scholarly journals The Need to Focus on Digital Pedagogy for Online Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halvdan Haugsbakken ◽  
Shaun Nykvist ◽  
Dag Atle Lysne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
Digital Pedagogy

As pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning continue to evolve to meet the needs of students in a rapidly changing, globalized world that is heavily influenced and reliant on digital technologies, it is anticipated that the learning environments in Higher Education will also be transformed. Consequently, this transformation of learning environments is often synonymous with the adoption of and continued focus on the potential benefits of online learning in the Higher Education sector. It is within this context that this paper reports on a small-scale case study in a large Nordic university where the learning management system, Blackboard was piloted and implemented using a top-down approach consisting of the comprehensive training of academic staff, students and support staff. The explorative approach used in this study identifies three common themes in the data as it follows a group of academic beta testers (N=23) who are involved in the initial phases of implementation. The study explores the educators’ primary use of Blackboard, whilst attempting to understand how academics perceive and interpret the role of online technologies to support effective pedagogical practices. Drawing on data from participant interviews, the study highlights the need for increased academic support for online learning design and a renewed focus on staff development of effective pedagogical practices

scholarly journals Enabling learning through technology: some institutional imperatives

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey McCartan ◽  
Barbara Watson ◽  
Janet Lewins ◽  
Margaret Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Higher Education Funding ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Technology Programme

The imminent completion of many Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) projects means that a considerable number of courseware deliverables will soon be available to Higher-Education (HE) institutions. The Higher Education Funding Council's intention in funding the Programme (HEFCE Circulars, 8/92, 13/93) was to ensure their integration into academic curricula by providing institutions with an opportunity to review their 'teaching and learning culture' with regard to the embedding of learning technology within their institutional practice. Two recent workshops, conducted with a representative sample of newly appointed academic staff in connection with the evaluation of materials to be included in a staff development pack whose purpose is to encourage the use of IT in teaching and learning (TLTP Project 7), strongly suggested that the availability of courseware alone was insufficient to ensure its integration into educational practice. The establishment of enabling mechanisms at the institutional level, as well as within departments, was crucial to ensure the effective use of learning technology.DOI:10.1080/0968776950030115

scholarly journals Contextually responsive and knowledge-focused teaching: disrupting the notion of ‘best practices’

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (SI) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceclia Jacobs ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Good Teaching ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
Conceptual Paper ◽  
Higher Education Teaching

The notion that universal ‘best practices’ underpin higher education teaching is problematic. Although there is general agreement in the literature that good teaching is not decontextualised but rather that it is responsive to the context in which it occurs, generic views of teaching and learning continue to inform practices at universities in South Africa. This conceptual paper considers why a decontextualised approach to higher education teaching prevails and interrogates factors influencing this view, such as: the knowledge bases informing this approach to teaching, the factors from within the higher education sector that shape this approach to teaching, as well as the practices and Discourses prevalent in the field of academic development. The paper argues that teaching needs to be both contextually responsive and knowledge- focused. Disrupting ‘best practices’ approaches require new ways of undertaking academic staff development, which are incumbent on the understandings that academic developers bring to the enterprise.

scholarly journals Content, language and intercultural challenges in engineering education: (E-)strategies to improve instructional design

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 153-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarida Morgado
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Instructional Design ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Online Learning Environments

Intercultural, multilingual and culturally and academically diverse classrooms are a common reality in current higher education (HE) landscapes, as globalisation is effectively taking place in all major schools. Rethinking instructional design strategies that contribute to the overcoming of communication and cultural differences in both online and blended learning processes may help not only improve the development of more efficient online learning environments but also meet the challenges of current teaching and learning processes. Special focus will be put into engineering education through the medium of English and the training of engineering lecturers in HE through communities of practice (CoPs), which present, integrate and discuss how to integrate content and language (through what is known as the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach) as well as trends, challenges and opportunities related to recent technological developments on students’ learning ourcomes. The desciption of the pedagogical training shared through a CoP describes E-strategies to improve instructional design in engineering courses in online learning environments when English is used as a medium of instruction and integrated with content in a CLIL approach. Keywords: Higher education, CLIL/ICLHE, English Lingua Franca, instructional E-design, online learning environments, training of engineering teachers.

scholarly journals Learning technology in Scottish higher education - a survey of the views of senior managers, academic staff and 'experts'

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Haywood ◽  
Charles Anderson ◽  
Helen Coyle ◽  
Kate Day ◽  
Denise Haywood ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
The United States ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Senior Managers ◽  
Culture Shift ◽  
Technology In Higher Education

