of a community of scholars, self-organising and devoid of managers and support staff).
NLN tool
The comments from the subgroup that looked at the NLN tool were on the
whole not very positive towards the idea of using it in HE. Individuals
had questions as to the value of the criterion on ‘learner IT skills’
– this and some others were felt to be not specific enough to e-learning
– and there was a feeling that there needed to be some priority
ordering in the criteria (some being more important for ‘success’
than others). There were some reservations about the underlying MIT model
(it is 14 years old). There was a feeling that the tool was too oriented
to top-down approaches. (This is likely to be the case because NLN is
or was a much more top-down programme than the HEFCE e-learning strategy.)
Pick & Mix
Since three groups looked at this tool, there were more comments and some
questions. It is most convenient to express these in a list.
• One respondent felt that some of the criteria were irrelevant to ‘success’ in e-learning.
• Some new criteria might need to be added, such as something on sustainability and more on planning (the criterion on planning is still rather minimal).
• The criterion on the adoption phase (after Rogers) was not felt to capture the full meaning of ‘embedding of e-learning’.
• It was felt that in addition to the ‘Notes’ and ‘Instrument’ columns, more detailed orientation notes were needed for each criterion.
• It was felt that the tool might be biased against the ‘cottage industry’ view of e-learning, regarding it as an early stage which institutions must pass through.
• There were some other remarks about the implicit value statements made in various of the criteria, and a feeling that in some cases the higher scores were not necessarily ‘better’ than the lower scores.
• There was a lively discussion about the criterion on ‘VLE stage’. Even though movement to one VLE is conventional wisdom among industry consultants and has been recommended in the past by JISC, it was felt that this guidance might now be out of date. (Perhaps respondents had not looked at level 6, which notes ‘One VLE but with local variants when strong business case, and activity of a post-VLE nature’).
• There was felt to be insufficient focus on the learner in the criteria – but no suggestion of additional learner-focused criteria to be added. (Could this be another issue to do with the underlying rhetoric, this time of UK HE?)
Conclusion
In the author’s view, one should take such comments (from a very
small population) as not definitive but indicative: thus they do suggest
some directions for further analysis and refinement. Small though the
sample was, it appears to be the first time that such a comparison between
rival methodologies has been done. The author plans to run further workshops
on this topic, the next being at On-line Educa Berlin in November 2005.
At the end of the session, delegates were supplied with a one-page literature
search document (similar to but shorter than the last section of this
paper).
| Factor | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Notes | Ins-trument |
| Adop-tion phase overall (Rogers) | Innovators only | Early adopters taking it up | Early majority taking it up | Late majority taking it up | All taken it up except some laggards | First wave embed-ded and universal, second wave starting | How many segments of the Rogers model are engaged? | Interviews, surveys, doc-umentation in IT reports, etc |
| VLE stage | No VLE | Different VLEs across depart-ments |
VLEs reducing in number to around two | One VLE chosen for future but not yet replaced former VLEs | One VLE | One VLE but with local variants when strong business case, and activity of a post-VLE nature | Degree of coherence across institution | Obser-vation, purchase orders |
| Tools use | No use of tools beyond email, web and the VLE min-imum set | Some use of tools | Wide-spread use of at least one specific tool, eg assign-ment handling, computer-aided assess-ment | HEI-wide use of at least one tool | HEI-wide use of several tools | Use of locally develop-ed tools also | Scale, sophist-ication and depth of tools use | Interviews, cross-checking with JISC and CETIS (Centre for Educat-ional Tech-nology Inter-operability Standards), etc |
| IT under-pinning – usability |
No usa-bility testing, no grasp of the concept | Key IT staff under-stand the concept, test some systems | Explicit usability testing of all key systems | Most services usable, with some internal evidence to back this up | All services usable, with internal evidence to back this up | Evidence of usability involving external verifi-cation |
Level of provable usability of e-learning systems | Further advice is needed from UKERNA (UK Educat-ion and Research Network), JISC and UCISA (Uni-versity Colleges and Info-rmation Systems Association) |
| Access-ibility | e-learning material and services are not accessible | Much e-learning material and most services conform to minimum standards of access-ibility | Almost all e-learning material and services conform to minimum standards of access-ibility | All e-learning material and services conform to at least min-imum standards of access-ibility, much to higher standards | e-learning material and services are access-ible, and key compon-ents validated by external agencies | Strong evidence of confor-mance with letter and spirit of access-ibility in all jurisd-ictions where students study | Level of confor-mance to access-ibility guidelines |
Split off separately for legal reasons. (This criterion regarded by some institutions as over-ambitious at present. Advice needed from TechDIS) |
| e-learning strategy | No e-learning strategy. | No recent learning and teaching strategy | Some mention of e-learning within the learning and teaching strategy e-learning strategy produced from time to time, eg under pressure from HEFCE or for particular grants | Frequently updated e-learning strategy, integrated with learning and teaching strategy and perhaps some others | Regular-ly updated e-learning strategy, integrated with learning and teaching strategy and all related strategies (eg distance learning, if relevant) | Coherent regularly updated strategy allowing adapt-ations to local needs, made public, etc |
Degree of strategic engage-ment Review of HEFCE, TQEF (Teaching Quality Enhance-ment Fund) and other doc-uments. | Interview with pro-vice chancellor (PVC) res-ponsible |
| Decision-making | No decision making regarding e-learning – ‘each project is different’ | Decision-making at meso level (school, depart-ment, faculty, etc) | E-learning decisions (eg for VLEs) get taken, but take a long time and are contested even after the decision is taken | Effective decision-making for e-learning across the whole institution, including variations when justified | Decisions taken in an organic and efficient way, eg round table | Robustness, sophis-tication and subtlety of decision-making |
Obser-vation and perusal of papers | |
| In-struct-ional design / pedagogy | Terms not under-stood in the HEI | Terms well under-stood within the learning and teaching centre and among some acad-emic staff | Ped-agogic guide-lines for the whole HEI, and acted on |
A culture where techno-pedagogic decisions are made naturally | Level of practical but evidence-based know-ledge and application of instruct-ional design and pedagogic principles | Inter-views | ||
| Learning material | Little con-formance of learning material to house style for editing or layout | Rhetoric of quality, little conform-ance to any norms | Most learning material conforms to explicit editorial and layout guidelines | All learning material conforms to explicit editorial and layout guidelines – but little embed-ding in the process | HEI-wide stand-ards for learning material, which are adhered to and embedded at any early stage, eg by style sheets | Much learning material exceeds expect-ations | Level of ‘fitness for purpose’ of learning material |
Perusal of material, inter-views |
| Training | No system-atic training for e-learning | Some systematic training for e-learning, eg in some faculties |
HEI-wide training prog-ramme set up, but little monitoring of attendance or encourage-ment to go | HEI-wide training program-me set up with monitor-ing of attend-ance and strong encourage-ment to go | All staff trained in VLE use, appro-priate to job type – and retrained when needed | Staff increas-ingly keep them-selves up to date, ‘just in time’, except when discont-inuous system change occurs, when training is provided | Degree to which staff have compet-ence in VLE and tools use, appro-priate to job type | Percent-ages plus narrative (Note: this may not involve training courses, but is likely to) |
| Academic work-load | No allow-ance given for the different workload pattern of e-learning courses | Some allow-ance given, but distort-ions in the system as shrew-der staff flee the areas of overload | A work planning system which makes some attempt to cope, however crudely, with e-learning courses | Work planning system which recog-nises the main diff-erences that e-learning courses have from traditional | See the cell below | Sophis-tication of the work planning system for teaching | Detailed and possibly anony-mous inter-views and question-naires. Some union sensitivities likely in some HEIs | |
| Costs | No understand-ing of costs | Understand-ing of costs in some depart-ments (eg business school) | Good understand-ing of costs | Activity-based costing being used in part | Full activity-based costing used and adapted to e-learning | Level of under-standing of costs | Inter-views and question-naires. (The basis here is from CNL and INSIGHT JISC projects, also Becta TCO (total cost of ownership)) |
|
| Planning | Integrated planning process for e-learning integrated with overall course planning | Integrated planning process allowing eg trade-offs of courses vs buildings | Interviews and question-naires | |||||
| Eval-uation | No eval-uation of courses takes place – that is done by eval-uation pro-fesionals | Some evaluation of courses takes place, either by pro-fessionals or internal staff advised by profession-als or central agencies | Evaluation of key courses is done from time to time, by profession-als | Some external eval-uations are done of courses | Regular eva-luation of all courses using a variety of measure-ment techniques and involving outside agencies where appro-priate | Evaluation built into an excell-ence, TQM (total quality manage-ment) or other ‘quality enhance-ment’ process – including bench-marking aspects | Level of thorough-ness of eval-uation | Interviews with key evaluators. Perusal of conference and journal papers |
| Organis-ation | No appoint-ments of e-learning staff | Appoint-ments of e-learning staff in at least some faculties, but no specialist managers of these staff | Central unit or sub-unit set up to support e-learning develop-ments | Central unit has some auton-omy from IT or resources function | Central unit has director-level uni-versity manager in charge and links to support teams in faculties | Beginning of the withering away of explicit e-learning posts and struct-ures | Interview with vice chancellor and relevant PVC(s) | |
| Tech-nical support to academic staff | No specific tech-nical support for the typical (unfunded) academic engaged in e-learning | Key staff engaged in the main e-learning projects are well supported by technical staff | All staff engaged in e-learning process have ‘nearby’ fast-response tech-nical support | Increasing tech-nical sophist-ication of staff means that explicit tech-nical support can reduce | Interview with both top-level staff and selective interviews with grass-roots staff | |||
| Quality and excell-ence | Con-formance to QAA in a minimal-ist way | An internal function which begins to focus on e-learning aspects | Conform-ance to QAA precepts, including those that impinge on e-learning | Adoption of some appro-priate quality method-ology – EFQM (Europ-ean Found-ation for Quality Manag-ement) etc – integrated with course quality mech-anisms derived from QAA precepts | Active dialogue with QAA and wider quality agencies as to appro-priate quality regimes for e-learning | Level of HEI overall commit-ment to quality and excellence agenda for e-learning | Interviews, question-naires, quality reviews, etc | |
| Staff recog-nition for e-learning | No recog-nition for staff, explicit pressure against (eg due to RAE) | Formal structure for recog-nition (eg teaching fellows), no real progress | Staff engaged only in the teaching process can reach a high level of salary and respons-ibility | Level of staff recognition (not only and not necessarily financial) against the pressure for RAE | Docu-mentary evidence |
APQC (1999) Today’s Teaching and Learning: Leveraging Technology.
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Supporting Faculty Use of Technology in Teaching’, APQC
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against 12 institutions, Paper presented by Bacsich to Manchester Business
School, September 2005 (unpublished)
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and follow the links to ‘The e-Confident School’
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Phase I Report, Chapter 10, http://www.citscapes.ac.uk/products/phase1/ch10.pdf
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of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Australia, http://science.uniserve.edu.au/courses/benchmarking/benchmarking_manual.pdf
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Research Unit, University of Central Lancashire (http://www.equality.nhs.uk/doc.aspx?id_Resource=5384)
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Universities, Coimbra Group. See http://www.coimbra-group.be/DOCUMENTS/summary.doc
HEA (2005) e-Learning benchmarking exercise, HEA. See http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/benchmarking.htm
HECTIC (2002) European Union Policies and Strategic Change for eLearning
in Universities, report (by Kenneth Edwards) of the project ‘Higher
Education Consultation in Technologies of Information and Communication’
(HECTIC)
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education. Institute for Higher Education Policy, http://www.ihep.org/Pubs/PDF/Quality.pdf
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http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/914.htm
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Swiss Universities. 2nd Report of the Educational Management
Mandate (EDUM) in the Swiss Virtual Campus, University of Lugano, http://www.ti-edu.ch/servizi/ricerca/papers/edum2.pdf
Marshall S and Mitchell S (2004) ‘Applying SPICE to e-Learning:
An e-Learning Maturity Model’, in: Sixth Australasian Computing
Education Conference (ACE2004), Dunedin. Conferences in Research and Practice
in Information Technology, Vol 30, 2004, http://crpit.com/confpapers/CRPITV30Marshall.pdf
Marshall S (2004) Determination of New Zealand Tertiary Institution E-Learning
Capability: An Application of an E-Learning Maturity Model – Literature
Review, http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz/research/emm/documents/literature.pdf
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the New Zealand Tertiary Sector, Victoria University of Wellington, http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz/research/emm/documents/SectorReport.pdf
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by Learning and Skills Development Agency for LSC, http://www.nln.ac.uk/lsda/self_assessment/files/Benchmark.pdf
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of Lugano, Switzerland
Copyright
Last updated – 20/10/2005; © Paul Bacsich, but licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales Licence.
Please see separate document at: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/cosenew/embedding.pdf
A number of researchers have observed that the transmission model of teaching
is widespread (Ramsden, 1992; Shuell ,1992; Laurillard, 1994; Koper, 2003).
It is based on a deficit-accrual notion of learning which sees the main
task of the teacher as being to supply information. There is little dialogue
with students, and the teaching is monologic – the onus being on
students to align their expressions of knowledge with the academic norm
in the area. As Shuell points out, this is such a widespread view of teaching
that it is taken for granted. Here the concentration is on content, on
the subject matter. This pedagogic model might have been partially defensible
when students and teachers were drawn from the same narrow social and
academic backgrounds in traditional university settings. However, it is
now failing under the sheer weight of extra students and the diversity
of their social and academic backgrounds as well as the demand for flexible
study modes. But the ‘teaching as transmission’ model is still
widespread and tenacious, as Ramsden observes:
‘There are some more modern versions of this theory too: the belief that the fundamental problems in university instruction inhere in the amount of information to be transmitted, and that these problems can be solved by technical fixes designed to transmit more of it faster….‘ (Ramsden, 1992) |
Here we can see much of the rationale for the proposed uses of multimedia, computer-based learning and the internet which have been espoused since the 1980s. More recently, the interest surrounding learning objects and digital repositories shows the strength of interest and concern in content creation and its transmission.
