Towards A Leading Edge Learning Environment At CSU

Towards a Leading Edge Learning Environment at CSU: Maximising responsiveness and flexibility through blended and convergent learning approaches

Marian Tulloch, Philip Uys, Julie Arthur, Ellen Buckland,

Centre for Enhancing Learning and Teaching (CELT)

This paper has been developed by senior staff in CELT as response to the VC’s paper: Great Expectations or Bleak House? A University for the Next Twenty Five Years: Defining/Designing Our Preferred Future.

An earlier version of this paper was discussed in June 2005 at the joint meeting of the Learning & Teaching Committee and the Information & Learning Systems Committee, at a meeting with the professoriate in Dubbo and at the Vice- Chancellor’s Forum.

11th July 2005
Executive Summary

This paper from the CELT management team argues that in the increasingly global, competitive and accountable Australian higher education sector, CSU should position itself as a leading provider of flexible education. To meet the aspirations and circumstances of 21st century students, the University needs to offer flexibility in: time, place, access, pace and style of study within a blended approach to learning that builds on its strengths in both face-to-face and distance education provision and its developing online and multi-media capability. Convergence is a means to making this flexible, blended approach pedagogically and administratively practical and sustainable through a much closer alignment of the learning experiences of on- and off-campus students. The paper focuses on conceptualising a leading edge learning environment both physical and virtual that supports varied pedagogical media forms and learning technologies. Innovation in teaching is grounded in a reflective evidence-based culture in which scholarship of teaching is valued and underpins change. This environment further responds, and impacts the wider environment by constantly self-renewal.

The first part of the paper establishes a framework for conceptualising a flexible blended approach to the learning environment at CSU by examining:

· the drivers of change to the CSU learning and teaching environment,

· the characteristics of a leading edge learning environment,

· current frameworks for thinking about university learning and teaching and

· a conceptual framework for understanding student engagement within a leading edge learning environment.

The second part of the paper explores pedagogical and organisational implications for CSU of maximising responsiveness and flexibility through a more blended and convergent approach. It is proposed to establish a specific Flexible Delivery mode (FD) as a focus for strategic institutional change in learning and teaching and to support this change by encouraging the development of learning communities of practice.

In making detailed suggestions for change, the paper endeavours not to be prescriptive but to open up debate at a level that makes change possible.

PART A Conceptual Framework for a Leading Edge Learning Environment

1 Drivers of changes to learning and teaching at CSU

The last twenty years have seen extraordinary change in the context of higher education in Australia and beyond. At the same time staff /student ratios and student diversity have increased, while the funding context for universities and for their students has become increasingly challenging. Yet it is arguable that these changes have impacted quite slowly on the practice of university teaching providing students with a ‘thinner’ but basically similar experience (Gibbs, 2005). To survive and flourish in the increasingly global, competitive and accountable context of Australian higher education, CSU needs to establish a national and international reputation for the quality of its learning and teaching provision by a forward-thinking and strategic approach to enhancing learning and teaching.

Because the University combines strength in on-campus learning and teaching, particularly in professional areas, with a large distance education provision supported by extensive development, production and online systems, it is well placed to provide the ‘choice , flexibility and diversity’ that students increasingly demand (Hartley, 1995, p. 421). While DE students have traditionally been viewed as ‘time poor’ with the competing demands of study, full-time work and family responsibilities, most internal students are also now engaged in significant amounts of part-time work (15 hours + a week on average), spend shorter time on campus and have greater difficulty reconciling the specific time commitments of paid work and study. Moreover, the majority, particularly of our younger students, belong to a digital generation and expect that their university learning will take advantage of developments in information and communication technologies. Increasingly the flexibility and access provided by online technology and web-based resources is driving demand by students for greater pedagogical use of online learning opportunities. Many academics also seek flexibility provided by learning technologies to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the online and broader virtual environment. More generally, the increasing responsibility of students for the costs of their education creates a more critical consumer orientation and a focus on the acquisition of workplace skills. At CSU the increasing diversity of the student population with multiple entry pathways, a wider range of abilities, skills and backgrounds and the large offshore cohort require a greater responsiveness to students’ needs. Currently students at the greatest distance, those taught by offshore partners, have least engagement with the University’s online environment.