Central concerns within the field of learning technology in higher education have been the promotion of institutional change and staff awareness and development. This focus on the need to bring about a 'culture shift' and the importance of 'change agents' is reflected in the Dearing Report (DfEE, 1997) and in Funding Council initiatives such as TLTP and TLTSN (Davies, 1995). It is common for many of us who work in this area to feel that although we see clearly the task ahead, we have little at our disposal by way of evidence about how far we have come. Much of the evidence which does exist, and which has been incorporated into lectures and reports, is anecdotal, local and small scale, although there have been some larger studies, notably the Information Technology Assisted Teaching and Learning project (ITATL, 1997), and a 1999 study of C&IT materials funded by the Funding Councils (HEFCE, 1999a), and in the United States the national survey of desktop computing and IT in higher education (Green, 1989-99). These showed a rapidly increasing use of learning technology in higher education, and some of the limitations and restrictions which staff feel, such as technical support. However, there had been no indepth study of the subject and institution-specific influences on academic staff use of, and attitudes to, learning technology.DOI:10.1080/0968776000080202 

scholarly journals Supporting and Enabling Scholarship: Developing and Sharing Expertise in Online Learning and Teaching

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-74
Author(s):  
Fiona Barnes ◽  
Sue Cole ◽  
Ingrid Nix
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Teaching Online ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Education Market ◽  
Higher Education Market ◽  
The University

In a highly competitive, rapidly changing higher education market, universities need to be able to generate pedagogical expertise quickly and ensure that it is applied to practice. Since teaching approaches are constantly evolving, partly responding to emerging learning technologies, there is a need to foster ways to keep abreast on an ongoing basis. This paper explores how a small-scale project, the Teaching Online Panel (TOP), used scholarship investigations and a bottom-up approach to enhance one particular aspect of academic practice – online learning and teaching. The experiences of TOP are useful for identifying:  how a scholarship approach can help develop academic expertise its contribution to enhancing understanding of staff’s different roles in the University ways of developing the necessary supportive network for those undertaking such scholarship the effectiveness of staff development which is peer-led rather than imposed from above how practical examples can stimulate practice development the relevance of literature on communities of practice and landscapes of practice for scholarship the important role of ‘brokers’ to facilitate the dissemination of scholarship findings the benefits to the brokers’ own professional roles the challenges of sustaining such an approach and lessons learnt. This study has relevance for those involved in supporting scholarship or delivering staff development in Higher Education.

scholarly journals Doing staff development: Practices, dilemmas and technologies

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hannon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Development ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Learning Technology

<span>Online learning technologies now pervade higher education institutions, and the convergence of teaching and learning onto technological systems has created new work practices and a demand for staff development. Educational developers are located at a nexus between the institutional and pragmatic imperatives, from which tensions and incongruencies emerge and need to be resolved in daily practice. In this paper, this nexus is explored by analysing accounts of educational development practice from one institution, based on interviews with educational developers. This paper considers staff development practices in higher education in response to the processes of change associated with learning technology, and the strategies used to resolve incongruencies and conflicts that emerged from these practices were analysed. The discourse analytic method of "interpretative repertoires" (Potter &amp; Wetherell, 1987) is used to explore the resolution of dilemmas in practice. In this case study, two contrasting repertoires are used to account for staff development: one that 'enables' academic staff in their use of learning technologies, and another which 'guides' staff in their online teaching towards specified technologies. The intersection of the two repertoires in the institution presented dilemmas for educational developers. The responses to these contexts and the implications for educational development are explored.</span>

scholarly journals Emergency Online Learning at the Universidad De La República, Uruguay: Challenges for the Post-Pandemic Digital University

2020 ◽  
pp. 257-264
Author(s):  
Virginia Rodés-Paragarino ◽  
Gustavo García-Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Virtual Learning Environments ◽  
Hybrid Education ◽  
Quality Of Teaching ◽  
Digital Pedagogy

Between 2005 and 2020, hybrid education at the Universidad de la República (Udelar), Uruguay, became universalized through the Virtual Learning Environments Program (ProEVA), with the aim of satisfying the growing demand for higher education, improving the quality of teaching, and reducing the digital and geographic gap. These developments were challenged during the implementation of emergency online learning arising from the COVID19 Pandemic. The article introduces preliminary analysis of this ongoing process, and the challenges they present for the digital transformation of the post-pandemic university, and for the development of an appropriate, sovereign, critical digital pedagogy and caring approach for the Digital University.

scholarly journals COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption on university teaching and learning and competence cultivation: Student evaluation of online learning experiences in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 221258682110070
Author(s):  
Ka Ho Mok ◽  
Weiyan Xiong ◽  
Hamzah Nor Bin Aedy Rahman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Student Evaluation ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Digital Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has forced online teaching and learning to be the primary instruction format in higher education globally. One of the worrying concerns about online learning is whether this method is effective, specifically when compared to face-to-face classes. This descriptive quantitative study investigates how students in higher education institutions in Hong Kong evaluated their online learning experiences during the pandemic, including the factors influencing their digital learning experiences. By analysing the survey responses from 1,227 university students in Hong Kong, this study found that most of the respondents felt dissatisfied with their online learning experiences and effectiveness. Meanwhile, this study confirms that respondents’ household income level and information technology literacy affected their online learning effectiveness. Moreover, this study highlights the significant contributions of the community of inquiry, which places social presence on the promotion of a whole person development that could not be achieved when relying mainly on online learning. Findings encourage university leaders and instructors to search for multiple course delivery modes to nurture students to become caring leaders with the 21st century skills and knowledge set.

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