Promising State Policies for Personalized Learning

This report is a valuable resource for state policymakers—whether they are seeking to create conditions in state policy to support personalized learning, moving forward with initiatives to develop personalized learning pilot programs, hosting task forces to explore policy issues and needs, or taking a comprehensive policy approach for supporting advanced personalized learning models.Personalized learning is where instruction is tailored to each student's strengths, needs, and interests—including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when, and where they learn—to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible

Sharing the journey of facilitator and learner: online pedagogy in practice

Two perspectives are used to reflect on the learning design of a postgraduate online course – that of the designer/facilitator and that of the learner. While the course focus is on online pedagogical approaches, the main aim is to connect learners with each other and with the facilitator so that together they may investigate, trial, challenge and formulate ideas about online pedagogy. The design is influenced by the principles of transformative learning where the concept of a 'dilemma' leads to disorientation and then to learning. Learners are presented with a number of educational dilemmas, given a process for addressing those dilemmas and are required to authentically demonstrate how principles and practices can be applied to enhance online learning and teaching. The design addresses the theory/practice nexus and illustrates that research is best situated in real world contexts, and effective practice should be framed and informed by research

Cracking the Code: Synchronizing Policy and Practice for Performance-Based Learning

Proposes a policy framework for integrating performance-based learning into the education system, synchronizing policy and practice, and ensuring collaborative state leadership and flexible federal leadership. Lists state policy issues and exemplars

The use of animated agents in e‐learning environments: an exploratory, interpretive case study

There is increasing interest in the use of animated agents in e‐learning environments. However, empirical investigations of their use in online education are limited. Our aim is to provide an empirically based framework for the development and evaluation of animated agents in e‐learning environments. Findings suggest a number of challenges, including the multiple dialogue models that animated agents will need to accommodate, the diverse range of roles that pedagogical animated agents can usefully support, the dichotomous relationship that emerges between these roles and that of the lecturer, and student perception of the degree of autonomy that can be afforded to animated agents

Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

Transition, Decoding and Heutagogy; A strategy for improving undergraduate learning in sport, health and exercise.

Heutagogy, an established concept in educational literature, puts an emphasis on the development of a student’s ability to understand how they learn certain skills and abilities. To gain a clearer understanding on the implementation of heutagogy within the higher education environment, the present study considered the adoption of heutagogical approaches with students at University. A review of the literature was conducted to understand the use of pedagogy and andragogy in higher education and how a heutagogical approach could create a self-directed learning experience. Contemporary research has evidenced that the implementation of heutagogy at higher education encourages students to develop highly employable skills such as determination and initiative. In contrast, it has been discovered that students find heutagogy to be challenging, therefore a progressive development from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy is required. Nevertheless, the beneficial outcomes are apparent to educators and students, and increase employability rates. The beneficial learning outcomes of heutagogical learning such as employability and self-directed learning is discussed

An overview of the nature of the preparation of practice educators in five health care disciplines

Practice education is a core element of all educational programmes that prepare health care professionals for academic award and registration to practice. Ensuring quality and effectiveness involves partnership working between Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) and health care providers, social care communities, voluntary and independent sectors offering client care throughout the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Clearly practitioners who support, supervise and assess learners for entry to their respective professions need to be well prepared and supported in their roles as practice educators. However it would appear that the nature of this support and preparation varies across disciplines and that good practice is not easily shared. With this in mind, the Making Practice Based Learning Work (MPBLW) project aims to make practitioners more effective at supporting and supervising students in the workplace across a range of health care disciplines namely Dietetics, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Radiology. The Department of Employment and Learning (Northern Ireland) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England has funded this collaborative project involving staff from Ulster, Northumbria and Bournemouth Universities. The outcomes for each phase of the project are: Phase One: • Identify and document good practice on how practitioners are prepared for their educational role. Phase Two: • Develop and evaluate learning materials for use by practitioners across five health care disciplines. • Make learning materials available in a number of efficient media, e.g. paper, electronic, CD-ROM and web-based. • Develop a programme applicable to interprofessional and uniprofessional contexts. • Widen access for a multicultural workforce. Phase Three: • Embed best educational practice through the establishment of an academicpractitioner network. • Disseminate a range of materials and processes across the wider academic and health and social care communities

Nurses as educators: creating teachable moments in practice

Effective workplace teaching is increasingly important in healthcare, with all staff being potential educators. The introduction of new roles and the need to create capacity for increased numbers of students can make it difficult to create a good learning experience. Despite the richness of clinical practice as a learning environment, creating capacity for teaching can be challenging. This article explores the possibilities for identifying and creating teachable moments in busy clinical environments and suggests a developmental model for incorporating these learning opportunities. Teachable moments linked directly to optimal patient care can potentially influence and shape a positive learning culture in clinical environments