Socrates Project No 56544-CP-2-1999-1-NO-ODL-ODL

Socrates Project no 56544-CP-2-1999-1-NO-ODL-ODL

Work Package 5

Title: Action Learning used in an ODL course Model for Adult Learners

Author(s): Jan H. Nilsen, TISIP and Grethe Sandstrak, TISIP

for the EuroCompetence team:

Bodil Ask, Agder College, Norway

Bertil Andersson, Mid Sweden University, Sweden

Harald Haugen, Stord/Haugesund College

Theodoros Kargidis, T.E.I. – Thessaloniki, Greece

Demosthenes Stamatis, T.E.I. – Thessaloniki, Greece

Marco Temperini, University of Rome, Italy

Gill F. Windall, University of Greenwich, UK

Liz Bacon, University of Greenwich, UK

Thorleif Hjeltnes, TISIP, Norway

Jan H. Nilsen, TISIP, Norway

Geir Maribu, TISIP, Norway

Arne B. Mikalsen, TISIP, Norway

August 2000

Contact: Jan H. Nilsen, E-mail:

Remark

All reports from the EuroCompetence project are prepared by the actual work package teams, with a responsible author and contact person for each report. Names of team members and contact persons/addresses are listed on the front page.

Action Learning used in an ODL course Model for Adult Learners

Grethe Sandstrak 1) 2) 3) and Jan H. Nilsen 2) 3)

1) NTNU
N-7491 Trondheim Norway

2) Sør-Trøndelag College, School of Technology, Dep. of Comp. Engineering,
N-7005 Trondheim, Norway

3) TISIP
Postbox 4419
N-7002 Trondheim, Norway

Contents

Summary and Conclusions 6

1. Introduction 8

2. Student data/administration/assessment system 10

3. Theory (models for ODL and theory for AC) 12

4. The ODL set-up 13

5. Results 17

6. Acknowledgements 19

References 20

Attachment 1: Course Description 22

Attachment 2: Pedagogical background 26

Attachment 3: Questionnaires 32

Attachment 4: Response from the students 54

Attachment 5: Web pages 136

Attachment 6: BSCW lecture 146

Action Learning used in an ODL course Model for Adult Learners

Grethe Sandstrak 1) 2) 3) and Jan H. Nilsen 2) 3)

2) NTNU
N-7491 Trondheim Norway

2) Sør-Trøndelag College, School of Technology, Dep. of Comp. Engineering,
N-7005 Trondheim, Norway

3) TISIP
Postbox 4419
N-7002 Trondheim, Norway

Summary and Conclusions

A course module in Basic Programming in C++ was run for a group of six adult learners working at a Software Company in Norway and one from a corresponding company in Sweden, using Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-tools to support flexible Open Distance Learning (ODL). The course was at a Technical College level. The workload corresponded to two credit points in Norway and four in Sweden. (One-year study in Norway corresponds to 20 credit points, 40 in Sweden).

The pedagogical ODL-course model was mainly an Internet-based “classroom” with “lesson” resources posted at regular intervals in the form of expositions and links, along with exercises for on-line submission, and a discussion space for issues arising from the course.

The course model also included using action-learning methods. The students had before the course module was run, commit themselves to take active part in the teaching and discussions on the net, about the exercises and the lessons given in the course. Ethical guidelines for the communication on the net were given.

To be able to offer, to some extent, an individual tutoring, the students had to answer a questionnaire that was sent to them before they started, and each fourth lecture, regarding their understanding of the issues/syllabus of the course modules.

The tutor used the information from the questionnaires to adjust the lectures and exercises for the individual students. A certain kind of triangulation was carried out in the sense that the tutor discussed orally with another teacher the answers from the questionnaires, to achieve the most objective understanding of the each students learning, and the possible changes in the progress to be made.

The use of action learning methods was found to be very time consuming and required a lot of resources. To be able to handle a larger number of students and still achieve that the students got an individual tutoring, a simple student administration and assessment system was developed. It’s based on assessment questionnaires, both student self-assessment and tutor assessment of the students pre qualifications, and exercises to be answered each week.

