Scholarly Approaches to using Technology in

Teaching and Learning

Linda Price1

• Why use digital technologies?

• What factors might influence us?

• Why do we need to be scholarly?

• What might we do to build capacity?

Why?

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The Press gets it….

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The Politicians get it….

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“It is ironic that in the so-called Information Age we are still graduating passive, solitary learners poorly equipped to cope with the explosion of information resources competing for their attention”. (Sept, 2004,p. 49).

Students need to learn, unlearn and relearn as professionals in the 21st century.

Are we getting it?

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Learning and digital technologies• Misconceptions

–The extended classroom: technology use allows replication of teacher-led classroom-based activities

–Technology determinism:introducing technology in and of itself will improve learning

–Knowledge is molecular: the teacher transmits this knowledge and the students receive it

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Opinion-based practice or evidence-informed practice?

Which is scholarly?9

Factor 1: the influence of historical models• Designed for a context

in the 1920’s?– Limited social interaction– Limited integration of ICT 

• Models of ODL - Separation of teaching and learning activities– High quality content-rich materials – Passive learning activities– Any technology use was passive, transmissive and

one-way 10

Factor 2:the changing environment• Preparing tomorrow’s professionals for a digital world

– Its not what you know when you leave university – its about what you can do in the future

–Teachers are not the ‘gatekeepers’ for information and expertise in their field

–Learning, unlearning and relearning to find new knowledge to solve new problems

–Life long learning and professional development

Students need discernment, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis skills

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Factor 3:current policies and practices for technology adoption

• Technology deterministic– Focusing on technology infrastructure, overlooking

pedagogy?• Content-driven

– Focusing on content accessibility, content quality?• Administration facilitation

– Trying to make administration easier?• Communication facilitation

– Connecting students and teacherswithout a clear purpose?

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Factor 4:learners’ motivation for using ICTCourse design influences students’ study behaviours

– Web resources and communications are little used when added to existing course structures

– ICT use needs to be integrated into the overall course design

– Didactic approaches are less effective than active approaches to learning

–Assessment is the de facto curriculum

“Good teaching may overcome a poor choice in the use of technology, but technology will never save poor teaching: usually it makes it worse.” (Bates, 1995)

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E100 E101 E105 E111 E112 E207 E210 U2110.0%

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KPI 01: Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of this module. Q20 I enjoyed learning through: Reading printed text

Q21 I enjoyed learning through: Reading text online Q22 I enjoyed learning through: Listening to audio material

Q23 I enjoyed learning through: Viewing audio-visual material

Student Satisfaction and Perceptions of Technology

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E100 E101 E105 E111 E112 E207 E210 U2110.0%

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KPI 01: Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of this module.

Q33 Clear understanding of what was required to complete the assessed work

Q34 the assessment activities supported my learning

Student Satisfaction and Perceptions of Assessment

Factor 5:students’ expectations of teaching and learning• Students’ experiences of full-time school education

influences their expectations• Few will have experienced self-directed or self-

managed learning

“..students who commence higher education with didactic/reproductive beliefs can find the process difficult and even traumatic. They are uncomfortable with the teaching approaches that do not correspond with their model of teachers presenting information to be passively absorbed by students .” (Kember, 2001) 16

Factor 6:professional development

• Are we focusing on developing ICT technical skills – resulting in ICT being used to supplement existing practices?

• Are we using transmissive approaches to teaching leading to reproductive approaches to learning?

Technology may not be the sole problem – it may be the pedagogical approach

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Scholarship Ernest Boyer (1990) wrote his seminal work on Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate.

concerned that….

the function of a ‘scholar’ had become viewed as conducting and publishing research such that research came first followed by teaching.

As a result he attempted to ‘define’ or ‘redefine’ scholarship articulating the full range of activities that professors (academics) engage in.

Teaching

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IntegrationApplication

Discovery

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The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

He was concerned about the quality of student education

He argued that universities were being called upon to educate previously unimagined numbers of students.

