Supporting further and higher education Setting the scene Rhona Sharpe Learner Experience Support...
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Supporting further and higher education
Setting the scene
Rhona SharpeLearner Experience Support Project
e-learning and Pedagogy
• Overall aim: ensure that e-learning in UK post-16 sector is
‘pedagogically sound, learner-focused and accessible’.
• First theme: design for learning
– Practitioner planning perspective
• Second theme: understanding my learning (learners’ experience of learning)
– Learner participating perspective
Aims learner experience strand
• Review and investigate how learners experience and participate in e-learning
• Help practitioners support learners with different needs, experiences and preferences
• Help developers to design systems that:– support a wide range of learning tasks/interactions– meet different learner needs (access, competence)– and enable positive learning experiences
• Helping other researchers and e-learning experts gather information about learners’ experiences of e-learning
• Helping learners improve their personal practice and effectiveness in e-learning contexts
Key research questions
• How do learners experience [a particular approach or activity] in e-learning? What do they actually do when required to learn in this way?
• What makes for an effective e-learner/ effective e-learning in this kind of situation?
• What aspects of the learner merit closer scrutiny, beyond their observable behaviours?
• What aspects of the learner experience /approach seem particularly effective and can possibly be built upon further?
• Scoping, Support & Synthesis
• Learner Experience of e-Learning (LEX)
• Experiences of e-Learning: Exploring subject differences (Learner XP)
and, funded by Higher Education Academy,
• Review of the undergraduate experience of blended e-learning
Learner experience projects
The scoping study literature review confirmed that the learner perspective on e-learning has been largely overlooked in research and development projects. It was found that much of the existing literature is teacher focused and focused on evaluations of specific courses and/or technologies. This study made recommendations for the research questions and methodology to be undertaken by subsequent projects.
www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=elp_outcomes
Scoping, support & synthesis
• Learners take a holistic view of their learning
• Learners respond differently in the same situation
Generalisations: learning experience is dominated by issues of emotionality, time and (e-)learning skills
Differentiations: learning experience is dominated by issues of difference e.g. prior experience, culture, disability
Scoping, support & synthesis
Key questions
• How do learners engage with and experience e-learning?
• What strategies do e-learners use?
• What might characterise effective learners in an e-learning context?
• What are appropriate methodologies for capturing the e-learners experience?
This project is conducting interviews and focus groups with learners across the post-16 educational sectors in order to capture the role and impact of technology to their learning. The project views e-learners as experts on their own experience, and is using interpretative phenomenological analysis to elicit the nature of that experience.
www.jisc.ac.uk/elp_lex.html
Learner Experience of e-learning (LEX)
holistic views of e-learning
“To me its just learning, the fact that its online as opposed to in a classroom is irrelevant. It’s just another way of accessing it. It’s all just learning. .. I think it depends on where you’re coming from what it means to you, but for me I just think of it as learning and I don’t use the term [e-learning].”
(Experienced e-learner in LEX study, Creanor et al, 2006)
This project will explore how learners' experiences with e-learning differ in different learning and teaching contexts. The project is working in collaboration with a number of HEA subject centres to develop in-depth learner studies. Learners' experiences and beliefs will be captured using audio-logs, observations, and structured interviews based around artefacts produced by learners themselves, as well as focus groups. www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=elp_learnerxp
Learner experiences of e-learning: exploring subject
differences (LearnerXP)
1. How is the term ‘blended learning’ being used in higher education?
2. What are the underlying rationales being used for promoting blended learning?
3. What monitoring and evaluation strategies are being adopted for ensuring and enhancing the quality of blended learning?
4. What impact is blended learning having on the student experience?
5. What are the success factors for blended learning?
www.heacademy.ac.uk/4156.htm
HEA review of undergraduate experiences of blended e-learning
learner experience studies
These projects are intended to complement the practitioner planning/designing perspective (intentional, curriculum-based, modular) with learner participating perspective, which is:
– holistic
– longitudinal
– developmental
– affective
– differentiated
Recommendations
• for practitioners support learners with different needs, experiences and preferences
• for developers to design systems
• for other researchers and e-learning experts gather information about learners’ experiences of e-learning
• for learners improve their personal practice and effectiveness in e-learning contexts
Methodological issues
Aiming for a methodology other projects can use.
• How do we elicit learners’ experiences of e-learning, without using this term or asking directly? (elicitation techniques, interviewing tips and tricks)
• How should data gathered from learners be analysed to ensure we do justice to the learner’s own perspective and voice, while addressing our key research questions (methodological tension)?
Consultation questions• Do the accounts of learners’ experience of e-
learning fit with your expectations and experience? What new light does it shed? What are the really significant findings?
• How effective is the developing methodology and the techniques for data collection? How could they be improved?
• How should we interpret these findings in relation to (a) learner-centred practice (b) learner-centred policies and organisational strategies?
• What gaps are there? Which questions/ techniques/learners need further study?
• What forms should final outcomes and recommendations take?