Where to start
Introduction
Where you need to start if you are thinking about introducing technology into your teaching or assessment is really in the same place that you would start if you were planning any new teaching activity. You need to think about how students learn and the nature of good teaching practice in higher education, in conjunction with:
the characteristics of your students;
your own characteristics as a teacher;
the nature of the learning and teaching context; and
the learning objectives (or learning outcomes) that you hope your students will achieve.
This information will inform your detailed planning.
In this chapter, we will begin by focusing on how students learn and the nature of good teaching practice as this will provide us with some generic principles about learning and teaching against which you can consider your own circumstances. These principles will also guide us as we reflect on issues related to online learning and assessment. We will be suggesting that the principles are relevant whatever the mode of learning, but that you nevertheless need to reconceptualise your teaching and assessment practices when you implement them online. We will consider why this is so towards the end of this chapter.
How students learn
How do you think students learn? How do you learn? Evidence from many lecture theatres around the world might suggest that learning is about students receiving knowledge from the lecturer. Indeed, as you are probably aware, during the mid-twentieth century, behaviourism was a dominant learning theory, with its roots in scientific positivism and the concept of the teacher passing objective truths to the student. This concept was very influential in the development of the field of educational technology. However, most currently accepted theories of learning in higher education suggest that learning is an internal, intentional change and that there are multiple ways of knowing. From this perspective, learning is not primarily about knowledge transmission and acquisition but, following Dewey and subsequent ‘progressive’ educators, involves the active engagement of learners in the experience of learning: ‘It is not enough to insist upon the necessity of experience, nor even of activity in experience. Everything depends upon the quality of the experience which is had’ (Dewey, 1963, p. 27).
In this tradition there have been two dominant learning theories in higher education in recent years. They are phenomenography and constructivism.1 We will briefly outline these theories now, and will add a few more theoretical perspectives in Chapter 3. In this book we support the idea that learning is embedded in the student’s experience but we take the view that, depending on your learners, your context, and the online approaches you might consider, it may be useful to have a few different theoretical lenses which might help you to conceptualise your learning design and the process of learning.
Phenomenography
Phenomenography arose from studies in the 1970s which identified ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ approaches to learning by students. It generated the field of study which came to be known as student learning research in higher education. It has been influential in the United Kingdom, Northern Europe and Australia but as Brew (2006) notes, it is virtually absent from American literature. According to this theory, the student’s perspective is fundamental to the experience of learning: the world is not external and only exists through the student’s eyes. The implication for teaching is that:
… [when] teachers mold experiences for their students with the aim of bringing about learning … the essential feature is that the teacher takes the part of the learner, sees the experience through the learner’s eyes, becomes aware of the experience through the learner’s awareness. (Marton & Booth, 1997, p. 179)
While the curriculum is the same for all students in a unit of study, the way they will ‘experience’ and ‘encounter’ it and thus ‘learn about’ it may differ. In this context it is relevant to know about the characteristics of your students which describe how they learn. You can use this information to facilitate their learning.
Constructivism
As the name implies, from a constructivist viewpoint, learning is conceptualised as an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their own knowledge, both old (from the past) and new. Learning is seen as occurring best when it is situated in authentic contexts. Hence, problem-based and case-based learning are founded on constructivist ideas.
Constructivism has its basis in cognitive psychology. Individual constructivism refers to the construction of meaning by individual students while the idea of social constructivism is that meaning is constructed socially through the interactions that occur in a group. Constructivism became very influential in the American educational technology literature during the 1990s, highlighting the dichotomy between ‘objectivist’ (positivist) conceptions of learning associated with behaviourism, and constructivist perspectives focusing on the engagement of the learner in the learning experience (e.g., Jonassen, 1991; Duffy & Jonassen, 1992).
Table 1.1 from Oliver (2000), based on Grabinger (1996, p. 667), summarises the main differences between ‘old’ assumptions about learning and ‘new’ (constructivist) assumptions which focus on the individual processes involved in learning.