The ‘teaching as telling’ scenario is consistent with the
subject specialist model of amateur teaching, which has historically dominated
higher education (HE) in the UK. The associated scholarly culture that
‘trickles down’ into the student experience is often one of
isolated, individualistic and competitive activity (Crook, 1994). The
experience of students in this kind of environment is often unsatisfactory.
Typically, a student on a course passes through the hands of different
lecturers all teaching from their own notes, not working as a team from
the same ‘script’. This has the effect of fragmenting the
learning experience and subject matter. It also places a higher load on
the student than is necessary and presents obvious barriers to non-traditional
students.
In this pedagogic worldview it is possible to see why some teachers like
to stick with creating and transmitting content. It is partly because
they created their own content as part of the process of their own learning
and relearning of their subject in order to teach it to their students.
Thus their teaching strategy is often to get their students to learn from
what they did. This is not a very sound approach, but it is common and
intuitive and helps to account for lecturers’ deep attachment to
their own ‘stuff’.
As Ramsden observes, the transmission model of teaching in HE (although
still widespread) has tended to be supplanted in public discourse by concern
about managing and directing student activity:
‘Teaching is seen as a supervision process involving the articulation of techniques designed to ensure that students learn…. Activity in students is seen as the panacea. It is assumed that there is a finite set of rules which may be infallibly applied to enable them to understand: these all imply that the students must learn energetically.’ (Ramsden, 1992) |
Although this discourse often acts as a ‘cover’ for continuation
of the transmission model, it is at least a step in the right direction.
Here the concentration is on what the student does, not on what the teacher
does – or delivers. In this scenario we can see much of the existing
rationale for the use of virtual learning environments as management,
direction, supervision and the ubiquitous delivery of content. We can
also discern the basis for the use of ‘interactive’ media
and computer programmes. Currently, a popular mantra among UK e-learning
designers – who are usually media designers with little educational
knowledge, as the role of instructional designer is almost completely
absent in the UK – is that learning must be active to be effective,
showing us the sharpness of Ramsden’s earlier criticism. Often,
this mantra is little more than a justification for using some interactive
aspect of the media being sold. A more sensible and efficient approach
can be seen in the distance-learning community, where the academic subject
specialist is just one in a team of professionals (Laurillard, 1994) and
is often dispensed with after contributing their subject knowledge while
the educational and media specialists finish the job.
This leads us nicely on to consider the third level in Ramsden’s
hierarchy of theories of teaching. He sees teaching as an activity that
includes delivering content and organising activities, but is also fundamentally
concerned with learning about teaching itself and applying the lessons
learnt to new students and situations. In this view, teaching is a constantly
evolving, reflective and reflexive process in which there is no steady
state of masterly expertise that you may attain and encode. As in any
other craft, mastery brings an awareness of what you do not know as much
as what you do know; this is a prime requirement for attaining and retaining
that mastery.
Ramsden describes this process as developing an awareness of the seemingly
contradictory development towards an increasingly relativistic and problematic
understanding of the relations between teaching and learning:
‘It is as if the development itself denotes an acceptance
of the restless tension of opposites in education.’ (Ramsden
1992, p117) |
Teaching, of course, does consume content and information, and is very concerned with planning and directing student activity. But that is not the whole story: there is much more to effective teaching than using content and directing student activity. The vital component of effective teaching is what teachers learn about their own teaching as they go along, and apply to their teaching. Ramsden makes the important point that this can occur at an individual, departmental and institutional level. In this view, good teaching is concerned and involved with students (their activities and their perceptions) and subject matter, is reflective and reflexive about the experience of teaching, and incorporates lessons learnt from the experience of teaching into teaching practice. In addition, teaching is a continuous process, not a repetitive act of pumping the same content at students or finding some illusory magic formula for student activity. As Ramsden explains:
‘Theory 3 is a compound view of instruction. In this conception, teaching, students and the subject content to be learned are linked together by an overarching framework or system. Teaching is comprehended as a process of working cooperatively with learners to help them change their understanding. It is making learning possible. Teaching involves finding out about students’ misunderstandings, intervening to change them, and creating a context of learning which encourages students to actively engage with the subject matter. Note that this theory is very much concerned with the content of what students have to learn in relation to how it should be taught…a teacher who uses this theory will recognise and focus especially on the key issues that seem to represent critical barriers to student learning. The content to be taught, and students’ problems with learning it, directs the method he or she uses.’ (Ramsden, 1992) |
In Ramsden’s overall view of HE teaching, the mere provision of content is the crudest form of teaching (yet still very widespread according to educational psychologist Tom Shuell (1992)); this might be described as fragmentary teaching. Moving up the teaching food chain, the next level is the organising of student learning activity, often confused with or misinterpreted as the use of interactive and multimedia resources; this might be described as simple teaching. But these two types of activity need to happen in order to support what Ramsden describes as the most sophisticated type of HE teaching, which involves a dialogue between teacher and students (on which the teacher acts to fine tune to students’ needs); this might be described as complete teaching. Diana Laurillard has built on Ramsden’s work to create her ‘conversational model’ of teaching in HE. She has also done some highly useful work on analysing the ability of different types of media and learning technologies to support this model of teaching. An important part of this highest form of teaching is the ability to design situations and conditions in which your students can learn, and modify them in the light of feedback.
Content is one thing and organising student activities is another, but
the important ‘stuff’ happens (as it always has done) between
teacher and students. For those of us who feel obliged to use the language
of enterprise to describe educational processes, the real ‘value
added’ occurs in the teaching interactions with students. Content
design and activity design are very important, but their role is to support
the teaching process. Those who are serious about developing flexible
learning need to attend to all these areas – it is all too easy
to fall into the trap of doing what we can do instead of what we really
need to do. This explains the commonly occurring mismatch between content
and infrastructure development on the one side and lack of support for
teaching on the other.
Laurillard’s conversational model of teaching (Figure 6.1) is an
intuitive one for teachers, and extends the work of Ramsden nicely. We
could use it as a design aid and map it onto our existing designs.
Figure 6.1: Laurillard’s ‘conversational framework’
model
Tips for setting up a learning context for students (from
Laurillard, 1994)
For students to get the most out of a learning session, they need to know:
• why this topic is important and interesting
• its relation to other topics in the course
• what they need to know already
• the learning objectives for the session
• how to approach it.
For teachers to do this, we should:
• orient students to why this topic is important and interesting
• help them to see its relation to other topics in the course
• describe what they need to know already to make good progress in learning this new topic
• define the learning objectives
• provide preliminary exercises that alert them to what to look for.
Authors: John Casey (UHI), Kevin Brosnan (University of Stirling, Scotland),
Wolfgang Greller (Alpen-Adria University, Austria)
Abstract
This paper examines the potential for using learning objects and ‘Learning Design’ as vehicles for staff development in UK HE. To support this approach we propose using Ramsden’s (1992) three theoretical models of teaching in HE to provide a conceptual framework to situate these technologies in. We observe that the introduction of these technologies into HE reveal and highlight underlying obstacles to their adoption by reifying existing pedagogic practice and values. We map these obstacles onto Ramsden’s theoretical framework and propose in outline a staff development strategy to help remedy them. This implies a change both in the institutional and professional organisation of teaching activity in HE. We conclude by presenting in outline the kind of changes required, which also provide us with an indicator of areas for further investigation.
Keywords
Pedagogy, Learning Objects, Learning Design, Staff Development, Institutional
Change
Learning objects and Learning Design (Koper and Tattersall, 2004) are
entering the mainstream of the educational systems around the world and
creating a ‘buzz’ of excitement about the possibilities of
providing an efficient means of finding, sharing and reusing learning
resources and designs. Yet, as is so often the case with the introduction
of technology into an educational setting, this is bringing some of the
underlying issues and features in our educational institutions to the
surface (Pollock and Cornford, 2000). We argue that this reification effect
of technology in education far from being a problem can be a useful development
aid for improving pedagogic practice. To support our analysis we will
use Ramsden’s (1992) three theories of teaching in HE.
The particular staff development need we are interested in is educational
design for e-learning. The heart of the problem here in the UK is that
teaching staff generally do not share and reuse learning resources and
learning activities for their students, instead they concentrate on preparing
‘their’ content to deliver to ‘their’ students
(Koper, 2003). The teaching activity that is carried out is deeply embedded
in an institutional context and therefore difficult to share and abstract.
To deal with these problems effectively first we have to identify them,
as Ramsden observes:
‘Half the difficulty with doing it better is knowing what the real
problem is.’ (Ramsden 1992, p14)
The arrival of learning objects, Learning Design and their related technologies
from the industrial training and open learning sectors carries strong
implicit organisational models that favour greater corporatism and a division
of labour – an industrial model. This presents some problems; the
opportunities for efficiency and quality gains are already well rehearsed
elsewhere. The main problem for us is that the HE sector does not have
the organisational structures that these technologies require. Instead
higher education is characterised by a very high degree of informality
and autonomy at all levels – which is not necessarily a bad thing.
An excellent analysis of these systemic obstacles to using technology
in HE has been carried out by Newcastle University (Pollock and Cornford,
2000). The study found that the required administration processes often
do not exist; a web version of the report can be found in the ARIADNE
newsletter at http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue24/virtual-universities/
Teaching in HE in the UK has traditionally been accorded a low status
(Ramsden, 1992), yet for most institutions income derived from teaching
is the major source of institutional wealth, with figures of 80-90 per
cent and above not being uncommon. So, for most universities teaching
is the de facto core business activity. As tightening financial constraints
bring this reality to the surface and technologies such as VLEs are being
deployed, one of the emerging strategic gaps is a lack of pedagogic expertise.
There is a growing realisation that it is not very sensible to invest
in learning technology and not change the way we work. It is a bit like
a factory building a new production line and continuing to use handcraft
production techniques – yet this is the situation that many of our
institutions and teachers find themselves in. This is not surprising;
tradition, dominant groups and vested interests can delay and obstruct
the adoption and dissemination of new knowledge, as the history of science
shows (Kuhn, 1996).
Thus, learning objects, Learning Design and their implicit organisational
and pedagogic models are colliding with the deeply entrenched pedagogic
values and attitudes of the HE sector. Anyone who has worked in this area
will recognise that it is a volatile environment which is still in the
process of forming, as the recent collapse of the government-funded UK
e-U has shown (MacLeod, 2004). In this process, orthodoxies from both
traditions are being challenged in the new and emerging teaching practices
and learning communities appearing at this interface. To move forward
we need to address the so-called soft issues of professional and institutional
cultures as well as some of the assumptions implicit in the technologies.
Ramsden outlines three theories of teaching in HE that co-exist and build on each other in a hierarchical manner. They nicely represent the stages a university teacher progresses through as their pedagogic expertise improves, and they also provide a useful way of analysing the proposed and actual uses of technology to support teaching. The three stages see teaching as concerned with (labels in brackets are ours):
• delivering content (primitive)
• organising and supervising student activity (simple)
• teaching as adapting to circumstances and context in order to make student learning possible (sophisticated).
As noted in the introduction, technology in higher education often acts
as a strong force to reveal hitherto hidden factors and demystify existing
processes; this section looks at some of these kinds of issues.
Universities in the UK tend to be quite traditional in the way they organise
their teaching activities. Lectures still tend to be the main focus of
undergraduate teaching despite there being little educational justification
for their existence other than being a medieval solution to the logistics
of delivering information to large groups of students (Laurillard, 1994).
In UK higher education teaching (outside distance-learning providers)
there is little tradition of sharing pedagogic resources or strategies,
and to try to do so is often met with confusion and hostility. One of
the major reasons for this is that teaching in higher education is essentially
delivered by groups of individuals who see themselves primarily as subject
specialists and not teachers. This situation is compounded by the fact
that many institutions do not see teaching as a core function either.
A number of researchers have observed that the transmission model of teaching
is widespread (Ramsden, 1992; Shuell, 1992; Laurillard, 1994; Koper, 2003);
it is based on a deficit-accrual notion of learning that sees the main
task of the teacher to supply information. There is little dialogue with
students; the teaching is monologic – the onus being on the student
to align their expressions of knowledge with the academic norm in the
area. As Shuell points out, this is such a widespread view of teaching
that it is taken for granted; here the concentration is on content, on
the subject matter. This pedagogic model might have been partially defensible
when students and teachers were drawn from the same narrow social and
academic backgrounds in traditional university settings. However, it is
failing under the sheer weight of extra students and the diversity of
their social and academic backgrounds as well as the demand for flexible
study modes. The teaching as transmission model is still widespread and
tenacious, as Ramsden observes:
‘There are some more modern versions of this theory too: the belief
that the fundamental problems in university instruction inhere in the
amount of information to be transmitted, and that these problems can be
solved by technical fixes designed to transmit more of it faster….’
(Ramsden, 1992, p111)
Here we can see much of the rationale for the proposed uses of multimedia,
computer-based learning and the Internet that have been espoused since
the 1980s. More recently, the interest surrounding learning objects and
digital repositories shows the strength of interest and concern in content
creation and its transmission.
The ‘teaching as telling’ scenario is consistent with the
‘subject specialist’ model of amateur teaching that has historically
dominated HE in the UK. The associated scholarly culture that ‘trickles
down’ onto the student experience is often one of isolated, individualistic
and competitive activity (Crook, 1994). The experience of students in
this kind of environment is often unsatisfactory. Typically, a student
on a course will pass through the hands of different lecturers all teaching
from their own notes, not working as a team from the same ‘script’.
This has the effect of fragmenting the learning experience and subject
matter. It also places a higher load on the student than is necessary
and presents obvious barriers to non-traditional students.
In this pedagogic worldview it is possible to see why some teachers like
to stick with creating and transmitting content. It is partly because
they created their own content as part of the process of their own learning
and relearning of their subject in order to teach it to their students.
Thus their teaching strategy is often to get their students to learn from
what they did – this is not a very sound approach, but it is common
and intuitive and helps account for lecturers’ deep attachment to
their own ‘stuff’.
