Ongoing Progression of study modes at University of Melbourne…
Note: I have copied sections of the original marketing post below, which appeared on my Facebook feed, and highlighted areas for further consideration. I have a lot of respect for David Seignior with whom I work in my teaching team, and I found that beyond the hype of such a marketing post, there are a number of points made here that warrant further thought and consideration in terms of working with technology for hybrid/online learning (#EDUC90970), and emphasising relational pedagogy and social/cultural considerations within teaching/facilitating learning and curriculum planning.
Online professional education at Melbourne was designed with an online environment in mind. This matters.
Pedagogy before technology
One key pillar is learning design. As Senior Learning Designer at the University of Melbourne, David Seignior says: “Probably the most important consideration when building an online learning platform is that effective curriculum design comes before the technology.”
Technologies to deliver remote learning might be abundant, but “you have to know how to use it effectively. Whether face-to-face or online, you need to look not just at what you are teaching but how you’re teaching it. The technology must serve the pedagogy not the other way around.”
“We always work back from what the learner needs to be able to know and do in that particular context, and then consider how that can be learnt and assessed in an engaging manner online,” says Seignior.
Learner-centric programs and best practice
Specific needs of the learner are addressed at this early stage too. Since post-professional learners are often time poor, this characteristic is built into the design. As Lead Learning Designer, David Hall, says:
“We need to help them learn and understand as quickly and clearly as possible: provide them only with material that helps them achieve the learning outcomes, make it authentic, and ensure there is variety.”
Another potential of good online learning is to develop a Community of Inquiry, that allows students to learn with, from and about each other, says Seignior. The Community of inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) has three key elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teacher presence to enable effective peer learning and student satisfaction. Some think online learning is set and forget, that it is purely about self-directed learning with minimal teacher presence post design. But teacher presence is a really important aspect of the online learning experience. The more the teacher is present – whether instructing in webinars, facilitating web tutorials or conversing in discussion boards and giving feedback– the more interactive and engaging the learning will be for the student and the more they will feel part of a learning cohort.”
Advanced technology
… things like virtual collaboration tools, which allow learners to work on real-world scenarios, and even access places that they otherwise couldn’t physically go. A development in teaching healthcare for example allows students to ‘walk through’ an operating theatre during surgery.
Discussion boards and activities such as interactive videos and case studies, simulations and games, are also used to support collaboration and connection between learners, peers and tutors. One example is the learning interactive, which sees nursing students compete to accurately identify heart rhythms in the fastest possible time. These collaborative activities are a real benefit of online learning, notes Seignior.
“It’s ironic that we compare online and face-to-face. To me, online is more face-to-face than face-to-face. In a lecture theatre, the only person you’re face to face with is the lecturer– all of your peers, you’re looking at the back of their heads. Done well, online is more of a tutorial type setting. It really allows genuine peer learning to take place.”
Referencing back to previous post… teacher academics & content generation (excerpts)
Returning to excerpts from Previous Post on this blog in reference to this article: Academics aren’t content creators, and it’s regressive to make them so…
“So, we were told to “flip the classroom”. Why not edit those lecture recordings into 15-minute, bite-sized lessons […] Suddenly academics became video editors – mostly bad ones – and our students turned to YouTube, because on YouTube you can get a better explanation of the same thing (for free I might add). Universities turned from communities of learning and collaboration into B-grade content providers. This is the death march of higher education. Universities are not content providers.”
The philosopher John Dewey told us that an educational experience – what he called a community of inquiry – requires a cognitive presence (the learner), a social presence (the learning community) and a teaching presence (the professor).
Content can enable learning, but it cannot provide an education.
Education should be better than ever, as we are now able to point at myriad incredible resources, possibly on the web, perhaps in our library, where we act as content aggregator, not creator. Creation is done when we have our researcher hats on, not our teaching hats.
When we go online, when those classes are recorded then transformed into 15-minute snacks, the soul of education begins to die. The community of inquiry must be reinvented for the digital campus.