Developments in online learning have resulted in further support for ideas from social constructivism to explain how students learn as they engage with each other in the online environment. This concept is based on the theoretical perspectives of Vygotsky (1978) who focused on the social and dialogical aspects of internal development. He identified a zone of proximal development (which is the distance between the actual developmental level of a learner and the level of potential development as determined through the guidance of the teacher or collaboration with peers) and recognised the importance of support or scaffolding by the teacher until the learner becomes self-regulated and independent.
Comparing phenomenography and constructivism
An important distinction between phenomenography and constructivism relates to the view of the relationship between the learner and the environment. Phenomenography places emphasis on the learner, the object of learning, and other contributors to the experience of learning as a single entity, seen through the learner’s eyes. It is therefore non-dualistic. In contrast, constructivism assumes that students are making meaning from a world that is external to them: there is a separation (duality) between the learner and an outside world. Richardson (1999, p. 67) notes that in ‘focusing upon interindividual differences in conceptions, phenomenography appears unable to handle interindividual identity’. This may be one of the reasons that constructivism has been more influential in guiding thinking about online learning, especially its social aspects. However, phenomenography has also had an impact in guiding teaching with technology, particularly through the work of Laurillard (2002).
As Biggs and Tang (2007, p. 21) say, ‘Whether you use phenomenography or constructivism … may not matter too much, as long as your theory is consistent, understandable and works for you.’ This also goes for other theories that we will consider later.
What is good teaching practice in higher education?
It is obvious that if you are able to articulate what you think learning is, and how students learn, as a teacher you will be trying to make that happen. Ramsden (2003) suggests that the aim of teaching is to make learning possible and that improving teaching is about understanding students’ learning.
Chickering and Gamson (1987, p. 3) proposed a set of seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education which have become widely accepted as guidelines for improving learning and teaching in higher education. The seven principles state that good practice:
1. encourages contact between students and staff;
2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students;
3. uses active learning techniques;
Ramsden (2003) suggests his own set of six principles which are about:
1. interest and explanation (making a subject interesting and helping students to make sense of the world, explaining why the material will be useful in the future);
2. concern and respect for students and student learning (being conscious and considerate of students, including being available to students, taking pleasure in teaching and developing a keen interest in what it takes to help them learn);
3. appropriate assessment and feedback (setting appropriate assessment tasks that demand evidence of understanding rather than just requiring students to rote-learn or reproduce detail, and giving helpful comments on students’ work both assessed and nonassessed);
4. clear goals and intellectual challenge (explaining what must be learned in order to achieve understanding, and what can be left out for the time being, providing a clear structure focused on key concepts and keeping the challenge interesting);
5. independence, control and engagement (fostering a sense in students of choice over how to learn the subject matter, and control over what they focus on, providing tasks at the right level for students’ current understanding, recognising that each student will learn best in their own way, and avoiding over-dependence); and
6. learning from students (constantly trying to find out the effects of your teaching on students’ learning, and then modifying teaching in the light of the evidence collected).
You can see that there is overlap between the two sets of principles and that both focus on the experience of the student and the role of teaching in areas such as communication, guidance, giving feedback and nurturing the process of learning. This is very different from the idea of teaching as transmitting knowledge. As Ramsden (2003, p. 176) notes, drawing on the ‘classic book’ on assessment by Rowntree (1977), it indicates a need to get to know your students and the quality of their learning. The more you know about your students, the better your chances of being able to guide their learning.
What are the characteristics of your students?
With your ideas about the nature of student learning, and the characteristics of good teaching in mind, the next step, then, on the way to planning for online learning or assessment, is to take some time to consider the students in your target group – those to whom your efforts will be directed – and explore their world. Students cannot be regarded as a homogenous group.
There are four particular types of information about your students that may help you:
1. Demographic: information such as numbers, age range, occupations, employment, location, cultural factors.
2. Motivation: anticipated reasons that students will enrol, whether study is related to their work, what they hope to gain from it, etc.
3. Learning factors: such as level of study, prior level of general education, availability of time, facilities for study.