Learning objects
The arrival of learning objects and Learning Design into this scene is
having some unexpected effects. One of the traditional learning object
orthodoxies is that they should be free from internal contextual content
to make reuse easier; this makes a lot of sense for a specialist educational
workforce as in computer-based training and instructional design. But
this presents severe problems for ‘general practitioner’ teachers
and lecturers, who are increasingly clear about their need for meaningful
contextual information about the resource, to enable them to assess it
and reuse it. A particularly popular request is for some kind of review
process that allows users of the resource to record their usage and evaluation
of it for others to examine (Rehak and Mason, 2003; Casey, 2004). It is
also increasingly being recognised that the production of this kind of
usage information (sometimes called secondary meta-data) can be important
for professional and institutional strategic development purposes, as
Philip and Dalziel (2003) propose:
‘These requirements make clear the need for new conceptions of learning object meta-data, and new ways of using repositories – not just for search and retrieval, but as a living, growing body of shared practice.’ |
As Ramsden observes, the transmission model of teaching in HE (although
still widespread) has in public discourse tended to be supplanted by concern
about managing and directing student activity:
‘Teaching is seen as a supervision process involving the articulation of techniques designed to ensure that students learn…. Activity in students is seen as the panacea. It is assumed that there is a finite set of rules which may be infallibly applied to enable them to understand: these all imply that the students must learn energetically.’ (Ramsden, 1992, p113) |
Although often this discourse acts as a ‘cover’ for the continuation of the transmission model it is at least a step in the right direction. Here the concentration is on what the student does, not on what the teacher does – or delivers. Here we can see much of the existing rationale for the use of VLEs as being management, direction, supervision as well as the ubiquitous delivery of content. We can also discern the basis for the use of ‘interactive’ media and computer programmes. Currently, a popular mantra among UK e-learning designers – who are usually media designers with little educational knowledge, the role of instructional designer being almost completely absent in the UK – is that learning must be active to be effective, showing us the sharpness of Ramsden’s earlier criticism. Often this is little more than a justification for using some interactive aspect of the media being sold. A more sensible and efficient approach can be seen in the distance-learning community, where the academic subject specialist is just one in a team of professionals (Laurillard, 1994) and is often dispensed with after they have contributed their subject knowledge while the educational and media specialists finish the job.
Learning Design
Currently, a lot of excitement has been generated in the world of educational
technology by the arrival of ‘Learning Design’, a technical
specification for representing in both human and machine-readable terms
the pedagogic strategy that can be employed to teach a particular course.
The particular risk with Learning Design is that its proponents will fall
into the trap outlined by Ramsden concerning the over-emphasis on activity
and an implicit positivist conviction that all we need to do is find the
‘right way’ to teach a particular course and encode it to
make it a ‘run-time’ success. It is easy to get over-enthused
by the possibility of the technology and lose connection with the reality
of teaching and learning at the ground level. Despite this caveat, Learning
Design does have a great potential for ‘capturing’ and sharing
pedagogic strategies, with obvious applications to staff development as
well as uses for institutional knowledge management.
At present, the Learning Design language itself looks far too abstract
for general teaching staff to be able to use and is likely to be restricted
at least initially to those with the educational design skills that can
work at the required level of pedagogic abstraction. Yet this situation
is not as negative as it might seem. A seminar of the JISC X4L (Exchange
for Learning) programme in January 2004 building on earlier discussions
in the e-learning community suggested that what was needed were a number
of initiatives and support tools to help teachers bridge the gap between
traditional embedded pedagogy and the more abstract representations required
by Learning Design (Beetham, 2004). One of the conclusions of the X4L
seminar was:
‘…that many teachers do not possess a vocabulary for articulating and sharing their pedagogic strategies and designs with others, particularly beyond their cognate discipline areas.’ |
Currently, there is a lot of work going on that intends to address this issue by looking at ways to support teachers to articulate their designs and activities in ways that can then be further developed into formal learning designs. Tools and methods are being proposed to take care of these ‘middle’ representations, such as mind maps, concept maps, the Semi-Structured Learning Design Statement from the ACETS (Assemble, Catalogue, Exemplify, Test and Share) project at Edinburgh University (http://www.acets.ac.uk) and the Dialog Plus (http://www.dialogplus.org/) design toolkit from Southampton University. The UNFOLD European project (http://www.unfold-project.net:8085/UNFOLD) is also doing valuable work in this area and serves as a focus and forum for this kind of development as well as more sophisticated explorations of the Learning Design concept and specifications. All this work is valuable, but we need to also recognise the rougher and more tentative conceptions of pedagogy that practitioners really use; we would call these ‘primitives’ and ‘artefacts’. Together these approaches give us a useful notion of a Learning Design continuum, as shown below.
Figure 1: Proposed learning design continuum
Primitives/artefacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semi-structured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Formal
As we shall see, this nicely complements our proposed framework for staff development using these technologies. From a staff development point of view the good thing about this continuum is the support it provides to help in beginning to articulate teaching strategies.
Paralleling these developments there is a growing realisation that content
in the form of learning objects and pedagogic designs in the form of learning
designs are less likely to be useful (or even used) without some sort
of contextual information about how they are intended to be used and how
the actual use of them has worked out in the past. This may be obvious
to teachers but not for some technical developers, who are often far removed
from the realities of teaching. This vital contextual information has
been referred to as ‘secondary meta-data’ and ‘secondary
resources’; see Casey (2004) and Philip and Dalziel (2003) for an
interesting discussion of the implications of this.
One interesting related development is the emergence of and growing interest
in educational design ‘patterns’ (Bartolucci et al, 2003)
for courses that can be shared and reused. An intriguing aspect to the
use of patterns is that it might also present an elegant solution to some
of the dilemmas described by Stephen Downes (2003) between context and
reuse. In this way, patterns might usefully correspond to what the community
has called ‘intermediate levels of description’. In this vision
it would make sense for learning designs to be associated with their ‘pattern’,
to help teachers adapt the design. This could help reduce the cognitive
load of deciding how and what to reuse by future users. This is certainly
an area that would benefit from further research. This approach has striking
parallels with the techniques employed by the Toshiba software factory,
where programmers were asked to file such ‘high-level’ generalisations
with their code (van Vliet, 1993).
What this points towards is a realisation by the technical and developer
community that there is much more to teaching than delivering the ‘right’
content and organising the ‘right’ student activities. This
is uncomfortable for some as it implies that there are going to be things
they are not going to be able to capture or represent even with the wonders
of XML and the techniques of the semantic web. It’s about time –
many of us have been labouring under the dubious illusions touted by some
proponents that it is possible to capture everything we need to know about
teaching and represent it in machine-readable form.
Still, the myth that there is some ‘magic bullet’ type of
solution persists in the developer community, and we hear phrases such
as ‘with enough computing power’ and ‘with the right
AI (artificial intelligence) techniques’ that we can crack the problem.
To be blunt, they should know better – they had their own AI bubble
back in the 1980s, a kind of dress rehearsal of the dotcom bubble at the
end of the 1990s. AI works best in well-defined problem spaces. Using
learning objects and learning designs to support a teaching and learning
community is very far from being a well-defined problem space. Those who
have recovered from their AI hangover now advocate using technology to
support human intelligence in dealing with these kinds of problems, which
is well fitted for dealing with complexity and multiple meanings –
and resolving them. The future of e-learning will consist of humans, assisted
by technical agents, operating and maintaining networked e-learning systems.
This leads us nicely to consideration of the third level in Ramsden’s
hierarchy of theories of teaching. He sees teaching as an activity that
includes delivering content and organising activities, but is also fundamentally
concerned with learning about teaching itself and applying the lessons
learnt to new students and situations. In this view teaching is a constantly
evolving, reflective and reflexive process in which there is no steady
state of masterly expertise that one may attain and encode. As in any
other craft, mastery brings an awareness of what one does not know as
much as what one does know, and this is a prime requirement for the attainment
and retention of that mastery.
Ramsden describes this as the development of an awareness of the seemingly
contradictory development towards an increasingly relativistic and problematic
understanding of the relations between teaching and learning:
‘It is as if the development itself denotes an acceptance
of the restless tension of opposites in education’ (Ramsden,
1992, p117) |
Teaching, of course, does consume content and information and it is very concerned with planning and directing student activity. But that is not the whole story – there is much more to effective teaching than using content and directing student activity. The vital component of effective teaching is what the teacher learns about their own teaching as they go along and applies to their teaching. Ramsden makes the important point that this can occur at an individual, departmental and institutional level. In this view, good teaching is concerned and involved with the students – their activities and their perceptions – and the subject matter, and is reflective and reflexive about the experience of teaching and incorporates lessons learnt from the experience of teaching into teaching practice. In this view, teaching is a continuous process not a repetitive act of pumping the same content at students or finding some illusory magic formula for student activity. As Ramsden explains:
‘Theory 3 is a compound view of instruction. In this conception, teaching, students and the subject content to be learned are linked together by an overarching framework or system. Teaching is comprehended as a process of working cooperatively with learners to help them change their understanding. It is making learning possible. Teaching involves finding out about students’ misunderstandings, intervening to change them, and creating a context of learning which encourages students to actively engage with the subject matter. Note that this theory is very much concerned with the content of what students have to learn in relation to how it should be taught…a teacher who uses this theory will recognise and focus especially on the key issues that seem to represent critical barriers to student learning. The content to be taught, and students’ problems with learning it, direct the method he or she uses.’ (Ramsden, 1992, p114) |
We should not underestimate the problems we are up against here, as Ramsden
points out:
‘To do these things is never easy, especially if the departmental or institutional context is one where surface approaches are seen as a normal way of learning and where students’ learning difficulties are not seen to be the teachers’ problems.’ (Ramsden, 1992, 151) |
Assuming change is really desired, then Ramsden’s three theories
of learning provide a fairly clear and intuitive development framework
model for individuals and groups to follow, each stage building on the
previous one. Briefly, the prescription for change is as follows.
Technologies such as VLEs, learning objects and Learning Design all strongly
imply working as a team to design, develop and deliver courses –
the importance of this should not be underestimated. Working as a team,
sharing learning resources and discussing approaches to teaching are currently
comparatively rare in HE in the UK.
A good model for academics learning to teach along the lines advocated
by Ramsden is that of the notion of ‘cognitive apprenticeship’,
a development of ideas from the work of Lave (see http://tip.psychology.org/lave.html)
by Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989). This approach proposes that people
learn a ‘craft’ (practical or theoretical) in the context
of a particular ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), and
expertise is maintained and passed on through that community by people
working together. This model often includes the notions of zones of proximal
development, from the influential Russian psychologist Vygotsky (http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html),
and ‘instructional scaffolding’, developed by Bruner (http://tip.psychology.org/bruner.html).
It sounds more abstract than it is; zones of proximal development is the
concept that expertise in a particular subject can be separated into a
number of steps, and that with support (scaffolding) the learner can move
up the steps to achieve proficiency. Scaffolding denotes the idea that
people need support (ideally from their peers and ‘masters’
in the craft, but potentially from many other sources) until they can
develop their expertise at a level above where they currently are.
Ramsden’s three theories of teaching provide us with a good description
of the ‘zones’ that require to be mastered by academics, departments,
faculties and institutions as they mature as teachers. The diagram below
shows their relations to learning objects and learning designs.
Figure 2: Ramsden’s models mapped to the technologies as proximal development zones
The most important building block in our proposed model of development for academics is for them to work in teams that do not just include academics but also media designers, learning technologists and educational design specialists such as instructional designers. This division of labour is necessary for efficiency (Laurillard, 1994), but from our point of view this is where the real usefulness of technologies such as learning objects and Learning Design becomes clear. They become what Wenger (1998) calls ‘boundary objects’. This simple idea has some important ramifications about the uses of these technologies:
• They act as a form of collective memory for a particular community that can be accessed and reused by that community in the future.
• They support the construction and sharing of enough meaning between different groups (subject academics, tutors, administrators, instructional designers, media designers etc) to allow them to understand their place in the educational system they are working in.
• To achieve the first two objectives the necessary contextual data needs to be collected.
Working as a team to design, develop and deliver courses, and sharing
their learning materials and conceptions about teaching and learning are
the basis for potentially powerful staff and institutional development
processes. The ability of learning objects and learning designs to support
this process can be exploited. Properly conceived and planned, this process
may also play a role in building and strengthening scholarly communities.
Learning objects and Learning Design have been eagerly welcomed and adopted
by the e-learning community in the UK, and this has brought to the surface
some of the issues discussed in this paper. Rather than presenting an
impassable obstacle, this reification of existing pedagogic practice,
attitudes and values is useful and identifies areas to be addressed through
staff development, although we do not underestimate the task at hand.
As a result of these developments it is now increasingly obvious that
the human infrastructure needs to be developed to effectively use these
new tools (and the more recent ones such as VLEs etc). This is likely
to pose some significant challenges in the form of institutional and professional
change. As Mayes (1995) reminds us:
‘Education is a social and political system, and the checks and balances that keep the system working may not be shifted by any technology.’ |
Along the way, we may indeed find that learning objects and learning design do help in transforming teaching in HE – it just might not happen the way we thought it would.
Alongside the staff development framework there needs to be a change to
the institutional and professional organisation of teaching that can actually
utilise a re-skilled teaching workforce along the lines we have been discussing.
As Carol Twigg (2005) has observed, much of the development of e-learning
in HE to date has been ‘bolted-on’ to existing structures
and practice; to move forward, she contends that the process of teaching
has to be re-engineered around the technology. In this context, staff
development without parallel institutional/organisational change makes
little sense as there will be nowhere to use and develop the skills that
we are advocating; it would be a classic misuse of training and be counter-productive.
To be clear, the underlying causes of the obstacles to the adoption of
learning objects and Learning Design are professional culture and institutional
organisation. As Mayes observes, there has to be the will to change to
accommodate the technology – staff development alone cannot make
this happen. The kind of changes we envisage are relatively simple, but
raise some profound questions for traditional HE institutions and academic
staff about their roles and relationships. These are the areas that we
see as fertile for further work:
• Teaching is recognised as the primary business activity for most HE institutions and treated accordingly.
• Courses are designed, developed and delivered by multidisciplinary teams – rather than individuals.
• Course content/syllabus is not changed (apart from maintenance) for between 3-7 years.
