Engaging students in active blended learning: transparent pedagogy

Engaging students in active blended learning: transparent pedagogy

• 1.
  Engaging students in activeblended learning: transparent pedagogy. Elizabeth Palmer University of Northampton [email protected] @ejpalmer1986 Sylvie Lomer University of Manchester [email protected] @SE_Lomer Ivelina Bashliyska University of Northampton With thanks to: David Cousens Nadine Shambrook
• 2.
  Active Blended Learning Activelearning: • Experiential • Practical/ hands-on, • ‘Real world’ orientated • Collaborative • Reflexive Blended learning: • Technology-enhanced • Face-to-face [F2F] & online combined • Digital literacy
• 3.
  ABL example: Neo-liberalismas a key issue for education (first year) Pre-session task •Watch a short lecture introducing neo-liberalism in theory • Research an example of neo-liberalism impacting education and bring to session Seminar •Plenary discussion clarifying understandings of neo- liberalism •Student groups share examples and explain why they exemplify neo-liberalism •Examples added to class PowerPoint Post- session • Students read assigned article • Write discussion board post linking example to the article
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  Data Collection: 201 Students 47Focus groups 4 Faculties 24 Students 5 Focus groups 5 Schools Pilot (yr.15/16) Main study (yr.16/17)
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  The Basics • Timing: “Sometimesthe prep comes up really late so you’d have the lecture in the morning, they’d put the prep up the night before.” • Communication: “Not everybody knows about it. So I haven’t done it because I don’t know what it is.” • Technological literacy: “Which is really bad considering I’m paying for it here but I don’t know how to use it, it’s not clear.” • Technical issues “A lot of people have problems figuring out which heading it is under! Like… Which module is this? It’s like finding whichever module it is, clicking on it and then going to the activity!”
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  Learning beliefs: “I thinkas well it just depends on what type of learner you are.” “They [lecturers] are telling you that it’s important for you to do it but at the same time the way they’re conveying that message to you, it doesn’t seem like it’s important to do it.” “And we haven’t had to do it in the past so to suddenly be expected to do all these, it just feels like extra things. It just seems a bit more difficult.” “It is teachers avoiding teaching. So they are just like… because they don’t want to turn up to class they are just sending you some activities.” “Yes it can be a lazy way of teaching or people think that it is a lazy way of teaching” “If you can’t be bothered to teach that element of it, it can’t be that important.”
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  “I think alot of people only think they are going to get things out of what they’re told, like what the lecturer tells them…They don’t really see the benefit of, not putting effort in, they don’t really, they kind of blame it on, you know, the lecturers aren’t very good.” - “[of an online discussion board] You are just putting your opinion and you leave. You don’t go back and reflect on what everyone else put” “Stuff delivered online…there’s no critical thinking. …There has to be some sort of thing that’s going to make people think.” “We pay a lot of money to then not actually have support from lecturers…and access to professionals” “I mean, when it comes to me sometimes it’s hard to force myself to just sit and do some work. I don’t know, it just, it depends on a person. Like, how well organised you are and how much time do you want to devote to learning.” Learning beliefs:
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  Conclusions: • Learning stylesas fixed and not encompassing online learning • Belief in superiority of F2F over online modes • Suspicion of motives for introducing blended • ABL seen as ‘uncritical’, not reflective and not important • Evidence of a dualist epistemic stance dominating Activity: Discuss what learning beliefs you hear in your role, from staff and/or students. How might these impact / mediate engagement with ABL?
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  Relationships and Collaboration: “Ifwe could do things as a group or as a class concerning creating stuff rather than leaving us to do it on our own.” “you get so much out of your peers’ perspectives on what you are learning because, well you just do don’t you?” “[lectures are more informative than seminars] because in class, obviously, people want to discuss and ask questions” “If the lecturers go online, if they go in and read and put comments and everything, it encourages us to want to do them more.” “They've [lecturers] got to be there for you, to feel comfortable.” “Why have I done it if no one will be looking at it?” “It's not supportive either because you can't ask them and engage with them.” “If they show interest it encourages us.”
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  Conclusions: • Students valued‘interest, care & empathy’, evidenced in: o Staff presence/ visibility o Interaction both online and F2F • Opportunities for collaboration • Struggles with independence Palmer, Lomer & Bashliyska,
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  Task Design “Sometimes theprep comes up really late so you’d have the lecture in the morning, they’d put the prep up the night before.” “They said we needed it for the class but then no-one mentioned it.” “It’s not really that interactive. All I’ve done is just open a PowerPoint.” “I think if you are going to deliver things online it has to be there has to be some sort of thing that’s going to make people think. Not just like, ‘Look it up on a website and then fill in the gap’.” “I thought that was nice because it was a group activity that we had to do together to make a collage of pictures from history and then present… like talk about them together so that was quite fun, it was group work, we got to do it all together”
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  Conclusions • F2F &online linked • Timing/ Planning • ‘Contact’: Presence, Feedback & Support • Interactive tasks (Level) • Multimedia • Collaboration
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  Transparent pedagogy • Studentsneed to understand the value and rationale for how we are teaching and what this implies about learning and knowledge • Need for explicit conversations about pedagogy, epistemology and learning beliefs • Consistency in lecturers’ behaviour, explicit stance and learning design • Consistent pedagogical approach across online and F2F modes Activity: Design a learning activity (could be for staff or students) to surface pedagogy & epistemology. Consider how this activity could address the list of learning beliefs you generated earlier. Add to Google Doc: http://bit.ly/2xPutul
• 14.
  Thank You! Palmer, E.Lomer, S. & Bashliyska, I. (2017) Factors that encourage and inhibit student engagement in active, blended learning [ABL]. University of Northampton. Elizabeth Palmer University of Northampton [email protected] @ejpalmer1986 Sylvie Lomer University of Manchester [email protected] @SE_Lomer