4. Study background: knowledge, skills, attitudes and personal experience of students which are relevant to this subject.2
Among the demographic factors that you consider, give particular thought to whether there are any predominant generational characteristics in your student group and, if so, whether they could have an impact on how you plan for online learning or assessment. There has been discussion in the educational technology literature about generational factors and preferences for learning with technologies. Cut-off dates for the differences between generations vary slightly between sources but, roughly, the generations include Baby Boomers (born 1946-64), Generation X (born 1965-80), Generation Y also called Millennials (born early 1980s – early 1990s) and Generation Z (born since the early 1990s). Prensky (2001) coined the terms ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ to describe these differences, suggesting that ‘our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language’ (p. 2). However, others have suggested a need for caution in stereotyping students in this way. Bennett, Maton and Kervin (2008) review the evidence in the ‘digital natives’ debate and suggest that variation within generations is as great as between them. This is supported by a major Australian study which ‘found little evidence that technology usage patterns can be explained primarily on the basis of broad generational differences – dispelling the digital natives versus digital immigrants argument’ (Kennedy et al., 2009, p. 5).
Student diversity is another important issue which you need to consider, irrespective of the level of study. There will be differences within groups of students as well as between identifiable groups. You should be especially aware of the equity considerations raised by student diversity. These are some aspects of diversity which your group might include:
students from non-English-speaking backgrounds;
students from specific cultural or indigenous groups;
students studying in a country other than your own;
students from rural and isolated areas in your own country;
students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds;
students who have a disability;
women or men in non-traditional fields of study; and/or
students who have been absent from the education system for a significant period of time.
Considering the above factors will help you to pitch your material to suit the needs and interests of your learners. In addition, it will help with decisions in selecting examples and activities. You may not be able to gain all the information you need about your students but previous experience in teaching the subject will help. If you have not taught a particular student group before, it may be useful to talk to prospective students, lecturers or other staff who have close contact with students. You could also implement a diagnostic assessment activity at the beginning of your subject.
What are your characteristics as a teacher?
If you have been teaching in face-to-face settings for some time you will probably have a good idea of your characteristics as a teacher. You will know this from the feedback you receive from your students both informally in the way they respond to you and formally through student evaluations of your performance. You may also have information based on observations and reviews from your peers, and you will have valuable insights from your own reflections as you process all the information available to you, including your experiences and your perceptions of your qualities as a teacher.
If you are new to teaching you will have an idea of the personal qualities that you will bring to teaching and you will have gained relevant experiences through leading or talking to groups, or engaging in activities that are similar to teaching. You will also draw on your own experiences as a student to envisage the kind of teacher you hope to be.
Whether you are new to teaching or not, your views about learning and teaching will have a major impact on your characteristics as a teacher.
For example ...
If you are an experienced lecturer you may have had feedback from students and peers that you engage and motivate students through your enthusiasm for your subject and your ability to involve students in it to support their learning. This would give you confidence that you are skilled at designing learning experiences that bring your subject to life for your students.
If you are new to teaching you may rely on experiences of motivating others in your professional or personal life. You may have found that you are more comfortable with an informal collaborative style rather than a traditional lecture approach.
Thinking about teaching or assessing with technology adds another layer of characteristics about yourself that you will need to address. An interest in exploring the possibilities of learning with technology is probably the most important factor. Your familiarity with technologies and their use in your daily life will also have an impact. Through assessing your own skills in relation to teaching with technology you will be able to identify whether you need professional development, technical support or other assistance. Your institutional context is likely to provide the first indications of how you will access any support that you might need. We will consider this more closely in Chapter 2. Working within the boundaries of the institution provides a supportive environment for you and your students. However, if your plans for online learning go beyond those boundaries you will need to assess the implications of being unsupported.
The learning and teaching context
The context of your students’ learning and the context of your teaching may be markedly different, depending on whether you are teaching:
only in a face-to-face context at a local campus or campuses;
by combining your face-to-face teaching with online learning (‘blended’ learning);
solely off-campus and/or online;
in a transnational context; or
across multiple contexts (for example, you may be teaching the same subject face-to-face, off-campus, locally and transnationally).
With the exception of online learning that is designed to be used during face-to-face teaching within the classroom or lecture theatre, all other online learning involves separation between teacher and learner, and probably between learners. This, in turn, means that your learners may be studying in a whole range of contexts, including home or work or fieldwork settings, or almost anywhere, given the possibilities of mobile learning. While you can’t hope to accommodate all the contextual variables which will influence your students’ learning, recognising this variation is important, along with identifying any particular contextual influences which may affect many of your students.
