Digital communities: context for leading learning into the future?

In 2011, a robust, on-campus, three-element Community of Practice model consisting of growing community, sharing of practice and building domain knowledge was piloted in a digital learning environment. An interim evaluation of the pilot study revealed that the three-element framework, when used in a digital environment, required a fourth element. This element, which appears to happen incidentally in the face-to-face context, is that of reflecting, reporting and revising. This paper outlines the extension of the pilot study to the national tertiary education context in order to explore the implications for the design, leadership roles, and selection of appropriate technologies to support and sustain digital communities using the four-element model

Scaffolding Critical Reflection in Online Discussions: Helping Prospective Teachers Think Deeply About Field Experiences in Urban Schools

A teacher educator uses the methodology of a design experiment to compare patterns and levels of reflection in two semesters of her students’ e-mail discussions about field experiences in urban schools. Analysis of discussion transcripts during the earlier semester revealed that higher levels of reflection were rare. With a number of changes in both the design and level of support for the discussions, students during the second semester were more inclined to write at higher levels of reflection. Important scaffolds for higher levels of reflection seemed to be tailored and general questioning from the instructor and peers, critical readings on problematic issues and inequities in urban schools, and certain online discussion threads where students were jointly analyzing sociopolitical and moral aspects of critical incidents in the field. In light of this study, suggestions are offered for future use of electronic exchanges in teacher education courses and programs

Scoping a vision for formative e-assessment: a project report for JISC

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. If the relationship between teaching and learning were causal, i. e. if students always mastered the intended learning outcomes of a particular sequence of instruction, assessment would be superfluous. Experience and research suggest this is not the case: what is learnt can often be quite different from what is taught. Formative assessment is motivated by a concern with the elicitation of relevant information about student understanding and / or achievement, its interpretation and an exploration of how it can lead to actions that result in better learning. In the context of a policy drive towards technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, the question of the role of digital technologies is key and it is the latter on which this project particularly focuses. The project and its deliverables have been informed by recent and relevant literature, in particular recent work by Black andIn this work, they put forward a framework which suggests that assessment for learning their term for formative assessment can be conceptualised as consisting of a number of aspects and five keystrategies. The key aspects revolve around the where the learner is going, where the learner is right now and how she can get there and examines the role played by the teacher, peers and the learner. Language: English Keywords: assessments, case studies, design patterns, e-assessmen

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Keywords of written reflection - a comparison between reflective and descriptive datasets

This study investigates reflection keywords by contrasting two datasets, one of reflective sentences and another of descriptive sentences. The log-likelihood statistic reveals several reflection keywords that are discussed in the context of a model for reflective writing. These keywords are seen as a useful building block for tools that can automatically analyse reflection in texts

System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report – a major outcome of the programme – is written by TEL director Professor Richard Noss and a team of experts in various fields of technology-enhanced learning. The report features the programme’s 12 recommendations for using technology-enhanced learning to upgrade UK education

Assessing collaborative learning: big data, analytics and university futures

Traditionally, assessment in higher education has focused on the performance of individual students. This focus has been a practical as well as an epistemic one: methods of assessment are constrained by the technology of the day, and in the past they required the completion by individuals under controlled conditions, of set-piece academic exercises. Recent advances in learning analytics, drawing upon vast sets of digitally-stored student activity data, open new practical and epistemic possibilities for assessment and carry the potential to transform higher education. It is becoming practicable to assess the individual and collective performance of team members working on complex projects that closely simulate the professional contexts that graduates will encounter. In addition to academic knowledge this authentic assessment can include a diverse range of personal qualities and dispositions that are key to the computer-supported cooperative working of professionals in the knowledge economy. This paper explores the implications of such opportunities for the purpose and practices of assessment in higher education, as universities adapt their institutional missions to address 21st Century needs. The paper concludes with a strong recommendation for university leaders to deploy analytics to support and evaluate the collaborative learning of students working in realistic contexts

Exploring self-regulation through learning navigation pathways in online learning during the pandemic

Abstract. Online learning has shown significant growth as a powerful alternative method to deliver learning through the pandemic situation. In the meantime, many studies have been attempting to investigate how to provide education within online platforms effectively; however, a few have examined how students regulate their learning during online courses. Through the lens of self-regulated learning theory and Zimmerman’s cyclical model (2000), the present study examines how successful students and less successful students regulate their learning in hypermedia contexts. Moreover, the research aims to explore self-regulatory behaviors via the learning pathways between successful students and less successful students in a learning management system. The process-oriented method was applied to investigate the student’s learning paths from the log data collected. The coding was done based on a new coding scheme created through the lens of self-regulated learning theories, in which half of the events were assigned with self-regulatory activities due to the lack of theoretical explanation. The frequency analysis and process mining analysis of coded learning events were generated to examine the differences in self-regulated learning between successful and less successful students. The results indicate how successful and less successful students regulate differently in their learning navigation. For educators, the study provides insights to better design online learning courses and suggests self-regulatory strategies to support students in hypermedia contexts