• All course materials are created and shared before the course begins – ie no teaching from your own notes.
• The staff who teach and tutor on a course are probably not the staff who designed and developed the course.
• Staff teaching and tutoring on a course are likely to be on different employment contracts to traditional lecturers, who are primarily subject specialists.
• All course content and teaching and learning materials are digitised and shared in a central institutional repository in learning object format.
• Novice academic teachers (and support staff) are allocated a ‘master’ and team to develop their skills in a clear institutional staff development framework.
• Learning objects have enough contextual information in them for the members of the team to make sense of them and reuse them – pedagogically, technically and administratively.
• Learning Design is used to represent the pedagogic strategy associated with a learning object, and this is used for staff development purposes and as an aid to reflective practice, with a user-friendly graphical interface.
• Learning designs and learning objects are mapped to particular curriculum teaching aims and learning outcomes in an easy-to-understand graphical format to facilitate search and reuse.
These activities and objectives are the type of context that needs to
exist to make our staff development framework meaningful. Currently, little
of this activity exists in HE outside distance-learning providers. As
this context develops in HE, then our proposed staff development framework
becomes more relevant.
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culture of learning’, Educational Researcher, 18, 1, 32-42
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Metadata and Resources in Supporting Web Services for Learning Communities’,
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Press
This document reproduced by kind permission from Digitalinsite® (www.digitalinsite.co.uk),
who are working on a larger toolkit. It may be reproduced and adapted
so long as attribution is provided.
Overview
The following list of questions, observations and suggestions is intended
to provoke you into thinking about your situation. Over the years we have
found that many questions and problems relating to flexible and e-learning
reoccur regularly. We decided to compile our responses to provide a convenient
record for ourselves and others to browse through in order to help them
reflect on their situation.
No two situations will be exactly the same, but like any field of work
many common patterns are repeated, especially during the cycle of adopting
a new set of approaches and tools.
Your situation
You have been asked/told to create an on-line/e-learning course. This
does not mean that you have to throw out everything you know. A lot of
hype and misconceptions surround this area; the following points might
help.
1 On-line learning, e-learning and similar terms are not very precise or useful. That said, this type of design and delivery involves elements of open and distance-learning techniques where the creation and delivery of the course is a team effort. Open/distance-learning courses and materials take longer to create, are more expensive and involve making your teaching strategies explicit to the rest of the team and the students.
2 Working as part of a team is often the greatest challenge. The change in working culture from ‘me’ to ‘we’, which is required to make the investment in e-learning viable, is the most overlooked and largest problem facing most organisations.
3 If you are doing this work as a result of a successful bid for funding, what does the funding documentation covering the work say is required? What did the call for bids say and, most importantly, what did your organisation say it was going to do in return for the money? Are the terms e-learning, on-line learning etc specified anywhere? If another organisation applied for and got the funding and has contracted the work to you to do, what did they say they were going to do for the money they got, and what did they ask you to do? You really need to answer all these questions before going any further. This is where most projects start to go wrong.
4 Evaluation is a pain for most people. They just want to get on with the job, and this activity is usually left to the end of the project to satisfy the funding arrangements. The best time to start your evaluation activities is now. Ideally, do it at the start of the project and you start by getting the answers for the previous questions. These answers should give you the statements that describe what you are doing and trying to achieve. Clear answers to these questions enable you to frame your evaluation design fairly easily.
5 How much money/time/people/resources have you got in reality to use for this work? Again, a clear statement of what you are doing will help you to figure out what you need.
6 Costing for this kind of work is notoriously difficult – as a rough rule of thumb, multimedia creation is expensive, and making lots of web pages is also costly (and often pointless educationally). One metric for the development of face-to-face materials is five hours’ development time to one hour of delivery – you should regard that as the minimum for your e-learning development costs. If you are under cost pressure, create most or all of your materials for off-line delivery via print/CD/DVD and use the on-line environment for supporting students and setting individual and group activities. You can also put links to Word files etc on your site or VLE. This approach is widely used by respected outfits like the OU and University of Southern Queensland, so it should be good enough for you. The advantage is that this still counts as being ‘e-learning’.
7 The OU has a useful rough measure of the on-line ‘footprint’ for a course as:
a totally on-line – no face to face and all materials on-line (a very small proportion of its courses)
b mixed – some on-line, some off-line materials and face to face (the majority of its courses)
c optional – students can complete the course without going on-line.
8 If you are new to on-line learning and teaching, why not take a leaf out of the OU’s book? When the OU got into this in the 1990s, it took existing distance-learning courses and added an element of information and communications technology (ICT) to them, usually a simple website and one or more discussion forums. This approach is called the ‘wrap-around’ model and adds a layer of ‘e-ness’ or ‘on-lineness’ that can be as thick or as thin as you like or can afford. It is a good model to follow if you are just getting into this area.
9 If you follow the wrap-around model you need to think about the teaching materials you are going to use and your teaching strategies. The biggest break point for most people doing e-learning is getting their head round the fact that they are really starting to do a version of open and distance learning at the same time.
10 On-line learning and e-learning really involve the on-line and distance-learning skills of starting to speculate about and share how you think people will learn the subject matter. It is a step change away from face-to-face teaching, where what happens behind the classroom door is a mystery to outsiders.
11 Another tripping point for people getting into on-line learning and e-learning is sharing their learning materials. It really makes no sense for different teachers to continue to use their individual notes, resources and perspectives on a subject. Like it or loath it, this is a team sport. You need to coordinate with your colleagues what you are going to present to your students and how you expect your students to use your stuff to learn.
12 Some of the worst courses we have seen are those where teachers carry on as they do in a face-to-face deeply ‘embedded’ contextual institutional setting. This is typified by poor communication and coordination between and within the course design and delivery teams. Typically, the teachers write their materials the week or day before the students need them, with little overall coordination. This results in a scrappy and unsatisfying experience for students, often with poorly designed assessments and on-line student activities, and with poor responses from the teachers. Such courses are fairly wretched affairs for all involved.
13 What are you going to teach? Is there a curriculum or existing teaching aims and learning objectives and outcomes from a syllabus that you can use? If not, you need to create them. This is often an iterative and messy process. These questions might help:
a What does the subject matter consist of (the domain) and at what level are you operating?
b Is there an articulated need for what you are doing? If not, you need to do a needs analysis to produce one – it really is worth it.
c Is the subject matter well structured internally?
d Is the subject matter theoretical, or involved with practice, or both?
e Are there any strong ethical positions you want to convey?
f Are there any standard texts or materials you can use to support your work? If so, use them.
g What prerequisites are required to enter the course?
h What are the characteristics of your target students? Can you create student profile(s)? The more you know about your students the better.
i What level of autonomous independent learning and motivation are your students likely to have? This is a major design factor:
ii What level of access to computer and network services will they have? What IT skills will they have?
iii Work backwards from the learning outcomes to design the assessment activities.
j Design student activities to support the outcomes.
k For rough design work, brainstorming, mindmaps and concept maps are all useful, as is a hierarchical content list of the subject matter.
l If you are really stuck, but have a lot you would like to say about the subject or some favourite materials or activities, then just get creating. You might then be able to make something more formal in the way of some design specifications. It always helps to discuss stuff with a colleague – as long as you choose the right colleague. If you have access to an instructional designer, you are very lucky. If not, seek out someone who has designed distance-learning courses and materials, or someone who has worked in e-learning already (be careful with e-learning practitioners though – there is a lot of bad and mad practice out there).
m Have a look at some examples of e-learning materials and see which styles suit your purpose or resources.
n Try using the scalable D1 design template (available from the Digitalinsite website) for recording what the student and teacher are doing with what resource and in connection with what part of the knowledge domain.
o Try using the subject matter Z1 zoom template (available from the Digitalinsite website) to get a sense of how what you are working on might relate to the overall course content and structure.
14 On-line materials creation (ie materials intended to be viewed and used on-line) should be treated with some caution:
a Making people read lots of text on screen is bad practice and an ergonomic nightmare, even for able-bodied students with good eyesight – most will hit the print button. If you really want to help your students, just put a link to a Word document – screen readers also find it easier.
b Even experienced web designers have problems making their web pages meet accessibility standards; most academics and many in-house support units don’t have these skills.
c Make navigation and layout clear, consistent and simple, ie make your stuff easy to use. Your students are usually not looking for an ‘MTV’ experience (contrary to the hype), they just want to pass their course.
d Use your on-line web pages thoughtfully to complement your other learning materials and resources.
e If you are providing links to websites, make sure you annotate the links and say what you think is good about the sites and what parts of the course they are relevant to. There are some great web resources out there and this is a good way to increase the educational value of them. It also scores points on quality assessment.
f Bad practice and mad practice can easily take hold in departments which have little interaction with the rest of the educational world. Make sure you look at what other people are doing. Converting all your existing teaching materials to web format is not really a good way to go, nor is it sustainable in the long term.
15 Video-conferencing of lectures is not a good use of anyone’s time or the network. Most lectures have little or no interactivity and tie down different groups of students at the same time – not very flexible. Most lectures would be far better recorded and put on a CD or DVD.
16 If you want to use video-conferencing, use it for small-group work where students have the time to comment – this scores on quality.
17 Design your course so that students’ on-line activities and interactions are clear, purposeful and managed. You need to set and manage your students’ expectations for response times from the start.
18 If your course involves a lot of on-line/distance work for your students, make sure you have a face-to-face induction session – this is worth its weight in gold in sussing out potential problems and checking the IT skills of the students. It also helps to build a group identity and gives you some goodwill credit that can stand you in good stead later.
19 Set clear standards for on-line behaviour (netiquette) and take prompt action if people behave badly (warn and exclude, etc).
20 Most VLEs provide an almost ‘forensic’ record of what students and teachers have been doing and saying to each other – this ‘Big Brother’ aspect of on-line work takes some getting used to. It can show the best and the worst of teacher behaviour.
21 Trying to project your face-to-face teaching behaviour exactly onto e-learning generally fails – it is a different medium.
22 E-learning is not suitable for every subject or every student. Is what you are proposing sensible? Does it make sense? For instance, a totally on-line course on basic computer literacy aimed at students with no prior IT experience would be wrong. They would need a printed handbook, face-to-face teaching and a computer lab.
23 Like face-to-face courses, the first couple of weeks or so of an on-line course usually determine how the rest of the course will go. Setting the tone and making sure that everyone is settled in and clear about what they have to do and have the necessary resources is vital. This where an induction session is very useful.
24 Copyright – you need to be able to account for all the materials you are using in the course – where they came from and what permissions you have to use them, so keep records.
25 Always provide a credits list of those people who have worked on the course.
26 Copyright and intellectual property rights (IPR) are essentially simple – you cannot use other people’s stuff unless:
a it is expired from copyright
b you have been given permission to use it
c you are allowed to use it under some kind of licensing scheme, such as a public collection.
27 Working with copyright and IPR:
a Always read the licence conditions if there is one on a site.
b Keep records.
c If you want to apply for permission, it will probably take a long time and you might have to pay – probably not worth the hassle.
d If you do ask for permission, make sure you ask the right person – lecturers do not own their materials, their employer does.
28 Designing courses and materials which require little updating and maintenance is a really important skill to acquire. Here are some tips:
a under construction (at the Digitalinsite website)
29 Design for reuse – under construction (at the Digitalinsite website)
30 Administrative issues are a bigger problem for e-learning than you might think, so start thinking about them and work-arounds early on.
31 A good way to evaluate a course design, learning material or learning activity is to put yourself in the students’ shoes and carry out a ‘cognitive walk through’ – better still, get a colleague to do this and observe them.
32 Traditional courses are like ‘black boxes’ where no one knows what really goes on. Inside the course, students pass through lessons and sections taught by academics, based on the lecturers’ own notes and experiences. From the students’ point of view this is a bitty and fragmentary experience. Trying to stick with traditional methods and include e-learning generally fails.
33 Taking a collective team approach and using a common set of teaching materials improves the student experience and performance. Research evidence is beginning to appear which backs up this statement, and this is the reason for adopting learning objects in our work.
34 Starting from scratch with a novice subject-matter expert – if you are having to dream up a module from scratch with an academic subject-matter expert who has little experience of this kind of work and without any descriptors or syllabuses in existence, this can be a bit daunting to say the least. Below are some tips that might be useful:
• This situation can be the educational equivalent of writer’s block. A good trick to get going is ¬not to start writing content, any content (we have all done that), but instead to think about your subject-matter content and just create a structured and hierarchical list that describes and breaks down the content. This gives you the initial syllabus of what you might want to cover, breaking it up into the logical chunks of what must be known in order to move on to the next chunk to allow someone’s knowledge and understanding to increase. You can use your own learning experience as an initial guide for this, but be prepared not to inflict it on your students.
• This approach represents the deficit-accrual or ‘building block’ model of learning and teaching. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start. If we stopped here, we might well be justly criticised by educationalists, so let’s call this part of the process our ‘knowledge capture phase’ – sounds good?
• A useful next step is to think about what someone can do or represent to show that they have understood this subject content, or to put it another way, what would mastery of this subject material consist of? This starts us on the process of creating our learning outcomes and assessment criteria.
• Next up, it would be good to think about how we should teach this stuff. Following the order we have come up with so far from a subject specialist’s perspective is intuitive for us, but is often not the best way to teach the subject to students. A good rule of thumb is to start the teaching plan with a presentation of what the module leads towards, including the main aspects, constituents and relations of the subject matter. This is good for motivation and lays down an overview of the subject structure that helps students to develop an orientation towards the subject. Then look at the main parts of the subject matter in what is effectively your prototype module. They probably don’t all need to be taught in a certain order – can you break them up into chunks that can be moved around?
• Now is a really good time to think about your prospective students. What are their likely characteristics, in terms of prior knowledge, attitudes and their own contexts? Write down your answers – this is one of the main points of reference for your module design. A good next question to ask is ‘How can I help my students to change from their current conceptions of the subject matter towards that level of knowledge which would represent mastery?’. Good subsidiary questions to ask are ‘What are the typical types of change involved in those conceptions?’ and ‘Which ones are most likely to pose the biggest problems for my students?’. Answers to these questions begin to provide us with guidance on what to teach and how and what we need to concentrate on. They are also in line with Ramsden’s proposed approach to teaching. Then we can go back and refine the aims and objectives of the module as well as the assessment criteria.
