Learning resource principles
Modes of flexible
learning
Learning resources
Learning activities
Writing a learning
guide
Compiling a reader
Modes of flexible learning
Flexible learning does not simply equal using various forms of electronic communication to deliver a course. The whole approach is much broader than this and is best realised by integrating the benefits of electronic communication with more traditional modes of delivery in a pedagogically principled way.
Modes of flexible learning include:
- face-to-face contact
- websites with interactive content and/or chat rooms, discussion boards
- CD-ROMs
- VHS or broadcast video
- teleconferencing or videoconferencing
- print resources
- audio tapes
- field trips.
When designing a course, you can choose to use any combination of these various modes, depending on a number of factors, including availability of particular resources, cost, the kind of interaction you wish to encourage in your students, and the capacity of the technology to realise the learning objectives. In fact, this final consideration (match between learning objectives and use of the technology) is crucial.
Benefits of electronic communication
Electronic communications include asynchronous platforms such as email and discussion boards, and synchronous forums such as chat rooms. Various benefits are associated with these forms of communications.
- The relative lack of formality can be appealing to students.
- Depending on how the course's activities are structured, students
may have greater choice about when they will complete learning activities.
- Students are able to take their time and plan their messages thoughtfully
before submitting them - an advantage which is not possible in face-to-face
interactions where answers are expected to be spontaneous.
- The ability to store and retrieve communications (from emails, discussion
boards, chat groups) can facilitate subsequent reflection, improvement
and extension.
- Students have the opportunity to communicate in a more equal way
without the domination of one or two highly confident individuals.
- Carefully structured and appropriately moderated interactions can provide opportunities for students to develop collaborative skills.
This Blackboard
Tip Sheet is a practical guide to enhancing communication
and reducing administrivia. The ASTER
site (a UK initiative) provides information about how electronic
communication tools can be used effectively in small-group teaching.
Learning resources
Learning resources are an important component in designing a course for flexible learning. Well-considered selection and use of resources will contribute importantly to achieving your educational purposes.
Defining and identifying a variety of learning resources
Learning resources are the many things that contain course content and that help learners to acquire skills or knowledge. They include textbooks, journals, CD-ROMs, videos, audio tapes, guest speakers, excursions, work experience, learning guides, broadcast television and radio, your own lecture notes, overhead transparencies and slides. Indeed, the possibilities are vast.
Remember that resources may simply contain course content, if so you will still need to assist students to construct meaning from them by means of well designed, interactive learning activities.
Principles of valid resource selection
Given the vast range and quantity of learning resources available, the challenge is to select those which are most likely to enhance learning. Essentially, what needs to be borne in mind is why you are doing something, your purpose - in other words, the learning objectives of a particular course. The resources which are selected should contribute towards achieving the objectives of the course. It is often tempting to include a vast amount of resources but in learning resource selection the aim should be to provide only key resources. Too many is overwhelming for students.
Horses for courses - choosing appropriate learning resources
Your choice of delivery medium will depend on how much access your students have to the campus, a computer and the Internet. In distance education courses students' access to videoconferencing facilities is also a consideration. While access is important, you also have to build students' skill and confidence in using these technologies. Finally, your budget will also determine what delivery mediums you choose.
Developing your own learning resources
Despite the rich array of available resources, it may occasionally be the case that you need something very specific for your teaching needs and you may elect to create your own resources or adapt existing ones. If you decide to follow either of these paths, you'll need to bear certain things in mind. The following considerations are relevant.
- Best practice - whether you decide to create original materials or
to adapt existing ones, both the content and the pedagogical design
need to reflect best practice and knowledge of relevant theory. One
very useful theoretical approach is that of constructivism.
- Inclusion of interactive learning activities which will engage learners
in deep learning is important.
- Both the content and the activities need to reflect values which
are non-racist, non-sexist, inclusive and culturally sensitive.
- Copyright and moral rights considerations: The UQ
Library site contains information about copyright
for teaching and links to information about authors'
moral rights.
- Clearly, developing learning resources can be a creative and rewarding
experience. However, you need to weigh the benefits of the time spent
against other priorities.
- It is highly recommended that you enlist the collaboration of an
educational designer from TEDI.
Learning activities
Learning activities are the tasks and exercises which assist students in making meaning from the content of a course. They are the vehicle through which learning occurs.
Commonly used activities include:
- note making (from lectures, videos or print materials)
- group discussions
- debates
- surveys
- accessing and completing exercises on the Web or CD-ROM
- gathering information from community sources
- participating in applied practical sessions
- carrying out lab work.
In view of the variety of learning activities available, on what basis should you choose to use some activities rather than others?
The answer lies in your response to this central question:
What do students need to do in order to demonstrate that they have met the learning objective?
Put another way, there needs to be a clear congruence between the learning objectives which you have designed and the learning activities which you select to realise those objectives. If, for instance, in an education course, an important objective is for students to develop coherent lesson plans, then it would not be adequate to simply ask them to compare different kinds of plans, though this might well be a sound foundation activity. To have confidence that students could meet this objective, it would be necessary for them to actually produce a satisfactory lesson plan.
