Learning Communities: new students sharing common experiences
"In their most basic form, learning communities employ a kind of co-registration or block scheduling that enables students to take courses together. The same students register for two or more courses, forming a sort of study team. In a few cases this may mean sharing the entire first-semester curriculum together so that all new students in that learning community are studying the same material. Sometimes it will link all freshmen by tying two courses together for all - most typically a course in writing with a course in selected literature, or biographies, or current social problems. In the larger universities such as the University of Oregon and the University of Washington, students in a learning community attend lectures with 200–300 other students but stay together for a smaller discussion section (Freshman Interest Group) led by a graduate student or upper division student. In a very different setting, Seattle Central Community College students in the Coordinated Studies Program take all their courses together in one block of time so that the community meets two or three times a week for four to six hours at a time."
(Vincent Tinto, 1997, p.2)
1). Vincent Tinto (1997). "Universities as Learning Organizations", About Campus 1(6) January/February 1997, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.v1:6/issuetoc]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Trevor Hussey and Patrick Smith: The Uses of Learning Outcomes
"This paper argues that learning outcomes need to be reclaimed from their current use as devices for monitoring and audit, and returned to their proper use in aiding good teaching and learning. We require a broader, flexible and more realistic understanding of learning outcomes, better suited to the realities of the classroom and of practical use to those teachers who wish to respond to the enthusiasm of their students. To this end, a new model is produced that starts from the idea of an articulated curriculum, and embraces both intended and emergent learning outcomes. The model employs the distinction between predicted and unpredicted learning outcomes, together with the distinction between those that are desirable and those that are undesirable. The resulting account is intended to aid understanding of the nature and proper use of learning outcomes in teaching and learning."
(Trevor Hussey & Patrick Smith, p.357, 2003)
Trevor Hussey & Patrick Smith (2003). "The Uses of Learning Outcomes", Teaching in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2003, pp.357-368, ISSN 1356-2517 (print)/ISSN 1470-1294 (online)/03/030357-12, 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd., DOI: 10.1080/1356251032000088574
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
infoKit: effective use of VLEs
"The use of technology to support learning and teaching has changed dramatically in recent years.
Most institutions are now exploring the possibilities of e-learning and many have implemented VLEs or virtual learning environments. These tools offer great possibilities but they need to be used effectively if they are to deliver maximum benefit for students.
This infoKit takes you from the theoretical frameworks underpinning good teaching to the practice of e-learning. We consider how technology affects the roles of learner and teacher in a number of real-life scenarios. The infoKit is based on sound pedagogic approaches and draws on case studies of good practice across the UK.
Whether you are new to e-learning or an experienced practitioner there are pathways to guide you through the relevant sections of the infoKit. The infoKit will continue to grow and expand as the knowledge base develops and we welcome your participation in its further development."
(2011 Northumbria University, on behalf of JISC Advance)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Learners seek complex and participatory environments
"There is considerable irony in this for multimedia. We have struggled technically to be able to deliver the full screen narrative form that TV so clearly represents - one hour of full screen full motion video has been a multimedia holy grail for so long! - and yet just as we appear to be able to deliver it, we find that what learners seek is something else anyway. They need a browsing, grazing environment where learner autonomy is fundamental, where the model of information represented is crucial to that browsing function, where metaphor and interface design are of primary importance and where sound bites, video snatches, auditory icons and text labels offer a complex and participatory environment that challenges the learner and recognises their increasing sophistication as information handlers and creators. Our normal information lives have changed without us noticing and the implications for multimedia and learning are complex and significant. The many publishers seeking to provide electronic books and narrative CDs are seeking to generate product that is a generation too late, as the age profile of buyers clearly indicates."
(Stephen Heppell, BBC 1995)
[Heppell accurately foretold the shift towards more open-ended organisational forms but in doing so failed to recognise the risk for learners of having too much choice. While the agency learners is increased through their autonomy to browse and graze etc. this is only the case when they possess recognition rules (Bernstein 2000, p.105-106) which allow them to construct meaningful discovery narratives.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Promoting an inclusive academic community
"We now examine how emerging models of meaningful student engagement with institutions can start to re-create the notion of an inclusive academic community where learners, teachers and researchers are all seen as scholars and collaborators in the common pursuit of knowledge. Using student engagement with CETLs as a brief case study, we consider firstly how we can engage students, who may have little awareness of research, with the idea. Secondly, we describe initiatives aiming at meaningful student engagement in curriculum review, including incorporation of undergraduate research. Finally, we examine the experience of students who wish to publish their research outputs, using Reinvention: a Journal of Undergraduate Research as a case study."
(Paul Taylor and Danny Wilding, 2009)
Dr Paul Taylor and Danny Wilding, T'he Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research', University of Warwick, November 2009
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