For example ...
Some of your students may be studying in places where broadband internet access is not widely available. Downloading of large files would be problematic for these students. Therefore, using an online quiz for a timed summative assessment task that involved downloading of multiple images would not be a reasonable option.
Considering the learning context may be particularly important if you are teaching transnationally so that you avoid making unrealistic assumptions about what you expect from your students. If a number of your students who are studying in a South East Asian country (with good internet access) are also in paid employment six days per week, it may not be reasonable to expect regular online discussion postings at short intervals.
Any contextual information that you have will be important in complementing what you know about the students themselves. Your institution will also have a dominant contextual influence on your students’ learning, as well as on your teaching, because unless you are using a platform outside your university (in which case you will be on your own if problems arise), it is institutional policies, infrastructure, systems and standards, and perhaps further arrangements at faculty or department level, which determine the options available to you and the support you can provide for your students. We will consider this further in Chapter 2 in relation to selecting your technology options. Within the broad institutional framework in which you work you will also need to consider other contextual factors that may have a direct impact on your circumstances, as an online teacher, or on your students.
For example ...
What support do you have (if any)? Tutors, markers, administrative support, technical support?
Will others be teaching using materials you have designed (whether in a team teaching situation or separately)? If so, what perspectives about learning will they bring to the learning context and will they need professional development to implement your design?
You will need to consider this contextual information in conjunction with the student characteristics and your own characteristics as a teacher which you addressed earlier.
Identifying the learning objectives
Thinking about learning and teaching, students and teachers, and the context in which learning will happen, may feel like taking a very circuitous route to thinking about what your students will actually learn, but these things are important in setting the boundaries of any teaching episode. You are now ready to focus on the learning objectives that students will achieve by completing your course or subject. You may be familiar with the terms learning objective and learning outcome. We will be referring to both of these terms because the learning objective determines the intended learning outcome: the learning objective establishes the expectation of what the learning outcome will be, while the learning outcome does not actually occur until the learning has taken place. However, our main emphasis will be on learning objectives since these relate to the planning of learning and assessment which is our focus in this book.
A useful way to start, particularly if you are focusing on a subject that you have taught before, is to think about any issues or problems you have experienced that might be resolved by an online approach. Alternatively, you may be able to envisage some opportunities that online learning or assessment might offer. Then consider the learning objectives related to these issues, problems or opportunities and use them to guide your planning. If you have not taught the subject before, or if you are new to teaching, it is still important to think about your rationale for online teaching in terms of the relevant learning objectives.
The learning objectives should be at the centre of your planning because:
achievement of them (or otherwise) will provide the evidence of whether the intended learning has occurred;
they will guide the design of the learning activities that you plan to foster the learning of your students and also the assessment tasks that you set to identify whether or not they have been achieved;
they will identify what ‘content’ you need to provide to help students to complete the learning activities and assessment tasks; and, importantly, if you are considering the use of learning technologies;
they will play a key role in determining your technology options as we shall see in Chapter 2.
There is a skill to writing learning objectives well. In particular, they should:
be specific, identifying exactly what students should be able to do to meet them; and
require students to do something measurable or performance-based, so that someone other than the student can identify whether the objective has been achieved.
Try to avoid verbs like understand or know when writing cognitive learning objectives because they describe outcomes that are neither specific nor measurable.
It is interesting to note that although learning objectives (identifying specific, measurable behaviours) were associated with behavioural psychology concepts of the mid-twentieth century, they have transcended the developments in understandings about learning which have occurred since then and are applicable to perspectives of learning which focus on the experience of the learner. Hence the importance of their role has been supported from a phenomenographical perspective (e.g., Laurillard, 2002) and from a constructivist perspective (e.g., Biggs & Tang, 2007).
The scope of a learning objective can vary, with broader subject-level objectives supported by narrower, more specific objectives for components of the subject. At an even broader level, the extent to which students can meet particular learning objectives may be used to determine whether they have accomplished identified graduate attributes. These are the desirable characteristics, skills, abilities and learning achievements which students take with them when they leave their course. Ideally, they are reflected in objectives at all levels.
