From Classroom To Cyberspace Susie Ventura Mark Dando

From Classroom To Cyberspace Susie Ventura, Mark Dando, Matthew Hughes Senior Lecturers Faculty of Health and Social Care Bristol UWE

CONTEXT • New Undergraduate pre - qualifying framework for all professional programmes • Within each year of these three year programmes is an inter professional module accessed by all • Each inter professional module employs an enquiry based learning model

The online module Inter professional level 3 • Caters for most professional groups • Runs twice a year • Accessed by 700 students

Staff Team • Total of 21 staff represent all professions • 60% of staff had no previous experience of online delivery • 90% of staff experienced lecturers and played an active role in IP modules in years one and two • Committed, enthusiastic and worked well together

Students • Less enthusiastic and very nervous • Anxiety not appreciated by staff • For most excitement replaced anxiety • For some discomfort with VLE or technology remained throughout module

Rationale for online delivery • Previous experience of using a VLE as resource and discussion forum • Identification of learning opportunities medium offered, but not exploited • IP module would enable us to explore different learning and teaching approaches • Accommodation of expanding student population provided added benefit • Greater flexibility for students

Learning opportunities • Extending knowledge and understanding by gathering and sharing information • Learning from and with each other development of academic skills • Shifting the focus from teaching to learning • Promotion of reflection and critical thinking

Ideas for the design • Essential that students engaged in learning • Review of underpinning pedagogy • Biggs and constructivism • To incorporate constructive alignment

A series of tasks to: • Maintain interest and focus • Build on knowledge and experience • Develop new skills • Review learning

Activities and assessment These addressed the four learning outcomes and included; • Two briefing papers • Design of a group critique framework • Peer Critiquing by collating and evaluating comments from peers & producing feedback • A reflective account of their experiences

Staff development issues • Facilitation skills online different to F 2 Frecognising when to intervene • Staff feeling less than confident working in this new environment - permanence of replies • Organisation of time, access , workloads

Competencies for facilitators Those identified by Salmon (2000) adapted and utilised as below: • Stage 1 Access and motivation • Stage 2 Online socialisation • Stage 3 Information exchange • Stage 4 Knowledge construction • Stage 5 Development

IT Factors • Students’ lack of IT skills and fear of computers • Peer support from more competent students • Access to computers off campus • IT skills increased during delivery • Infrastructure, admin, reliable platform

Asynchronous discussion • Impact on communication style Encourages considered and reflective responses • Frustrating waiting for responses • Space to think • Increased confidence and participation for some • Chat room discussions more ‘chatty’ but ? encouraged group cohesion • Group processes mirrored those in F 2 F interactions

Conclusion The underpinning pedagogy, that of constructivism, could be utilised across all learning whether online or F 2 F. Experience suggests that there advantages of online learning when adopting this approach particularly in respect to encouraging reflection and critical thinking. The environment also promotes collaboration and as all discussions are saved students have the opportunity to review their contributions and learning. Finally it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage students in deep learning when class sizes are so large this environment provides the opportunity to probe, challenge and enrich the experience.

Further reading Suggested further reading: Biggs J (1996) Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment Higher education 32 347 – 364 Bruner J S (1986) Actual minds, possi 1 ble worlds. Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Driscoll M P (1994) Psychology of learning for instruction. Boston Allyn and Bacon Fisher K, Phelps R, Ellis A (2000) Group processes online: teaching collaboration through collaborative processes Educational Technology & Society 3 (3) Palloff R& Pratt K (1999) Building learning communities in cyberspace: effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey - Bass Rourke I Anderson T, Randy garrison D & Archer W (1999) Assessing social presence in asynchronous text based computer conferencing Journal of Distance Education 14 92) 50 -7] Rust C (2000) The impact of assessment on student learning Active learning in higher education Vol 3 (2) 145 - 158 Salmon G (2000) E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online: London. Kogan Page