• You might have to go through this cycle several times, but you should get there. Now you have a good framework to start laying your content on – or creating content for.
The simple idea here is to use the Scottish Credit and Qualifications
Framework (SCQF) level descriptors to give your target students a profile.
We provide a short overview of the SCQF then an edited version of the
12 levels, which shows the types of ‘generic cognitive skills’
and the expectations for ‘autonomy, accountability and working with
others’ that are supposed to be associated with students at that
level. Again, this is not to be viewed as an inflexible and authoritative
statement – it is intended to be a useful guide. The main benefit
is that you and your colleagues can use it to develop a shared, agreed
profile of the typical student you expect on your course. This can then
play a useful role for planning the type and degree of flexibility to
provide which is realistic in terms of your student population.
For convenience we have also included the level descriptors for ‘knowledge
and understanding’ in the subject area. This is likely to be particularly
helpful to those academics who see themselves as mainly subject-matter
experts and are not used to visualising their students in terms of the
other two sorts of descriptors. The student profiler (and other simple
tools) can help a disparate group of academics to come to a shared understanding
of different factors when designing or discussing a course.
A note about the SCQF – it is well worth your time to get acquainted
with the SCQF, as it provides potentially powerful support for course
design in further and higher education. In a course design team it would
be wise to have one person delegated to using the SCQF on behalf of the
team. A useful introduction to the SCQF is available from: http://www.scqf.org.uk/downloads.asp
The SCQF uses two measures to describe qualifications and learning programmes:
• the level of the outcomes of learning
• the volume of outcomes, described in terms of the number of credits.
The volume of an outcome is arrived at by estimating the amount of time
required by the ‘average’ learner, at a particular level,
to achieve the outcomes.
Each of the 12 SCQF levels can be the location of one or more qualifications.
At present, these are the qualifications of higher education institutions
in Scotland and those awarded and accredited by the Scottish Qualifications
Authority.
Level 1 represents outcomes designed for learners with severe and profound
learning difficulties, while level 12 contains outcomes associated with
doctoral studies. Increases in level demands relate to factors such as:
• complexity and depth of knowledge and understanding
• links to academic, vocational or professional practice
• the degree of integration, independence and creativity required
• the range and sophistication of application/practice
• the role(s) taken in relation to other learners/workers in carrying out tasks.
Each level of the SCQF from 2-12 has a descriptor that sets out its characteristic
general outcomes under five broad headings:
• knowledge and understanding (mainly subject-based)
• practice (applied knowledge and understanding)
• generic cognitive skills (eg evaluation, critical analysis)
• communication, numeracy and information technology skills
• autonomy, accountability and working with others.
The SCQF levels mapped to qualifications
SCQF level 1 – Access 1
SCQF level 2 – Access 2
SCQF level 3 – Access 3, Standard Grade Foundation level
SCQF level 4 – Intermediate 1, Standard Grade General level, Scottish
Vocational Qualification (SVQ) 1
SCQF level 5 – Intermediate 2, Standard Grade Credit level, SVQ
2
SCQF level 6 – Higher, SVQ 3
SCQF level 7 – Scottish Higher Education (SHE) level 1, CertHE,
Higher National Certificate (HNC), Advanced Higher
SCQF level 8 – SHE level 2, Dip HE, Higher National Diploma (HND),
SVQ 4
SCQF level 9 – SHE level 3, Ordinary degrees, Graduate Certificates
SCQF level 10 – SHE level 4, Honours degrees, Graduate Diplomas
SCQF level 11 – SHE level 5, Postgraduate (PG) 1, PgDip, PgCert,
MA, MSc, SVQ 5
SCQF level 12 – SHE level 6, PG 2, PhD Doctorate
| SCQF level 1 — (Access 1) | ||
| Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others | |
| There is no separate descriptor for level 1, which covers all provision that comes below the full achievement of level 2. | ||
|
SCQF level 2 (Access 2 is an example of qualifications at this level) |
||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or work with: • knowledge of simple facts and ideas in a subject/discipline. |
Use rehearsed stages for solving problems. Operate in personal and/or everyday contexts. Take some account, with prompting, of identified consequences of action. |
Work alone or with others on simple routine, familiar tasks under frequent and directive supervision. Identify, given simple criteria, some successes and/or failures of the work. |
| SCQF level 3 (Access 3, Standard Grade Foundation level are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
Demonstrate and/or work with: • basic knowledge in a subject/discipline • simple facts and ideas associated with a subject/discipline. |
Identify, with some prompting, a process to deal with a situation
or issue.
Operate in familiar contexts using given criteria. Take account of some identified consequences of action. |
Work alone or with others on simple tasks under frequent supervision. Participate in the setting of goals, timelines etc. Participate in the review of completed work and the identification of ways of improving practices and processes. Identify, given simple criteria, own strengths and weaknesses relative to the work. |
|
SCQF level 4 (Intermediate 1, Standard Grade General level, SVQ 1 are examples of qualifications at this level) |
||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or work with: • basic knowledge in a subject/discipline which is mainly factual • some simple facts and ideas about and associated with a subject/discipline • knowledge of basic processes, materials and terminology |
Use, with guidance, given stages of a problem-solving approach to deal with a situation or issue. Operate in straightforward contexts. Identify and/or take account of some of the consequences of action/inaction. |
Work alone or with others on straightforward tasks. Contribute to the setting of goals, timelines etc. Contribute to the review of completed work and offer suggestions for improving practices and processes. Identify own strengths and weaknesses relative to the work. |
| SCQF level 5 (Intermediate 2, Standard Grade Credit level, SVQ 2 are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or work with: • basic knowledge in a subject/discipline which is mainly factual but has some theoretical component • a range of simple facts and ideas about and associated with a subject/discipline • knowledge and understanding of basic processes, materials and terminology. |
Use a problem-solving approach to deal with a situation or issue
which is straightforward in relation to a subject/discipline.
Operate in a familiar context, but where there is a need to take account of or use additional information of different kinds, some of which will be theoretical or hypothetical. Use some abstract constructs – eg make generalisations and/or draw conclusions. |
Work alone or with others on tasks with minimum supervision. Agree goals and responsibilities for self and/or work team with manager/supervisor. Take leadership responsibility for some tasks. Show an awareness of others’ roles, responsibilities and requirements in carrying out work and make a contribution to the evaluation and improvement of practices and processes. |
|
SCQF level 6 (Higher, SVQ 3 are examples of qualifications at this level) |
||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or work with: • generalised knowledge of a subject/discipline • factual and theoretical knowledge • a range of facts, ideas, properties, materials, terminology, practices, techniques about/associated with a subject/discipline • relate the subject/discipline to a range of practical and/or everyday applications. |
Obtain, organise and use factual and theoretical information in problem solving. Make generalisations and predictions. Draw conclusions and suggest solutions. |
Take responsibility for carrying out a range of activities, where the overall goal is clear, under non-directive supervision. Take some supervisory responsibility for the work of others and lead established teams in the implementation of routine work. Manage limited resources within defined and supervised areas of work. Take account of roles and responsibilities related to the tasks being carried out and take a significant role in the evaluation of work and the improvement of practices and processes. |
|
SCQF level 7 (SHE level 1) (CertHE, HNC, Advanced Higher are examples of qualifications at this level) |
||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or • a broad knowledge of the subject/discipline in general • knowledge that is embedded in the main theories, concepts and principles • an awareness of the evolving/changing nature of knowledge and understanding • an understanding of the difference between explanations based in evidence and/or research and other forms of explanation, and of the importance of this difference. |
Present and evaluate arguments, information and ideas which are routine to the subject/discipline. Use a range of approaches to addressing defined and/or routine problems and issues within familiar contexts. |
Exercise some initiative and independence in carrying out defined activities at a professional level. Take supervision in less familiar areas of work. Take some managerial responsibility for the work of others within a defined and supervised structure. Manage limited resources within defined areas of work. Take the lead in implementing agreed plans in familiar or defined contexts. Take account of own and others’ roles and responsibilities in carrying out and evaluating tasks. Work with others in support of current professional practice under guidance. |
| SCQF level 8 (SHE level 2) (DipHE, HND, SVQ 4 are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
|
• a broad knowledge of the scope, defining features, and main areas of a subject/discipline • detailed knowledge in some areas • understanding of a limited range of core theories, principles and concepts • limited knowledge and understanding of some major current issues and specialisms • an outline knowledge and understanding of research and equivalent scholarly/academic processes. |
Undertake critical analysis, evaluation and/or synthesis of ideas, concepts, information and issues which are within the common understandings of the subject/discipline. Use a range of approaches to formulate evidence-based solutions/responses to defined and/or routine problems/issues. Critically evaluate evidence-based solutions/responses to defined and/or routine problems/issues. |
Exercise autonomy and initiative in some activities at a professional level. Take significant managerial or supervisory responsibility for the work of others in defined areas of work. Manage resources within defined areas of work. Take the lead on planning in familiar or defined contexts. Take continuing account of own and others’ roles, responsibilities and contributions in carrying out and evaluating tasks. Work in support of current professional practice under guidance. Deal with ethical and professional issues in accordance with current professional and/or ethical codes or practices under guidance. |
| SCQF level 9 (SHE level 3) (Ordinary degrees, Graduate Certificates are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or work with: • a broad and integrated knowledge and understanding of the scope, main areas and boundaries of a subject/discipline • a critical understanding of a selection of the principal theories, principles, concepts and terminology • knowledge that is detailed in some areas and/or knowledge of one or more specialisms that are informed by forefront developments.
|
Undertake critical analysis, evaluation and/or synthesis of ideas, concepts, information and issues. Identify and analyse routine professional problems and issues. Draw on a range of sources in making judgements. |
Exercise autonomy and initiative in some activities at a professional level. Take some responsibility for the work of others and for a range of resources. Practise in ways which take account of own and others’ roles and responsibilities. Work under guidance with qualified practitioners. Deal with ethical and professional issues in accordance with current professional and/or ethical codes or practices, seeking guidance where appropriate. |
| SCQF level 10 (SHE level 4) (honours degrees, Graduate Diplomas are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or • knowledge that covers and integrates most of the principal areas, features, boundaries, terminology and conventions of a subject/discipline • a critical understanding of the principal theories, concepts and principles • detailed knowledge and understanding in one or more specialisms, some of which is informed by or at the forefront of a subject/discipline • knowledge and understanding of the ways in which the subject/discipline is developed, including a range of established techniques of enquiry or research methodologies.
|
Critically identify, define, conceptualise and analyse complex/professional-level problems and issues. Offer professional-level insights, interpretations and solutions to problems and issues. Critically review and consolidate knowledge, skills and practices and thinking in a subject/discipline. Demonstrate some originality and creativity in dealing with professional-level issues. Make judgements where data/information is limited or comes from a range of sources. |
Exercise autonomy and initiative in professional/equivalent activities. Take significant responsibility for the work of others and for a range of resources. Practise in ways which show a clear awareness of own and others’ roles and responsibilities. Work effectively under guidance in a peer relationship with qualified practitioners. Work with others to bring about change, development and/or new thinking. Deal with complex ethical and professional issues in accordance with current professional and/or ethical codes or practices. Recognise the limits of these codes and seek guidance where appropriate. |
| SCQF level 11 (SHE level 5, PG 1) (PgDip, PgCert, MA, MSc, SVQ 5 are examples of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or • knowledge that covers and integrates most, if not all, of the main areas of a subject/discipline – including their features, boundaries, terminology and conventions • a critical understanding of the principal theories, principles and concepts • a critical understanding of a range of specialised theories, principles and concepts • extensive, detailed and critical knowledge and understanding in one or more specialisms, much of which is at or informed by developments at the forefront • critical awareness of current issues in a subject/discipline and one or more specialisms.
|
Apply critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis to issues which are at the forefront or informed by developments at the forefront of a subject/discipline. Identify, conceptualise and define new and abstract problems and issues. Develop original and creative responses to problems and issues. Critically review, consolidate and extend knowledge, skills practices and thinking in a subject/discipline. Deal with complex issues and make informed judgements in situations in the absence of complete or consistent data/information. |
Exercise substantial autonomy and initiative in professional and equivalent activities. Take responsibility for own work and/or significant responsibility for the work of others. Take responsibility for a significant range of resources. Demonstrate leadership and/or initiative and make an identifiable contribution to change and development. Practise in ways which draw on critical reflection on own and others’ roles and responsibilities. Deal with complex ethical and professional issues and make informed judgements on issues not addressed by current professional and/or ethical codes or practices. |
| SCQF level 12 (SHE level 6, PG 2) (PhD Doctorate is an example of qualifications at this level) | ||
| Knowledge and understanding | Generic cognitive skills | Autonomy, accountability and working with others |
| Demonstrate and/or • a critical overview of a subject/discipline, including critical understanding of the principal theories, principles and concepts • a critical, detailed and often leading knowledge and understanding at the forefront of one or more specialisms • knowledge and understanding that is generated through personal research or equivalent work which makes a significant contribution to the development of the subject/discipline.
|
Apply a constant and integrated approach to critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and complex ideas, information and issues. Identify, conceptualise and offer original and creative insights into new, complex and abstract ideas, information and issues. Develop creative and original responses to problems and issues. Deal with very complex and/or new issues and make informed judgements in the absence of complete or consistent data/information. |
Exercise a high level of autonomy and initiative in professional and equivalent activities. Take full responsibility for own work and/or significant responsibility for the work of others. Demonstrate leadership and/or originality in tackling and solving problems and issues. Work in ways which are reflective, self-critical and based on research/evidence. Deal with complex ethical and professional issues. Make informed judgements on new and emerging issues not addressed by current professional and/or ethical codes or practices. |
QAA Enhancement Theme – Flexible Delivery Project
CASE-STUDY SUMMARIES A to D
These four case studies contain the responses to the researchers’
questions. To see how they have been analysed by the researchers, please
consult the project literature review (Normand and Littlejohn, 2006).