Over the past 10 years CSU has responded to developments in information and communications technologies by developing its own virtual environment for students and has moved significant administrative functions online. The introduction of a Flexible Publishing technology was a response to academics’ desire for greater flexibility.

It seems clear that in order for academic staff to ensure the currency and flexibility of resource material best suited to their teaching purposes over the duration of a subject, ‘just in time’ publishing should be encouraged and supported (Reid, 2003, p.11).

The Beyond Print initiative has moved to align the production of multi-media materials with the well-developed systems CSU has for the development and production of print learning materials. More recently CSU’s online learning environment has been overtaken in scope and coherence by commercial and open source products. Without a significant investment in its online environment, the University risks losing its competitive edge in an area of traditional strength, provision for off-campus study. Nevertheless the quality of student learning will depend on the experiences that academics facilitate with learning technologies not simply on their availability.

The availability of easy-to-use information and communication technologies and the online provision of up-to-date resources have fostered innovation amongst academics and significantly enhanced DE students’ learning in many subjects. However, increased student expectations have placed additional pressures on academic workloads at a time of greater demands for research output and professional activity. Excessive workloads, in terms of numbers of students, subjects and modes, limit planning and innovation and potentially undermine quality. Attempts to capture new markets by adding a DE mode to existing internal courses makes strategic sense for CSU but, without a planned transition strategy, may further increase some academic workloads.

In its 2005 Strategic Priorities, CSU identified ‘continuing development of leading edge learning environment’ as part of e-environment development. This paper argues that to achieve sustainable change in learning and teaching it is necessary to consider the whole learning environment of the University not just the online learning environment.

2 Developing a Leading Edge Learning Environment

In 2003 Academic Senate approved the recommendations of the Online Learning Strategy Working Party Report (Reid, 2003). The paper developed an approach to online learning drawing among other sources on a paper by Palaskas and Muldoon (2003) which promoted a blended approach to online learning along a continuum of face-to- face, print, offline digital resources and online learning technologies.

Learning and teaching at CSU should be flexible in this sense, which by definition encourages staff and students to make choices about working with print, audio-visual, kinaesthetic, and artefact material within the traditional learning environment as well as the e-environment. The choice of pedagogical tool must always be made according to the needs and purposes of the teachers, students and learning tasks. Pedagogical decisions should remain a matter of judgement for the academic. (Reid, 2003, p.5)

A major step forward was taken in 2005 with the setting of minimum internet access requirements for commencing students. There are a significant number of initiatives taking place within the framework of this strategy but they are currently dispersed, sometimes fragmented and not always adequately supported with recognition or resources. This paper considers what kind of a learning environment (Gibbs, 2005) is needed to underpin this development and what strategies can promote systemic organisational change.

There are a confusing plethora of terms surrounding the impact of modern technology on learning: online learning, e-learning, blended learning, the virtual learning environment. While they share a focus on student learning rather than the teaching process, some terms appear to linguistically privilege the role of technology over pedagogy. This paper will focus on the learning environment in both its physical and virtual forms recognising there is significant overlap and parallels between them. It advocates an approach that blends teaching strategies, media forms and learning technologies to achieve in a practical way flexibility (in pace, place, style, time and access) for students.

Convergence is a means of making this flexible, blended approach pedagogically and administratively practical and sustainable through a much closer alignment of the learning experiences of on- and off-campus students that avoids duplication of effort and expenditure, using the most suitable delivery mechanisms and achieving long-term sustainability for the institution. As technology facilitates the convergence of learning opportunities, the old boundaries between the provision of interactive learning opportunities for on-campus students and independent learning for off-campus students are being broken down (Thorpe, 2002).

