Active Learning Strategies for Higher Education: the Practical Handbook

The manual itself is based on a sound method that the Educator can easily deploy. This is made up of easy stages for each activity which they and their students can embrace. This student-centred pedagogical approach allows learners to build their understanding while also taking responsibility for their own learning where the educator acts in a facilitator or enabler role. This active, enquiry-based approach is at the heart of what Durham College, UOIT and TU Dublin endeavour to provide to students as it can be applied to diverse problems and contexts within their educational journey and across disciplines. It also provides learners with a framework to use when working on problems that they will encounter within the

Web 2.0 @ BU – Use of Wikis within the School of Health & Social Care

The aim of the Web 2.0 @ BU project is to investigate current good practice and to map the use of Web 2.0 technologies within Bournemouth University. This paper aims to communicate the findings from the School of Health & Social Care project team during the academic year 2007/2008 concerning the use of wikis in three distinct areas: Reviewing The Literature Wiki - A teaching session on reviewing the literature is included as a part of the Masters Research Unit - Principles of Enquiry Unit 1. This case study concerns using a wiki as a replacement for PowerPoint and as a separate study guide. LIMBIC Project Wiki - The aim of the LIMBIC project is to evaluate an inter-professional approach linking practice based learning with the principles and methods of healthcare improvement. This case study examines how an external project group wiki could be utilised to enable collaboration between non-technical healthcare users. Teamworking and Communication in Health and Social Care Unit Wiki - The purpose of this third year unit is to provide students with the opportunity to undertake interprofessional project work and, through this develop their skills of working collaboratively in teams and to communicate and function more effectively within their role. This case study looks at how effective small student group wikis are as a part of a long, thin unit where students sometimes find that they vary their contribution according to the time that they have. The paper hopes to share knowledge and experience of utilising wikis, enabling teachers and practitioners to be in a stronger position to respond and react to the changing demands of using innovative new learning technologies

Sharing practice, problems and solutions for institutional change

This chapter critiques the roles of different forms of representation of practice as part of an institutional change process. It discusses how these representations can be used both to design and to share learning activities at the various levels of decision-making in a university. We illustrate our arguments with empirical data gathered on change processes associated with an institution-wide change programme: the introduction of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). In particular, we describe a case study of the introduction of the VLE tools in a business course. We focus on two particular forms of representations to describe the essence of the innovation: a pedagogical pattern and a visual learning design. We argue that pedagogical patterns and learning design have emerged as parallel approaches to describing practice in recent years. Despite their very different origins, both provide complementary representations, which emphasize different aspects of the practice being described. We are attempting to combine these approaches. We briefly outline the Open University Learning Design initiative, of which this work is part, and describe its key underpinning philosophies. We believe our approach provides a vehicle for enabling a better articulation of design principles and the discussion of issues concerning the re-use of educational resources and activities

Harnessing Technology: new modes of technology-enhanced learning: action research, March 2009

5 action research studie

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Science in the New Zealand Curriculum e-in-science

This milestone report explores some innovative possibilities for e-in-science practice to enhance teacher capability and increase student engagement and achievement. In particular, this report gives insights into how e-learning might be harnessed to help create a future-oriented science education programme. “Innovative” practices are considered to be those that integrate (or could integrate) digital technologies in science education in ways that are not yet commonplace. “Future-oriented education” refers to the type of education that students in the “knowledge age” are going to need. While it is not yet clear exactly what this type of education might look like, it is clear that it will be different from the current system. One framework used to differentiate between these kinds of education is the evolution of education from Education 1.0 to Education 2.0 and 3.0 (Keats & Schmidt, 2007). Education 1.0, like Web 1.0, is considered to be largely a one-way process. Students “get” knowledge from their teachers or other information sources. Education 2.0, as defined by Keats and Schmidt, happens when Web 2.0 technologies are used to enhance traditional approaches to education. New interactive media, such as blogs, social bookmarking, etc. are used, but the process of education itself does not differ significantly from Education 1.0. Education 3.0, by contrast, is characterised by rich, cross-institutional, cross-cultural educational opportunities. The learners themselves play a key role as creators of knowledge artefacts, and distinctions between artefacts, people and processes become blurred, as do distinctions of space and time. Across these three “generations”, the teacher’s role changes from one of knowledge source (Education 1.0) to guide and knowledge source (Education 2.0) to orchestrator of collaborative knowledge creation (Education 3.0). The nature of the learner’s participation in the learning also changes from being largely passive to becoming increasingly active: the learner co-creates resources and opportunities and has a strong sense of ownership of his or her own education. In addition, the participation by communities outside the traditional education system increases. Building from this framework, we offer our own “framework for future-oriented science education” (see Figure 1). In this framework, we present two continua: one reflects the nature of student participation (from minimal to transformative) and the other reflects the nature of community participation (also from minimal to transformative). Both continua stretch from minimal to transformative participation. Minimal participation reflects little or no input by the student/community into the direction of the learning—what is learned, how it is learned and how what is learned will be assessed. Transformative participation, in contrast, represents education where the student or community drives the direction of the learning, including making decisions about content, learning approaches and assessment

Open educational resources : conversations in cyberspace

172 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.Libro ElectrónicoEducation systems today face two major challenges: expanding the reach of education and improving its quality. Traditional solutions will not suffice, especially in the context of today's knowledge-intensive societies. The Open Educational Resources movement offers one solution for extending the reach of education and expanding learning opportunities. The goal of the movement is to equalize access to knowledge worldwide through openly and freely available online high-quality content. Over the course of two years, the international community came together in a series of online discussion forums to discuss the concept of Open Educational Resources and its potential. This publication makes the background papers and reports from those discussions available in print.--Publisher's description.A first forum : presenting the open educational resources (OER) movement. Open educational resources : an introductory note / Sally Johnstone -- Providing OER and related issues : an introductory note / Anne Margulies, ... [et al.] -- Using OER and related issues : in introductory note / Mohammed-Nabil Sabry, ... [et al.] -- Discussion highlights / Paul Albright -- Ongoing discussion. A research agenda for OER : discussion highlights / Kim Tucker and Peter Bateman -- A 'do-it-yourself' resource for OER : discussion highlights / Boris Vukovic -- Free and open source software (FOSS) and OER -- A second forum : discussing the OECD study of OER. Mapping procedures and users / Jan Hylén -- Why individuals and institutions share and use OER / Jan Hylén -- Discussion highlights / Alexa Joyce -- Priorities for action. Open educational resources : the way forward / Susan D'Antoni