Case study A
| Programme name | Postgraduate Certificate |
| SCQF exit level/SCOTCAT (Scottish credit accumulation and transfer scheme) points | SCQF level 10 |
| Faculty | Faculty of Education and Social Work |
| Institution | University of Dundee |
| Programme originator/developer | T-L Team and OM |
| Contact name | |
| Contact email | |
| Programme overview | Programme aims/outcomes, market, previous delivery methods, average cohort size, staff-student ratio (SSR), duration of programme, funding stream |
Programme aims to: Course fees are paid directly by the Scottish Executive Education Department, with further funding coming from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). |
|
| Delivery mechanism | Campus based, distance paper based, web based, student support arrangements |
The programme is a blend of ‘face-to-face’ lectures/seminars, on-line learning and school-based practice. This involves the equivalent of 18 weeks’ school experience, seven weeks’ in-faculty ‘face to face, and the equivalent of 11 weeks’ on-line study. The University uses the commercial web-based package ‘Blackboard’ as its virtual learning environment. Students are encouraged to communicate through discussion fora. The fora are monitored by staff, and feedback is given as staff feel appropriate. Students are allocated two tutors – one for generic learning and teaching, the other for subject-specific issues. Staff support students at a distance and via the VLE. Another important element is peer support, and students are encouraged to provide constructive feedback to each other. One of the mechanisms for doing this is through ‘file exchange’, whereby students post files of their work and receive peer feedback. The students are put into mixed subject groups for generic input, and also specific subject-area groups. This gives students opportunities to develop face-to-face relationships, which we feel are essential in encouraging on-line dialogue. In our experience, people are less likely to post to ‘faceless’ on-line discussion groups. |
|
| Main flexible features and rationale | Flexible in terms of time, pace, structure, location, entry, exit, course content? Rationale for developing the programme? |
The programme provides flexibility in terms of location and time. The students only have to be in faculty for a total of seven weeks, and never any longer than two weeks in any given block. The seven weeks also have a degree of flexibility in that they can be spread over two years. The initial two weeks, however, are fixed and compulsory. The 11 weeks’ on-line can be at a place of the student’s choosing, although they are welcome to use the University’s facilities if they so wish. The majority of the students follow the one-year full-time route, with only 3/4 students choosing to complete the course over a two-year period. The rationale for the course was to give flexible entry to Initial Teacher Education (ITE) for students for reasons of distance, family or work commitments to be able to enter ITE. The majority of the cohort comes from the east central belt of Scotland, with only a few from geographically remote areas. In terms of using local resources to add capacity to geographically remote teaching areas, we have had limited success; but in terms of addressing subject shortage areas we have had a greater impact by more than doubling our intake. We do have a small number of students who chose to study at Dundee because the flexible format of the course perfectly matched their needs. |
|
| Learning and teaching approaches | How are learning and teaching strategies structured? Who supports the students? Are core materials provided centrally, shared, or individually developed? Who supports you and the programme team? |
The materials are organised and displayed on the VLE. This includes in-faculty inputs. The majority of staff post the materials on the VLE. The allocation of who takes charge of what is agreed at team meetings. All staff have access to each other’s materials and provide feedback or use another’s work as a model for developing student materials. Usually, materials are developed individually but there are several examples of collaborative working and team teaching. There are three modules on the VLE linking to the programme. In each module there are two folders of activities. Red activities are to be competed by halfway through school experience, and green activities by end of school experience/return to faculty. The activities make full use of web-based resources in terms of the types of files used and multimedia approaches. Programme is supported at faculty level by Dean and Head of Department. In-faculty support is given by team members. IT support is given by the University’s IT Services and Learning Enhancement Unit. |
|
| Assessment strategies and arrangements | Are assessment strategies considered in terms of meeting flexible demands? |
| To accommodate students who are following the two-year route, assessment deadlines are adjusted accordingly. There are three main summative assignments – two essays and an electronic portfolio (Ep). Since there is not a final exam, it is easy to adjust assignment dates. However, the assignments involve peer review and feedback, so it is essential to facilitate on-line collaboration. This is partly done by forming generic and subject groups and by group work during in-faculty sessions. The Ep is continuously updated throughout the year, and feedback is received from peers and tutors throughout the year so that individual students can act on the feedback before final submission for formative assessment of the Ep. | |
| Evaluation to date and main changes | How long has the programme run in its present format? How is it evaluated? Are criteria different for flexible delivery? What have been the main changes and why? |
The course is only entering its second year. Evaluation of the course has been by external examiner feedback and on-line questionnaires/surveys to participating students and staff. Some of the features of Blackboard are used to analyse the data. Main changes are: 2 Up until now, the students have been provided with wireless-activated laptops. This has allowed us to standardise the software available to the students, which makes it easier to design appropriate inputs, plus there are licence copyright issues. In future it is likely that students will have to provide their own machines, which brings with it a number of technical and administrative problems that have still to be discussed and ironed out. 3 School experience is moving to three blocks of six weeks instead of accumulating the equivalent of 18 weeks over a two- year programme. The concern was that students only having small, short-lived bursts of school experience are not being given the opportunity for longer-term planning or experiencing the physical side of teaching consecutively for a prolonged period. |
|
| Areas of flexibility implemented in the case study | Do you think your programme offers flexibility to students in terms of one or more of the factors listed below? Place an ‘x’ at any of the relevant choices. |
| Flexibility related to time: | Fixed time <---------------X----> Flexible |
| 1 Times (for starting and finishing course) | <---------------------X--------> |
| 2 Times (for submitting assignments and interacting within the course) | <---------------------X--------> |
3 Tempo/pace of studying |
< --------------------- ---- X ----> |
| 4 Moments of assessment | <-------------------------- X ---> |
Flexibility related to content:
|
Fixed content <-----------------> Flexible |
| 5 Topics of the course | < ----- X -----------------------> |
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | <----- X -----------------------> |
| 7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) | <----- X -----------------------> |
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | < ----- X -----------------------> |
| 9 Assessment standards and completion requirements | < ----- X -----------------------> |
| Flexibility related to entry requirements: | Fixed requirements <-----------------> Flexible |
| 10 Conditions for participation | < X ----------------------------> This is a nationally accredited course and there are fixed national entry requirements. |
| Flexibility related to instructional approach and resources: | Fixed pedagogy and resources <---------------> Flexible |
| 11 Social organisation of learning (face to face; group; individual) | <---------------------X--------> |
| 12 Language to be used during the course | < X ----------------------------> |
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) | < ---------------------X--------> |
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) | < ---------------------X--------> |
| Flexibility related to delivery and logistics: | Fixed place and procedures<---------------> Flexible |
| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | <---------------------X--------> I think this is very flexible in terms of on-line support. |
| 16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact | <---------------------X--------> |
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required | <------ X -------------- --------> |
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course | <---------------------X--------> |
Collis and Moonen (2004), 10 |
< ----------- X ---------- --------> |
Case study B
| Programme name | BA |
| SCQF exit level/SCOTCAT points | SCQF level 9 |
| Faculty | Education and Social Work |
| Institution | University of Dundee |
| Programme originator/developer | OM |
| Contact name | |
| Contact email | |
| Programme overview | Programme outcomes, market, previous delivery methods, average cohort size, SSR, duration of programme, funding stream |
The programme is roll-on roll-off, although we tend to start participants three times a year. We may start between 25 and 35 depending on the number on the waiting list and staffing. For each level of the programme, students will take two years or two and a half years. They are either self-funding or are funded from their employer or their childcare partnership. The main monies for them come from the workforce development fund. All our modules are SFC funded. |
|
| Delivery mechanism | Campus based, distance paper based, web based, student support arrangements |
| Paper-based distance learning, with face-to-face delivery if sufficient participants on the same module. Support arrangements are through tutor feedback, tutor email, face-to-face tutorials, telephone tutorials. | |
| Main flexible features and rationale | Flexible in terms of time, pace, structure, location, entry, exit, course content? Rationale for developing the programme? |
| Rationale – as above.
Flexible in that after core modules, participants have a choice of modules to suit their needs and interests. At level 7 there is no choice, at level 8 there are two core and four options, and at level 9 there are two core and two options. At levels 7 and 8, each participant has 17 weeks to complete a module, which is 20 credits. At level 9, they have 30 weeks to complete a module, which is 30 credits. Generally, participants require longer to complete a module, for various reasons. Course content is geared towards early education and focuses on key areas of early childhood values and beliefs. Curriculum: diversity, community issues, social issues, management issues, self-evaluation and reflection. |
|
| Learning and teaching approaches | How are learning and teaching strategies structured? Who supports the students? Are core materials provided centrally, shared, or individually developed? Who supports you and the programme team? |
Learning and teaching is through the materials provided. All modules are produced centrally and are given out with a module and assessment guide. Teaching style is interactive and reflective. The materials are written by the programme leader and others either in the team or bought in. Student support: in addition to the tutors, the key support is the administrator. The team is supported by the administrator. Our materials are produced in-house. There is no other secretarial help. |
|
| Assessment strategies and arrangements | Are assessment strategies considered in terms of meeting flexible demands? |
| The assessments are all paper-based and are matched to the learning outcomes of the module. They must meet the assessment criteria. (not sure what you mean by your question?) | |
| Evaluation to date and main changes | How long has the programme run in its present format? How is it evaluated? Are criteria different for flexible delivery? What have been the main changes and why? |
| Four years. Evaluated through feedback from participants after each module, and we have also carried out questionnaires re particular issues. It is also evaluated by the external examiner. | |
Areas of flexibility implemented in the case study |
Do you think your programme offers flexibility to students in terms of one or more of the factors listed below? Place an ‘x’ at any of the relevant choices. |
| Flexibility related to time: | Fixed time <---------------------> Flexible |
| 1 Times (for starting and finishing course) | Yes |
| 2 Times (for submitting assignments and interacting within the course) | Yes to an extent and within the rules of CPD |
| 3 Tempo/pace of studying | Yes |
| 4 Moments of assessment | Not sure what is meant here |
| Flexibility related to content: | Fixed content <-----------------> Flexible |
| 5 Topics of the course | Flexible here – participants can choose aspects even in core |
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | Yes |
7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) |
Yes |
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | Not sure what is meant here |
| 9 Assessment standards and completion requirements | No – they must meet the requirements and assessment criteria |
| Flexibility related to entry requirements: | Fixed requirements <------------------> Flexible |
| 10 Conditions for participation | Fixed |
| Flexibility related to instructional approach and resources: |
Fixed pedagogy |
| 11 Social organisation of learning (face to face; group; individual) | Flexible |
| 12 Language to be used during the course | Flexible |
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) | Don’t understand the question – participants seek their own sources – they are self-directed learners or grow to be these kinds of people. |
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) | Don’t understand the question |
| Flexibility related to delivery and logistics: | Fixed place and procedures<---------------------> Flexible |
| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | Not at all flexible |
| 16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact | Fixed |
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required | As in previous item – email helpful |
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course | No technology required for the course |
19 Delivery channels for course information, content, communication Collis and Moonen (2004), 10 |
Paper based. |
Case study C
| Programme name | BA (Hons) |
| SCQF exit level/SCOTCAT points | 10 |
| Faculty | Art, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Institution | UHI |
| Programme originator/developer | OM and T-L Team |
Contact name |
|
Contact email |
|
| Programme overview | Programme outcomes, market, previous delivery methods, average cohort size, SSR, duration of programme, funding stream |
This is a three-year or four-year (Hons) undergraduate programme leading to the BA. It is a UHI-funded programme taught, assessed and administered by participating colleges and student centres across Scotland. It is delivered to students entirely on-line by VLE (currently WebCT). This is the programme’s fourth year of operation. The first year of the Honours programme is due to commence in the session 2006-07. Students on the course typically study eight modules per year, four in each of the two semesters. A significant proportion of the student body (350+) is female, home-based and/or working full or part-time. The course appeals to those who may be geographically remote, those with career interests in children and/or childcare, and anyone able to combine flexible study time with other family, domestic and/or work commitments. Delivered on-line but in other respects a normal academic programme of learning, it enables students to have the greatest flexibility between their home, work and study lives. |
|
Delivery mechanism |
Campus based, distance paper based, web based, student support arrangements |
Learning material and study guidance are delivered in most cases entirely by VLE (currently WebCT, soon to be converted to in-house UHI’s CLAN VLE). The balance between prescribed and indicative learning material varies according to the module level, with the greater flexibility in content and structure of later modules encouraging more independent, student-led, self-directed learning. Typically, weekly instruction is accompanied by the creation and management of associated discussion areas for comment and exchanges between student-student and student-tutor. This is the on-line equivalent of a meeting in class. Attendance – measured by a posting or by viewing conversations but not participating in the discussion – may be optional. Associated and recommended reading, tasks and activities will also be suggested by the tutor. In some cases, selected texts may be digitised, thereby allowing the ultimate flexible access to on-line viewing. Some modules may include a timetable of scheduled course-related video-conferences. Periodic on-line chat sessions may also be organised – at convenient times and days – to focus group attention on specific aspects of the course (the next essay or the last one, a chapter in a book, a recent news item, etc). Students can and often do organise chat sessions among themselves to focus on something that’s bothering them. Student support: Each student also has an assigned local student adviser (SA) who provides ongoing general pastoral support and appropriate study-skills guidance to local groups and/or individuals on a regular (eg weekly) basis. As SAs receive copies of marks and tutors’ comments pertinent to their own students over successive years they are well positioned to form holistic pictures of individual developments. In addition to local group and site-related meetings, students have access to normal programme-related course committee and other (all-site) video-conference meetings. |
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| Main flexible features and rationale | Flexible in terms of time, pace, structure, location, entry, exit, course content? Rationale for developing the programme? |
| General benefits of on-line delivery: • flexibility to adapt the domestic/work routine, eg work patterns to suit early morning/late night study periods, to work in short/long bursts, pacing study with childcare arrangements and short holiday breaks, etc • on-line anonymity and/or development of on-line community – a comfort zone (for some) • advantages of digitised text and/or restricted reading lists • encourages developing of search and research via global information portals.