The paper focuses on building a flexible learning environment both physical and virtual that supports varied pedagogical media forms and learning technologies and provides a basis for change in learning and teaching practices. The flexible learning environment is to be achieved through developing and supporting learning communities of practice so that the change is an unstoppable, integrated and strategic bottom-up and top-down commitment to change (Gibbs; 2005; Marquard, 1996).

A leading edge learning environment at CSU will have the following characteristics:

Flexible

· providing learning opportunities that are flexible in terms of time, place, access and pace of study and responsive to students’ financial, geographic and employment circumstances;

· enabling students to study in the most effective manner including their own way of navigating through learning materials;

· enabling academic innovation in learning and teaching practice using an array of learning technologies;

Responsive and self-renewing

· to the diverse needs of individual students through a range of learning and student support services;

· by provision of timely and constructive feedback on student performance in informal tasks and formal assessment;

· to the requirements of potential students by being strategically responsive to social change and related shifts in student demand and learning needs;

· the leading edge learning environment further responds to, and impacts, the wider environments by constantly renewing itself as learning organisations do (Hitt, 1996; Marquardt, 1996; Senge, 1990);

Blended

· media, learning and teaching approaches and learning technologies are integrated/blended to the needs of student cohort(s) for effective learning;

Convergent

· supported by convergence of delivery through greater alignment of the learning experiences of on- and off-campus students;

Promoting deep learning

· encouraging a deep approach to learning in which an integrated understanding of a field of study is developed;

Promoting connectedness and support

· increasing the quality of intellectual engagement between academics, students and their peers;

· developing and supporting learning communities of practice among academic, support staff and students around critical learning and teaching issues that provides for both discipline-based and cross-discipline engagement (Gibbs, 2005);

· supporting student learning by providing speedy feedback to questions;

· developing the teamwork skills necessary in the modern workplace;

· providing students with social support and reduce feelings of isolation;

Equitable

· enabling all students in a subject to have access to comparable learning opportunities mediated where needed by appropriate technology;

Academically and professionally credible with stakeholders

· grounded in academics’ current research, scholarship and engagement with the professions;

· recognised for quality of academic and professional education by auditing and professional bodies, peers, and students;

· producing highly employable graduates with attributes and adaptability required for the modern workplace;

Based in a dynamic evidence-based culture which

· supports systematic monitoring of student learning;

· provides for evaluation by students and peers and through reflective evidence-based practice;

· is underpinned by research into university learning and teaching and promotes ongoing scholarship in teaching to support effective innovation;

· promotes collaborative engagement in curriculum and subject development;

Sustainable

· in terms of the University’s human and financial resources;

· backed by support services with infrastructure of human, technological, information management and economic sustainability;

· through complementarity rather than competition with other University goals (e.g. research, professional engagement);

Smart educational use of cutting edge technology

· technology needs to be reliable and easy to use with more demanding technologies providing students with adequate value to justify time spent in mastery;

· cutting edge technology should be constantly evaluated for educational use;

· appropriate learning technology needs to be contextualised within the CSU pedagogical frame.

3 Perspectives on University Learning and Teaching

Although this paper does not seek to present a single theoretical position on the nature of university education, its emphasis on grounding innovation in a scholarly approach to teaching demands some consideration of how university learning and teaching is currently being theorised. The now commonplace ordering of the terms ‘learning and teaching’ reflects an important shift that privileges student learning outcomes over teaching practices. If learning is about changing the way students ‘understand, experience or conceptualise the world’ (Ramsden, 2003, p.6), then teaching involves supporting students to make this change, a process that cannot be achieved simply by one-way transmission of knowledge. University education is not the mere acquisition of isolated facts but an holistic understanding of ways of thinking (key theories, structures and concepts of a discipline); ways of knowing in that discipline (‘knowledge about how that knowledge comes to be known’ Laurillard, 2002, p.218) and ways of doing (forms of practice and reflection on action). It is this understanding that provides the link between teaching, research and professional practice.