A quarter century ago, Noam further predicted that “the strength of the future physical university lies less in pure information and more in college as a community”.
We, as teachers in modern university settings, can think of ourselves as community figureheads and team leaders. The students are part of our community, our team, and we are there to manage them, coach them, guide them, to be mentors, to help teach them over a longer journey, and to corral them through this common goal of thought, understanding and mastery.”
Link to original opinion article: Academics aren’t content creators, and it’s regressive to make them so…
And returning back to University of Melbourne online study (marketing promotion)
Notes/excerpts:
- Effective curriculum design comes before the technology
- look not just at what you are teaching but how you’re teaching it. The technology must serve the pedagogy not the other way around.
- work back from what the learner needs to be able to know and do in that particular context, and then consider how that can be learnt and assessed in an engaging manner online,
- “We need to help them learn and understand as quickly and clearly as possible: provide them only with material that helps them achieve the learning outcomes, make it authentic, and ensure there is variety.”
- … develop a Community of Inquiry, that allows students to learn with, from and about each other, says Seignior. The Community of inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) has three key elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teacher presence to enable effective peer learning and student satisfaction.
- Some think online learning is set and forget, that it is purely about self-directed learning with minimal teacher presence post design. But teacher presence is a really important aspect of the online learning experience. The more the teacher is present – whether instructing in webinars, facilitating web tutorials or conversing in discussion boards and giving feedback– the more interactive and engaging the learning will be for the student and the more they will feel part of a learning cohort.”
Online learning can be more interactive than face to face? Here is why! (Podcast 21:14)
In this episode, David Seignior, senior learning designer from the University of Melbourne, explains in what ways online teaching allows teachers to actively engage with their students in learning, and how that can be achieved even with minimal technological interventions.
The value of online education and how teachers can boost an engaging student experience
(excerpts)
“…contemporary, well-designed online education moves well beyond these old models into an experience defined by:
- Social presence: the idea of learning together
- Cognitive presence: the knowledge you’re sharing
- Teacher presence: where teachers curate content and facilitate engagement.
[…] Seignior emphasises that teachers who are new to online education shouldn’t feel intimidated by the technology. While the technology does provide enormous opportunities, the pedagogical perspective is always paramount.
“You need to put the pedagogy (or andragogy for adult learning) before the technology… good teaching practices in face-to-face teaching apply in an online context as well.”
He believes there are three essential elements to successful online teaching:
- You facilitate
- You encourage collaboration
- You curate.”
Final Comments
It is interesting to see similarities in each of the above content/articles in terms of teaching/learning, online platforms, the work and/or responsibilities of the different contributors and participants. Although there are some points of difference, I love that Dewey’s work (1938) on a community of inquiry – requires a cognitive presence (the learner), a social presence (the learning community) and a teaching presence (the professor) can still be used with confidence and as a continuing guiding aspiration.
This last article, from 10 Jun 2020, demonstrates how far we have come in such a short period of time. Engaging with today’s wholly online Teaching and Learning Conference, 2021 with a series of presentations that focus on evidence-based approaches for enhancing and optimising student learning, considering the shift in the balance of blended teaching, learning and assessment towards online and to different forms of in-person education, reflecting the greater confidence and competence of teachers (and students) with digital methods. (from the About: Transitioning to COVID-normal: Developing a new ecosystem for learning).
My experience of these sessions was of a far more knowledgeable and experienced teaching cohort who were able to share their experiences, research and techniques with a very interested audience of University of Melbourne staff. As a participant, I hope this is not just my impression (I was interested and gained a lot from participating – including being inspired to write a few more posts for this blog!) and is not simply a ‘marketing/promotional spiel’, but a sign of positive change and improvements to teaching and learning in all its forms, including to adapting our practices to current challenges + opportunities, but retaining attention to the various perspectives I have outlined in this post.
References
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York: Hold Rinehart and Winston
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7-23.
Tanner, B. (2020, February 23). Evollution. Taking Initiative to Bring Back Adults.