Rationale is per UHI’s general inclusiveness policy, perhaps especially in respect of enabling remote Scottish students to gain access to HE opportunities in the growing area of need and demand known as professional childcare. |
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| Learning and teaching approaches | How are learning and teaching strategies structured? Who supports the students? Are core materials provided centrally, shared, or individually developed? Who supports you and the programme team? |
Learning and teaching structures typically vary and are normally designed by the lead tutor of each module. Structural variants depend on a range of factors – module level, learning objectives, method of assessment, delivery style, etc. For student support: see above. Core materials are typically developed, designed and delivered by individual module tutors (occasionally a team may be involved). Support . . . in what sense? There is good technical assistance to call on. |
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| Assessment strategies and arrangements | Are assessment strategies considered in terms of meeting flexible demands? |
Yes – in so far as it is unavoidable to avoid ‘bunching’ assignments within a 15-week semester. External examiners comment favourably on the mix of assessment methods and styles, eg ranging from standard essays and hard-copy reports to on-line seminars, group project work, local investigations, literature reviews, etc. |
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| Evaluation to date and main changes | How long has the programme run in its present format? How is it evaluated? Are criteria different for flexible delivery? What have been the main changes and why? |
Four years. The programme is evaluated according to standard academic procedures – by periodic formal course evaluation, external examiners’ reports, formal student evaluations and informal course questionnaires. Students and staff may raise any issue of concern through the normal channels of course committees, site meetings, SA meetings, etc. The main development has been agreement on an Honours year, with a proposed Aug-Sept 2006-07 start date. |
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| Areas of flexibility implemented in the case study | Do you think your programme offers flexibility to students in terms of one or more of the factors listed below? Place an ‘x’ at any of the relevant choices. |
| Flexibility related to time: | Fixed time <----------------------> Flexible |
| 1 Times (for starting and finishing course) | We have normal semester start and end dates, and each module has its own assignment submission dates. Within these parameters there is ample flexibility. . . |
2 Times (for submitting assignments and interacting within the course) |
Assessment fixed, interaction flexible |
| 3 Tempo/pace of studying | On-line |
| 4 Moments of assessment Flexibility related to content: |
Fixed content <------------------> Flexible |
| 5 Topics of the course | |
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | |
| 7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) | |
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | Key resources on-line, much student and staff generated through activity and discussion depending on nature of topic |
9 Assessment standards and completion requirements |
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| Flexibility related to entry requirements: | Fixed requirements <-----------> Flexible |
| 10 Conditions for participation | Accreditation of prior learning and accreditation of prior experiential learning |
| Flexibility related to instructional approach and resources: | Fixed pedagogy and resources <------------------> Flexible |
| 11 Social organisation of learning (face-to-face; group; individual) | Very flexible as regards social and pedagogical structure. Nearly wholly on-line, with some video-conferencing. Some face-to-face support if required/requested. |
| 12 Language to be used during the course | |
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) | VLE, library, research |
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) | Assignment submission through VLE |
| Flexibility related to delivery and logistics: | Fixed place and procedures<--------------------->Flexible |
| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | On-line |
| 16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact | VLE, email, phone, face to face, video-conferencing |
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required | Phone, Internet |
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course | Home based, college based, learning centre based |
19 Delivery channels for course information, content, communication Collis and Moonen (2004), 10 |
Cyber café within VLE |
Case study D
| Programme name | MSc | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SCQF exit level/SCOTCAT points | Level 11 180 points |
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| Faculty | Health | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Institution | UHI Millennium Institute | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Programme originator/developer | T-LM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Contact name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Contact email | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Programme overview | Programme outcomes, market, previous delivery methods, average cohort size, SSR, duration of programme, funding stream | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Programme learning outcomes
Audience and intended scope of the course
Student numbers and profile There have been 251 enquiries since 2001 up until 2004:
Enquiries come from all parts of the UK (as well as abroad) and cover a wide variety of professionals in infection control. Some students take two modules per year, which will take up to six years to complete the MSc – they, and their employers, see it very much as CPD. Others take four modules per year and will finish their MSc in three years. Students undertaking the degree
* Module equivalent of 15 SCOTCAT credits. Average cohort size: 15 Duration of the degree programme Funding stream |
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| Delivery mechanism | Campus based, distance paper based, web based, student support arrangements | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mode of delivery All of these facilities are available within the framework of the virtual learning environment – WebCT – and are established within the UHI network. Materials and direction for learning will be delivered on-line. Provision will also be made for learners to communicate normally with their tutors on a one-to-one basis, or with their tutor and other learners in a group discussion, or with other learners (no tutor) in a ‘common room’ scenario using electronic modes of delivery. These communication methods will mainly be asynchronous, but could be synchronous, depending on the needs of the situation. When participants enrol, they will be assigned a mentor (also known in other HEIs as a director of studies or student advisor etc) who will offer learning support as and when required, outside of teaching time, via email and/or telephone. The mentor will be a member of staff from one of the colleges within UHI Millennium Institute who will have the relevant experience. It is anticipated that most learners will be working and therefore it is proposed that all contact with tutors, mentors and other learners will be in the evening and/or at weekends. STUDENT SUPPORT Roles and responsibilities of staff Mentor support The mentor’s remit will be to:
The mentor will be an independent guide whose responsibility is entirely to their course participants. They are not required to report on any aspect of the participants’ work, or to report to any other person or group within UHI. What the course team asks of them is that they:
Module tutor
The tutor will spend approximately two hours per week over 10 weeks holding tutorials on-line and marking assignments in the remaining weeks. In summary, the tutor is required to:
Role and responsibilities of learners Student guidance There are three distinct stages where guidance and support will be provided:
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| Main flexible features and rationale | Flexible in terms of time, pace, structure, location, entry, exit, course content? Rationale for developing the programme? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All modules take 15 weeks and are delivered in either semester 1 or 2, which start in September or January respectively. Individual modules can be taken for CPD purposes and therefore can be taken when they are offered. If a student wants to enrol on the PG Cert, PG Dip or MSc, then it is recommended that they start in September to take the Micro-organisms and Disease module first, to make sure they develop the underpinning knowledge for other modules. ADMISSIONS Master’s programmes Non-standard entry It is anticipated that some potential candidates who have other vocational qualifications in relevant areas are likely to apply for entry to the MSc. It is also possible that a small number of candidates will be eligible for the programme who do not have equivalent professional and vocational qualifications, but have extended their skills experientially. In all these cases, a key pre-requisite for admission to the course will be that they continue their professional involvement in infection control for the duration of the modules for which they wish to enrol. This is because each module involves some element of enquiry, evaluation or action research which would necessitate the candidate being currently engaged in an appropriate professional activity related to infection control. However, this applies to all candidates. Admission to the programme will also be on the understanding that applicants have a reasonable expectation that they can fulfil the programme’s objectives and achieve the standard required for the award. Applicants will need to provide evidence of personal, professional and educational experience indicating ability to meet the demands of the programme. This will normally include a written statement by the candidate indicating how their professional experience has prepared them for postgraduate study, and two academic references. Exit awards
For those who successfully complete fewer credits than the number required for one of the above awards, a transcript will be provided detailing which modules were successfully passed on the MSc degree, along with the number of credits attached for the modules. In order to obtain a Postgraduate Certificate, candidates will be required to complete five core modules: Micro-organisms and Disease; Epidemiology; Host Defence and Protection; Microbiological Standards in Public Health; Decontamination. Total: 60 M level credits. In order to obtain a Postgraduate Diploma, candidates will be required to complete the following core modules:
In order to obtain an MSc degree, candidates will be required to complete the dissertation module (60 credits), which reflects their individual circumstances. Total: 180 M level credits. RATIONALE
The problem of HAI has been growing and is not yet fully under control, albeit significant progress has been made in meeting standards, including those that have been set by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. The ability to ensure that all disciplines are engaged in evidence-based and best-practice infection prevention and control activities in order to meet the standards that have been set depends on the provision of key guidance. Guidance is provided from a range of sources, including local and national expertise and organisations, and in addition educational establishments. The role of SCIEH in particular is to protect the health of the Scottish population by providing the best possible information and expert support, which is provided by a number of sections, including one dedicated to HAI. The HAI section’s coordination of the national surveillance programme and antimicrobial resistance programme, as well as providing expert support, advice and guidance on infection control and decontamination, is fundamental to national activities. Their significant contribution to the work of the Task Force and to associated educational activities is also a core function at this time. The importance of training healthcare professionals at all levels on aspects of HAI is recognised as a national priority, at this time and for the foreseeable future. Without education and training, the demands of this high-priority area within healthcare cannot be met. Collaborative work between national expert organisations such as SCIEH and academic institutions, to ensure that high-quality education and training on HAI are provided, is welcomed and valued by all. In response to this, a new suite of courses has been developed by UHI Millennium Institute and SCIEH. This has been designed to enhance the ability of participants to deal safely, effectively and economically with the infection-related problems they may encounter in their professional practice. The course document covers the postgraduate modules and two CPD undergraduate modules. The suite will of course provide an education package suitable for specialist education and continuing professional development for all those dealing with infection in both hospitals and the community. Summary of intention
Rationale for the structure of the MSc programme A modular structure has also been chosen because it enables participants to develop at their own pace professionally, academically and personally. The modular structure, with three distinct awards, also allows participants to approach the programme in different ways, eg to take just one module, or study for the Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma or MSc. In these key respects the programme is student-driven. The flexible modular structure also enables UHI to extend the module bank in response to changing demands over time. There is, however, a risk with a flexible, modular structure that the learning experience across a selection of modules can become fragmented, particularly if the student chooses not to complete in the shortest possible time. We have, therefore, adopted a balance between flexibility and coherence of learning by including the majority of modules within each of the three awards as mandatory, with the options being related to application to the workplace. These modules have been designed to have general relevance across a wide range of professional needs and areas of activity. |
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| Learning and teaching approaches | How are learning and teaching strategies structured? Who supports the students? Are core materials provided centrally, shared, or individually developed? Who supports you and the programme team? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES
Strategies Course delivery The teaching and learning strategies aim for a balance between independent study, where participants have plenty of autonomy, and tutor-guided study. The Course Committee will be the means of ensuring that this process works. Each SCOTCAT credit is equivalent to 10 hours of ‘academic effort’, and thus a 15-credit module will take 150 hours. This does not include mentor support, which will be approxi¬mately eight hours per semester for four students with the distribution of time depending on individual needs. Within each module there will be individual learning, group-based learning and tutor-led learning. The emerging pattern of study time, as a guide for partici¬pants on the majority of 15-credit modules, will vary depending on the module. It will include:
In addition, the MSc programme will emphasise:
Tutors with expert knowledge are contracted as tutors and support the students. Materials are written by the experts and then transferred on-line by an IT specialist. The material is available to the students on-line, with copies on CD if required. Some of the modules are shared with a realted MSc. The team now has administrative support, which has helped considerably, and it is proposed that an assistant programme leader, who will have a role as a student co-ordinator, will be in place to help the programme leader in 2006-07 – this is being piloted first with a new related MSc. |
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| Assessment strategies and arrangements | Are assessment strategies considered in terms of meeting flexible demands? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ASSESSMENT Introduction UHI’s postgraduate regulations have informed the assessment strategy and the process by which the course team will ensure consistency and quality of assessment in the early stages of the MSc programme. The team recognises that experience of assessing at master’s level needs to be acquired and shared by all team members. Two external examiners have been appointed to the programme, in accordance with UHI regulations. These will be members of the Examination Board. Modules will be subject to two kinds of assessment criteria:
In order to pass a module, participants will be required to demonstrate that the work submitted has met the stated learning outcomes of the module. Outstanding perform¬ance in meeting one outcome will not compensate for a failure to meet other stated learning outcomes. The work must also meet the general criteria set out below. Criteria for assessment General criteria for assessment – all assessed work will be required to demonstrate that the standard achieved is at master’s level. To achieve a satisfactory standard, work must display:
In addition, the following criteria must be met:
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| Evaluation to date and main changes | How long has the programme run in its present format? How is it evaluated? Are criteria different for flexible delivery? What have been the main changes and why? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The programme is in its fifth year of delivery. It was revalidated in May 2004 with no major changes. The main alterations have been in changing learning outcomes and assessments as the modules develop. The module teams have felt that some of the original learning outcomes were perhaps too prescriptive. EVALUATION An evaluation strategy Participants, module tutors, mentors and others (eg library and computer support staff) will all be involved as partners in the evaluation procedures. The evaluation strategy incorporates a number of levels: |
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| Areas of flexibility implemented in the case study | Do you think your programme offers flexibility to students in terms of one or more of the factors listed below? Place an ‘x’ at any of the relevant choices. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flexibility related to time: | Fixed time <--------------------------> Flexible | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 Times (for starting and finishing course) | X for CPD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 Times (for submitting assignments and interacting within the course) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 Tempo/pace of studying | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 Moments of assessment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flexibility related to content: | Fixed content <----------------------> Flexible | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 Topics of the course | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 Sequence of different parts of the course | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 Orientation of the course (theoretical, practical) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 Key learning materials of the course | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 Assessment standards and completion requirements | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flexibility related to entry requirements: | Fixed requirements <--------------> Flexible | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Conditions for participation | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flexibility related to instructional approach and resources: | Fixed pedagogy and resources <--------------------> Flexible |
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| 11 Social organisation of learning (face to face; group; individual) | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12 Language to be used during the course | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 13 Learning resources: modality, origin (instructor, learners, library, WWW) | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 14 Instructional organisation of learning (assignments, monitoring) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flexibility related to delivery and logistics: | Fixed place and procedures<--------------------> Flexible |
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| 15 Time and place where contact with instructor and other students occur | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 16 Methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 17 Types of help, communication available, technology required | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 18 Location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
19 Delivery channels for course information, content, communication Collis and Moonen (2004), 10 |
X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Authors John Casey,1 Jackie Proven,1 David Dripps2
1UHI Millennium Institute, Scotland; 2Ulster University, Northern Ireland.
John.casey@uhi.ac.uk, jackie.proven@perth.uhi.ac.uk, d.dripps1@ulster.ac.uk
This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright
may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer
be accessible.