‘Professors then have the pressure of publishing and the pressure of increased student class sizes…

Many did a conspicuously ‘bad’ job of teaching as there was no penalty.

Is it ethical to enrol students and not give them a good quality education?

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

• SoTL movement sprang out of Boyer’s Scholarship (of Teaching) work around 1999.

• What constitutes SoTL?– not the same as excellent teaching - ongoing ‘cumulative

intellectual inquiry’ about teaching and learning– requires a public demonstration - typically investigating

students’ learning experiences. – applications of results to practice– self-reflection, and peer review Brew, 1999; Clegg, 2008; Darling, 2003; Draeger & Price, 2011; Hutchings & Shulman, 1999; Kanuka, 2011; Kreber & Cranton, 2000; Richlin, 2001; Trigwell & Shale, 2004).

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Asking a colleague about a problem in his or her research is an invitation;

Asking about a problem in one’s teaching would probably seem like an accusation.

Changing the status of the problem in teaching from remediation to on-going investigation is what the SoTL movement is all about.

How might we make the problematization of teaching a matter of regular communal discourse? How might we think of teaching practice and the evidence of student learning, as problems to be investigated, analyzed, represented, and debated? (Bass, 1999)

Do we need cultural change?

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Building a strategy, for building SoTL capacity for using ICT?

Understand our students' context and learning needs

Understand how our teaching and learning innovations with ICT affect our students

Building theoretical models

Collecting evidence and USING it to improve our courses and our students’ learning experiences

Constant reflection,

Constant developmenthttp://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneysteiner/5713704415/sizes/o/in/photostream/

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The corner stones of SoTL approaches to using ICT

Organisational change

Quality enhancement

Continuing professional development

Curriculum development

Student development

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Organisational change, Organisational learning

Must have a holistic institutional approach–Developing appropriate policies and reward

structures for staff and students

–Developing appropriate infrastructure and policies to support that infrastructure

–Developing holistic and collaborative approaches to curriculum development

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Quality enhancement

• Quality enhancement – not quality control

• Tying to improve what students experience – not maintain the status-quo of the teaching quality

• Embed robust data collection across the institution

• Embed robust quality enhancement that improves the quality of the student learning experience

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Group Role Purpose of CPD Aim

Senior University Managers

University policy and decision making on the use of ICT

To develop fuller understanding of the effects of university ICT policies and strategies on students, staff and resources

To promote strategic decision making that embeds the necessary support structures and resources to support policy decisions

Middle Managers

Faculty/ /department level policy making on the use of ICT in the overall curriculum

To understand the implications of faculty/school/department level ICT policy and strategies on students’ learning and its implications for staff and resources

To promote strategic decision making that supports the coherent application of faculty/school/department level policy in course programmes by providing the appropriate and student and staff support structures and resources

Individual teaching and learning staff

Curriculum development (T&L) using ICT

To develop an understanding of the pedagogical rationale of using ICT in their courses and what the implications of their choices are on students, staff and resources.

To promote contextualised reflective practice and tactical choices on pedagogically driven ICT use, aimed directly at improving the quality of the student learning experience.

Continuing Professional Development Framework

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Curriculum development

Holistic approach to curriculum design• Built around the aptitudes a student will

require as a professional in the 21st century

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneysteiner/5713704415/sizes/o/in/photostream/

• Conceiving the award as a whole – and what is needed to develop students as 21st century professionals - NOT about what courses can be put together to make up a degree or other award

• Working in teams – NOT slicing courses up into individual components that different practitioners ‘deliver’. 28

Student Development

• Find out WHO your students are

• Find out why some might be dropping out or failing

• Find out what can be changed in either the institutional approach to teaching and learning – or in the individual course that can improve the student’s chance of success

• Reflect on your beliefs about teaching – passing on your knowledge

– or helping the student to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities to learn, unlearn and relearn. 29

The success of tomorrow’s students will be built upon the education we design today.

Let’s use technology effectively to build that future.

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