The activities listed above are, in a sense, quite broad. Once you have selected an activity, you need to think about the details of how you will use this activity.
Example 1
If you want students to take part in a discussion, what exactly are they meant to do?
- Explore a topic in a general way?
- Pool information gathered from various sources?
- Reach a conclusion or consensus?
- Problem solve?
If they carry out any or all of the above, which particular objectives are being served?
Level of challenge of activities
Tertiary students need to be engaged in ways which challenge them intellectually. Among the kinds of activities which will promote beneficial thinking skills are:
- making forward and backward references
- exploring extended contexts
- comparing and contrasting
- categorising and classifying
- predicting
- explaining (summarising, describing, discussing, defining)
- generating multiple solutions
- planning, justifying and strategising
- reflecting (evaluating, integrating, extending, generalising)
- meta-communication about the learning process.
[adapted from Dufresne, Leonard and Gerace (1995:8-10)]
Writing a learning guide
The learning guide pulls your course together and provides support and guidance to the students in their learning. This is where your creativity as a teacher comes into play, with you integrating content, learning activities, face-to-face sessions, online discussion and assessment. When conceptualising the learning guide you will need to consider:
Selection and sequencing of content
What content you include in the course will be determined by the aims and objectives of the course. These will determine the parameters of the course. Sequencing will depend on your learning approach - some approaches use linear, systematic sequencing while others can be done in any order decided upon by the student.
Topic objectives
Objectives can be of two sorts: content (knowledge) objectives and learning process objectives. Objectives should cover knowledge, skills and attitudes, particularly with reference to the Graduate Attributes.
Depending on the learning approach that is adopted, different topic objectives will be required. If it is a structured sequence of topics, then precise objectives can be determined for each topic, with the outcomes clearly stated.
If on the other hand your approach is a problem-based one, then the objectives will be determined by the students as regards the content.
Learning activities
Learning activities are the most creative part of writing a learning guide. Here you will need to work out learning activities for the students to do that are congruent with the objectives you have set, either content or process ones. Learning activities are limited only by your imagination.
Style and register of writing
A learning guide is not an academic paper. The writing style you choose should be friendly and reasonably colloquial. You should be at pains to support and guide students by telling them what is easy or hard, why this is so, and how they can best cope with it. You could structure it as a conversation allowing students to respond to you. It's not desirable to write a monologue.
Authors' moral rights
Following the introduction of the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000, the University has undertaken to take reasonable steps to ensure that authors and contributors to the development of teaching materials are acknowledged. This includes attribution of authorship of those people who have created the work, and acknowledgement of all other contributors to the development of ideas, design or production of the work. Where a work is a revision or adaption of an earlier work, previous authors should also be attributed with a clear distinction between the original author/s and author/s of revisions, including the respective dates of production of the different versions.
TEDI can assist in developing your Learning / Study Guide
TEDI's educational designers can assist in the areas of curriculum development, learning activity and assessment design, and in the translation, mapping and embedding of graduate attributes. Educational designers can also assist in the integration of learning technologies.
Once you have a final draft of your content,TEDI can also do the following:
- advise on the overall organisation of your learning guide
- professionally format your content
- design the cover
- proofread all work
- produce a print quality master
- assist you with print requisitions.
Compiling a reader
The reader contains the articles and chapters students are directed to read in the learning guide. The reader might include:
- journal articles
- chapters of books
- newspaper articles and reports
- tables
- maps and diagrams
- photographs.
Choose the readings to be included in the reader in keeping with your learning objectives. Because you're very committed and enthusiastic about your course you will be tempted to think that students need to read all known articles written on the subject. However, students have limited time, and find too many readings per topic just overwhelming. A good general rule is a maximum of two essential readings per topic.
It is generally understood that all the articles in a reader should be read, so only those readings mentioned in your learning guide as essential to the course should be included in your reader. Don't include any optional or recommended readings. If you provide your students with a list of further readings in the learning guide, then you allow students to decide for themselves what it is they would like to follow up. This makes your course more flexible.
Under the copyright agreement, you are allowed to reproduce 10% of a book, or one chapter, or one article from an issue of a journal without breaking copyright. These rules change when using digital readings accessed from a website or CD-ROM. Details of copyright requirements for university lecturers are available from the UQ Library website. Please check the Library's page on Information for Course Coordinators for further details on their digital copying services.
If you want to reproduce more than one chapter from one book or more than 10%, then copyright clearance needs to be sought and it is the responsibility of the course coordinator to do this.
What you need to do:
- select your essential readings
- make sure you don't violate copyright
- provide full citation details of articles
- make sure articles are complete
- provide the original books where possible
- provide the best possible photocopy
- provide copies with text large enough to be read comfortably
- provide copies free of annotation or underlining
- provide copies free of marks or blotches.
Relevant links
UQ
Library - Information for Couse Coordinators for information
about their digital course materials service.
Murdoch
University's
quality guide to
developing
learning
materials.