Abstract
This paper discusses the need for a way to model the organisational frameworks required to integrate e-learning into institutions and the potential benefits of doing so. A shareable and adaptable general-purpose model of integrated e-learning is introduced, based on recent research. An example of the model being applied is given in a real-life context: the TrustDR project funded by JISC (Joint Information Services Committee), which is examining practical ways of introducing digital rights management (DRM) systems into the UK educational sector for learning object repositories. Finally, some ideas for further development are presented.
The TrustDR project is seeking to understand the problems associated with
managing intellectual property rights (IPR) in institutional repositories
of learning objects, in order to develop practical solutions for developing
DRM systems. More information about the project can be found at: http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk
In scoping the project outputs we had to map the complex legal and technical
aspects of DRM requirements to the actual working reality of equally complex
institutions. It quickly became apparent that this was not going to be
a trivial task and that the project team needed some method to capture
and share meaning across a variety of domains. It also became clear to
us that implementing DRM in learning materials in educational institutions
shared the same organisational problems experienced by the e-learning
community.
Many researchers and practitioners are coming to the conclusion that the
real challenge in successfully implementing e-learning is changing the
structures and cultures of our institutions so that they can effectively
implement e-learning and flexible learning [1], [2],
[3], [4], [5].
To engage in these kinds of task in the corporate world would be considered
a classic example of ‘process change’ and therefore a difficult
and often risky proposition. To do the same in educational institutions
such as universities, which are loosely structured and where the actors
enjoy a large degree of autonomy over their teaching organisation and
practice, also represents a quite profound challenge. Not surprisingly
the results to date are generally acknowledged as having been disappointing:
‘The current situation can best be described as high-level ambitions with poor implementation.’ (van der Klink and Jochems [6]) |
Casey et al [7] give a useful overview
of the challenges that learning objects and e-learning etc pose to institutional
structures and professional cultures. As Carol Twigg [4]
in the USA has observed, e-learning has tended to remain as a ‘bolt-on’
to
existing institutional structures and processes, and is therefore unable
to realise its full potential. The impact of e-learning and management
information systems, as well as the move to more flexible and learner-centred
education [8], contain very different imperatives and
organisational models which place a greater premium on the more rapid
and accurate communication of information from the different parts of
the institution in a more coordinated way than before. The new technologies
in particular can forcefully bring to the surface aspects of existing
institutional structures and cultures that have hitherto remained informal
and invisible (a reification); Pollock and Cornford [9]
have produced a useful analysis of this phenomenon. Even cutting-edge
e-learning providers such as the University of Southern Queensland in
Australia [5] are having difficulty in keeping up with
the degree of change required, and report having to resort to ‘work-arounds’
to keep their provision going while the institution tries to catch up
with the demands of a more flexible and student-centred curriculum.
Until now little coherent planning or analysis has gone into adopting
e-learning. Generally the pattern has been to try to do the same thing
faster, rather like the response of the American Pony Express mail service
to the development of the railroads; they bought faster horses in larger
numbers [4]. Similarly, we should not be seeking to
mimic traditional patterns of education with technology – the real
challenge is what to change and how to do it. This requires a holistic
approach from the outset, and recognition that the use of technology is
not just an adjunct but requires fundamental change. This in turn demands
some form of analysis and planning exercise before making major commitments.
In this confused situation we need help to understand the ‘problem
space’ that e-learning represents. It would be very useful if the
different actors involved could use a model as a way of sharing and negotiating
meaning across the boundaries of their ‘communities of practice’
[10], especially if those actors have traditionally
had little or no meaningful communication or negotiation in the past –
as is often the case in educational institutions. For our purposes the
model should be:
• simple and easy to grasp – easy definitions
• adaptable and extendable – ie facilitate customisation to local contexts
• have some level of shared abstraction that is meaningful across the different groups, thus hopefully providing a ‘bridge’ for the negotiation and sharing of meaning
• support textual and graphical representations.
The short answer to this question is that in order to understand how to
successfully implement e-learning in our organisations we need to understand
how they work in the first place in order to change them effectively.
Clearly, accepting the ‘official’ explanation of how these
types of organisation function is inadequate. This explains the healthy
trade in senior management employing external consultants in order to
understand their own organisations. We need to move beyond this type of
‘episodic’ organisational learning and development to a more
continuous ‘in-house’ process. To do this we need to know
how people conceptualise their roles in the organisation – the reality
is often far from the official line and dominated by a ‘silo mentality’,
usually overlaid with a rich local folklore.
Singleton [11] comments that this state of affairs
is common in large organisations and that the central service departments
such as computer services and information services faced with designing
an e-learning infrastructure will try their best, but are destined to
deliver a technical solution to what is essentially an educational problem:
‘Hardware systems tend to be dominated by engineering thinking, and macro-systems are dominated by economic thinking.’ |
As an aside, we could add that putting these kinds of service departments in charge of educational strategy clearly tells us a lot about the deficiencies of the educational philosophy of the institutions concerned.
The drive towards the kind of analysis of workplaces that we are advocating
derives from systems theory. Yet such an approach to management and planning
is often very difficult because the individuals at different levels in
an organisation find it hard to conceive of the ‘bigger picture’
because of the local detail of their own situations and working cultures.
To overcome this obstacle, modern systems theory seems to offer some help.
It provides some useful analytical tools for identifying and understanding
the dynamic relations between the factors we have been discussing in this
paper. Senge and Sterman [12] develop this theme in the context of organisational
learning – a concept which is growing in interest – and it
is worth briefly looking at some of their recommendations. They propose
a 3-stage process for developing a better understanding of how an organisation
actually works by the people within it:
‘1/ Mapping mental models – explicating and structuring
assumptions via systems models |
They make the important point that flaws in the understanding of how an organisation works cannot be corrected until they are made explicit, which is the purpose of the modelling exercise. There is no reason to think that such an exercise could not be applied to higher education. Ramsden [13] more or less says the same in the context of higher education teaching:
‘Half the difficulty with doing it better is knowing what the real problem is.’ |
The main benefit of this kind of exercise in education would be in the process of constructing a qualitative model of e-learning that would provide a means of gaining some shared insight and understanding at a personal and institutional level, which would support the kind of exercise recommended by Senge and Sterman [12] above. Corben et al [14] are clear about the benefits of this kind of process, which they describe as ‘qualitative mapping’:
‘The method forces rigorous thinking and provides a good compromise between the context-free approaches of most high-level approaches to change management, and the detail and clutter of most low-level approaches to business process re-engineering.’ |
First, a warning about models and indeed all representations of complex
organisations – they are fictions and should not be mistaken for
reality (a common mistake in project management, for instance). But they
are useful fictions if they allow us to get closer and understand the
reality of what we are examining. The model presented here is a useful
generalisation; it has to be adapted and ‘tweaked’ to the
specifics of a local situation. As we shall show, it can be the source
of a variety of useful analysis and communication tools. Potential uses
are as numerous as the variety of contexts under examination, but some
stand out: ‘round-table’ discussion aids, planning tools and
a useful form of ‘institutional memory’. One final warning:
no model or tool can make individuals or departments communicate and cooperate,
and the mere application of the model should not be confused with improvements
in the organisation. In other words, this model is not a panacea to make
dysfunctional organisations whole again, but if used correctly can help
to identify those aspects of the organisation that need to be changed.
In developing this model we have found the ideas, approaches and concepts in Integrated E-Learning introduced by Jochems, Merriënboer and Koper [2] very useful, especially those of van der Klink and Jochems relating to organisational issues [6]. This model also draws on recent work by Collis and Moonen [1] and Normand and Littlejohn [15]. All these researchers propose analysing and viewing the functional institutional structures at three levels to situate the perspectives of the relevant ‘actors’ who are involved in providing and supporting e-learning in an institution. In addition, van der Klink and Jochems [6] suggest adopting four ‘perspectives’ at each level. On this conceptual basis we have come up with a simple yet comprehensive organisational model that is intuitive and can be easily adapted and extended to describe most educational institutions.
Three important hierarchical levels of actors from within the institutional
provider need to inform our exploration and understanding of the implementation
of e-learning and flexible learning in reality.
Institutional management (IM): management bodies (boards,
senates, courts), principals, pro-vice chancellors, institutional secretaries,
service unit managers (estates, information services, registry). These
are the senior figures directing the strategy and direction the institution
is following; deciding on the specific technical infrastructure; stating
the mission with respect to educational values, aims and policy; making
technical support available; possibly deciding on the general level of
support and training to make available to academics, and so on.
Operational and curricular management (OM): those in
charge of gathering and organising the necessary resources and implementing
strategy, within the constraints of the institutional context and budget.
They manage the programmes by deciding on the types of course to be delivered
by the academics, structuring the programmes and deciding on the sequence
of courses.
Teaching and learner management (TLM): those who are
responsible for carrying out at a practical level the actions required
by the strategy. They develop and deliver courses, identify learning resources
and organise them, and manage the learning activities of the students.
This level also includes those involved in supporting roles in technical
areas, administration and information management.
As you can see from our descriptions, this hierarchy of actors has to
deal with increasingly detailed contexts within which to operate as we
move towards the teaching level. The successful implementation and ‘mainstreaming’
of new approaches such as learning objects would require these different
institutional levels to be in alignment and work as a coherent whole [15],
[1], [6]. Thus, the organisational
model might also usefully fulfil an analytical and diagnostic role for
those tasked with implementing e-learning in an institution – opening
up the intriguing possibility of representing the dysfunctional aspects
of an institution in relation to the chosen aspects of e-learning.
These different levels in an institution tend to have, naturally, different
contexts or ‘filters’ on the process of adopting new systems,
as follows:
IM will be looking for the ‘big picture’
items like retention and progression figures, exam grades, costs, market
share, educational profile, long-term planning.
OM will tend to see it as the delivery of ‘product’
and relate it to departmental budgets and targets, quality control, the
type and costs of learning materials and, crucially, the task of introducing
new working practices.
TLM is concerned with mechanisms for delivery (face to
face or on-line), the balance between guidance/facilitation roles and
instructions, assessment procedures and the type of learning resources.
In addition to these three institutional levels, van der Klink and Jochems
[6] propose that at each level it is possible to see the problem space
from four different perspectives (giving us, potentially, a family of
analysis and evaluation tools – which we shall turn to later).
A technological view: the use of technology in such a
way that it can support the actors at different levels to carry out their
functions and achieve their targets. Until now, the premise has been that
supplying staff and students with an adequate infrastructure is enough
to improve educational programmes – this has not been upheld. Technical
aspects have been focused on without understanding how this would support
pedagogy or strategic goals, or taking into account the organisational
context.
A strategic view: the organisational strategy and business
processes that have to occur to support the change, and how embedded they
can become in the organisation. E-learning cannot be regarded as an isolated
issue; it is expensive and impacts on a large number of institutional
processes, and good reasons are needed for its implementation. Awareness
of what might realistically be delivered is needed, and clear goals are
required in relation to internal strengths and weaknesses and external
threats and opportunities.
A pedagogical view: this is required to determine the
sensible use of the technology. A considerable number of questions need
to be answered, ranging from the extremely practical to the more philosophical.
Van der Klink and Jochems [6] recommend that it is
very useful to start with rethinking views of learning, instruction and
teaching to encourage staff to think beyond their current frameworks.
Interestingly, Goodyear et al [3] recommend this approach
as well and produce a very useful discussion of it, which we would recommend
highly, and it has also been adopted by USQ in Australia [5].
An organisational view: this includes the ability to
identify and evaluate the interplay between personal, departmental, cultural
and professional viewpoints played out within an institutional context.
The introduction of e-learning will either be an innovation (usually a
bottom-up and non-sustainable activity, which accounts for much of the
present scene) or a transformational change that requires top-down involvement
and will affect all aspects of the organisation. In the first scenario
little will change – although tensions will increase, but be unresolved.
In the second scenario the roles, responsibilities and relations of the
departments and individuals in the organisation will be strongly impacted
upon and change.
The diagram below in Figure 1 illustrates the model, with the three hierarchical
levels combined with the four different perspectives to provide an integrated
whole. The fact that the three levels of institutional organisation are
in alignment indicates that they are working well and coherently to deliver
e-learning opportunities – the vertical lines indicate channels
of communication around certain perspectives or views. Where the vertical
lines intersect at the corners of the squares represents those activities
and perspectives at each institutional level. The significance of each
of the perspectives will naturally vary across the different levels of
any institution.
The model can be used to produce a series of grids, matrices and other
representations that enable us to record succinctly and in an easily shareable
manner the different aspects of the institutions we want to describe and
analyse. We can start with a three- column by four-row grid as shown in
Figure 2 and use that to derive a set of tools. We have used these tools
to help to analyse and evaluate a number of different organisational factors
relating to implementing a DRM system. The current set of tools with their
working content can be found at this web address: http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/projects/trustdr/work_in_progress.html
under the heading of ‘WP SP2 Organisational Modelling Framework
– Analytical and Evaluation Tools’.
Figure 1: The organisational model
Figure 2: Basic analysis and audit tool derived from the model
So far, the use of this model and the derived tools has indeed proved
useful in facilitating ‘round table’ discussions among the
project team, who work in the separate domains of learning technology,
information management and systems development. We intend to test the
functionality of the model further by using the tools with project partners
and recording the results. We shall be including the model and tools in
the project outputs as part of a DRM system developer’s kit to facilitate
analysis and communication activities.
The advice ‘keep it simple’ springs to mind. One obvious application
is that once an analysis is completed and decisions taken or a strategy
formulated, then the model can provide ways of disseminating what is required
at each level from the various perspectives. The same documents may also
provide a useful evaluation or audit tool.
From a planning and evaluation perspective, the model can also help in
determining the ‘return on investment’ in relation to e-learning
as discussed by Collis and Moonen [1]. In this respect
it would also help to identify the likely winners and losers arising from
the proposed changes involved in implementing e-learning. This aspect
of e-learning, its ‘political economy’, is an increasingly
important one and being able to represent it is a very useful function.
Another possibility is to act as a support tool to gather and collate
information to feed into more dynamic organisational modelling and planning
activities. This might include visualisation tools that help institutional
management to understand the possible effects of their decisions.