There are a number of tools available to assist you in developing learning objectives. One way to do this is to use the taxonomy of educational objectives developed by Bloom and his colleagues in 1956 and revised by Anderson et al. (2001). This taxonomy identifies six categories in the cognitive process dimension from the simple recall or recognition of facts, through to increasingly complex and abstract cognitive processes, as shown in Figure 1.1.
Verbs to identify behaviour for each cognitive process can then be used in the writing of objectives (see Table 1.2). You will find many examples of verbs for writing learning objectives if you search the internet. Table 1.2 provides a sample list.
Table 1.2
Verbs for writing learning objectives using Bloom’s (revised) taxonomy
| Cognitive process dimension |
Verbs for writing learning objectives | |
| 1. | Remember | arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorise, name, order, recall, recognise, relate, repeat, reproduce, state |
| 2. | Understand | classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognise, report, restate, review, select, translate |
| 3. | Apply | apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatise, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practise, schedule, sketch, solve, use |
| 4. | Analyse | analyse, appraise, calculate, categorise, compare, contrast, criticise, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, test |
| 5. | Evaluate | appraise, argue, assess, choose, compare, defend, estimate, evaluate, justify, judge, predict, prioritise, rate, select, support |
| 6. | Create | arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organise, plan, prepare, propose, set up |
Please note:
While Figure 1.1 is organised to show the lowest cognitive levels at the base of the diagram, with the highest at the top, Table 1.2 moves from the lowest levels at the beginning of the table to the highest levels at the end.
Anderson et al. (2001) also identify four knowledge types associated with each cognitive process (factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge and meta-cognitive knowledge). The examples of verbs in Table 1.2 have not been classified into these knowledge types.
Learning outcomes from level 1 represent the remembering of previously learned material, and are generally recognised as the simplest level of learning outcomes. As students move up the levels of the pyramid, their ability to critically analyse new material, solve problems and propose innovative solutions increases. Usually, in supporting learning, we aim to assist students in moving up these learning levels.
Reconceptualising your teaching
What we have covered so far has suggested that to prepare for online learning and assessment you need to start in exactly the same place that you would begin the planning of any teaching episode. We support this view strongly. As Ramsden (2003) states, the principles of good teaching do not alter when information technology is used appropriately to help make learning possible. However, we do not want you to think that this means that you should teach online in exactly the same way as you do in a face-to-face setting.
The assumption that teaching occurs in the same way irrespective of the medium is often the biggest mistake that beginning online teachers make. Note the following comment by Laurillard (2008, p. 139):
[T]he solutions technology brings, in their most immediate form, are solutions to problems education does not have. The current vogue for podcasting … is an excellent solution to the problem of providing personalised mobile auditory wallpaper. However, no one ever suggested that the reason why education is failing is that learners do not have enough access to people talking to them.
So what is the same and what is different?
The key point here is that current perspectives about learning in the fields of higher education and educational technology may be seen as reflecting the same kinds of belief systems, values and epistemological assumptions. Both draw on perspectives, common to a number of contemporary learning theories, which support the contextual, negotiated nature of knowledge, and the centrality of the learner’s experiences. Despite differences in the dominance of particular theories within each field, the underpinning principles are similar, though we need to acknowledge that theories and principles do change over time, as has occurred with the movement from behaviourism to constructivism. It is the way these principles are implemented in the online environment that may involve a major reconceptualisation of how you teach.
The changes in your teaching will occur as a result of the functionalities of the technologies you choose which will offer ways of doing things that are not possible or are more cumbersome in the face-to-face environment. As we have said elsewhere, in relation to recent developments in learning technologies:
… the capacities of Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate collaborative learning through social software such as blogs and wikis and access to virtual worlds (O’Reilly, 2005) has changed the way learners can retrieve, share and evaluate information, and create knowledge. Hence, these technologies have enabled a flourishing of person-person and person-content interactivity, changing the mechanisms of interactivity and introducing possibilities for learning that have yet to be fully explored and which lend themselves to new ways of investigating how learning occurs. (Benson & Brack, 2009, p. 74)
We will consider some of these capacities in Chapter 2. Our main purpose in asking you to begin to think about this now is to reinforce the point, before we get to thinking in detail about the technologies themselves, that simply using the online environment to replicate what you do in the lecture theatre is a wasted pedagogical opportunity (though it may offer some advantages in terms of convenience for students).
Illustrating the ideas in this chapter ...
The story that follows describes how one lecturer (Suzy) has considered the kinds of factors that we have covered in this chapter, in order to prepare for teaching online.
Suzy’s story
I lecture in early childhood education. I am committed to individual and social constructivist ideas about how learning occurs and I use problem-based learning principles to guide my teaching. Thus, my view of good teaching is to encourage students to become actively involved with the problem that they will solve, the issues relating to it, and the theoretical content that informs it. My role is to embed the unit content in these problems, and to support students as they address them. They also support each other in working together, whatever their backgrounds.
My students have diverse backgrounds. They range from Generation Y to mature-age students and they have varying prior experiences with the online environment. They are all studying on-campus but I find the learning and teaching context frustrating! I feel locked in by the on-campus teaching model which allows for a one hour lecture and a one hour tutorial per week. I know that technology allows you to do things differently and I would like more freedom to explore this. I have tried to be innovative in my teaching which has been recognised by awards I have received. However, I’m definitely not highly computer literate. I aim to work with technological tools provided by the university, using the institutional and faculty support that is available, and seeking further support when I need it.
I’m particularly conscious of the importance of encouraging practice that has a sound theoretical basis. I’ve been intrigued by the double standards of lecturers who lecture on the topic of constructivism to a theatre full of bored and disengaged students, rather than supporting students in constructing meaning themselves. Therefore, in one of the units that I teach, I was keen to develop an online learning approach that would allow students to apply theory to practice as they met the following objectives. In this unit, students are required to:
identify and discuss the key issues in relation to infant and toddler care and education programmes; and
critically examine the literature on infant and toddler childcare and be able to relate the findings to their own experiences with infant and toddler programmes.
I wanted to design an assessment task that would enable the pre- service teachers, working in groups, to develop an understanding of how theory could be used to frame their conceptions of quality care and teaching with young children. To do this, students would need to create a practical (although fictional) context for the content they were engaging with through the readings and lectures. I decided to ask them to prepare a series of digital responses to complete this task. I knew that this would involve a major reconceptualisation of how I taught the unit.
Summary
This chapter has covered some of the important factors that you will need to address if you are thinking about embarking on online teaching or assessment. You might respond to some of these factors intuitively, perhaps based on years of teaching practice, but there may be value in thinking things through consciously, given the implications that the online environment offers for major changes in the way you plan your teaching. There may be additional factors that you think you might need to consider to prepare for introducing these changes, and you should note these as well.
Following is a checklist that summarises the main planning stages we have covered in this chapter. We will extend it in each of the following chapters in order to develop a complete, introductory planning framework by the end of the book. However, in doing this we do not want to suggest that introducing online learning and assessment is as simple as ticking boxes. Your planning will only be as good as the thinking behind each of your responses, and you may not address each point in the same order as we present them.
Nevertheless, you might find this useful to trigger your thinking about factors related to learning and teaching as you begin to explore the online environment. If you are able to answer ‘Yes’ to most questions, you are probably ready to start, even though you might be unsure about some things. If your answer to most questions is ‘No’ it could be worthwhile speaking to a few people in your institution who have been identified as champions of online teaching, or exploring the academic professional development options that are available to you, or connecting with a professional association that supports teaching with technology in your area. You could consider attending a conference or reading a few academic papers about online teaching that may be relevant to you.
1There are many other theories that may help you to conceptualise aspects of learning, including online learning. We have focused on phenomenography and constructivism because of their major influence on the fields of education we are concerned with in this book.
2We use the word subject to refer to a unit of study (usually over a term or semester), which together with other subjects contributes to a course, with successful completion of the course resulting in the award of a diploma or degree (e.g., Bachelor of Arts; Master of Economics).