The main results from the questionnaires are presented in tables and graphs, which makes it easy to extract information and compare students. The assessments and evaluations were used to try to adjust the teaching material/exercises to fit the individual student in a kind of action learning environment.

All the students passed the final exam. The self assessment and tutor assessment were compared to the results from the exam. A general finding was that the women underestimated their competence, while the men did not. Both the students/employees and the company agreed upon that taking the course module had increased the employees’ ability to fulfill their jobs and increased their formal competence. The flexible ODL model customized to the students/employees situation at work, was appreciated of both the company and the students/employees.

The administration and assessment system was found to be a valuable tool to help tutoring the individual student both for the teacher, co-teacher and student. It’s however necessary that the students themselves fill in their own data into the system data base, and that the tables and graphs are easy to produce, so that the teacher don’t feel it an extra burden to use the system. The system makes it also possible to help documenting systematically the learning progress for further analysis.

Introduction

As part of the EU-project EuroCompetence( EC), which main objectives was “to develop and try out a flexible model for delivering further studies to adult learners”, a course module Basic programming in C++ was run as a user trial. EC is a transnational co-operational project granted from the European Commission SOCRATES programme within the field of ODL. There are seven partners in five different European countries: Greece, Italy, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Within the EC-project, contact with different international companies, were established. Specifically it was revealed that one company in Sweden and one in Norway needed to increase the competence in object oriented programming among some of their employees. It was tried to establish an experimental set up for the C++ user trial, making it possible to use action learning methods (Tiller, 1999).

The two companies came from the same type of industry. The intention was to put together two almost homogeneous groups of adult learners one from each company. The students should all have almost the same pre qualifications with respect to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and degrees from the same educational level. The age and the male/female distribution within each group should be almost the same in the two groups.

The two groups were expected to co-operate both within each group and with the group from the other company. The number of groups and students was limited due to teaching capacity reasons.

The companies involved were Siemens Metering As in Norway and Ericsson Business Consulting Sweden AB in Sweden. Both companies are big international firms dealing with electronic equipment including software development.

The course module description and the syllabus/ content of the module was discussed with the companies and employees. It was decided to customise and run an already existing C++ course module developed by TISIP/ NVU (ODL –based) . Information and Communication Technology (ICT) methods and tools for collaboration over internet (Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW)) was agreed upon being used to support Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and action research/learning methods. The course was at a Technical College level. The workload corresponded to two credit points in Norway and four in Sweden. (One-year study in Norway corresponds to 20 credit points, 40 in Sweden).

To reveal the competence gap (Maribu, 2000) between existing programming skills and wanted skills, and also get an impression of the programming pre qualifications, a questionnaire was produced. It was directed particularly towards the learning objectives and syllabus/ contents of the C++ module, the ICT-based collaborative tools and ODL.

The course model included using action-learning methods. The students therefore committed themselves to fill in questionnaires, which included a brief diary, each fourth lesson, regarding their understanding of the issues/syllabus of the course modules. Some ethical guidelines were agreed upon for the collaboration in the module. The tutor used the information from the questionnaires to adjust the lectures and exercises for the individual students. A certain kind of triangulation (Winter, 1989) was carried out in the sense that the tutor discussed orally with another teacher the answers from the questionnaires, to achieve the most objective understanding of the each students learning, and the possible changes in the progress to be made

The use of action learning methods was found to be very time consuming and required a lot of resources. To be able to handle a larger number of students and still achieve that the students got an individual tutoring, a simple student administration and assessment system was developed. It was based on the assessment questionnaires, both student self-assessment and tutor assessment of the students pre qualifications and exercises to be answered each week.

At the end of the course an exam was held. All the students passed the exam and thereby showed that they had increased both their competence and formal education.

Student data/administration/assessment system

When the course started a group of six students at Siemens Metering in Norway and a “group” of two students at Ericsson Business Consulting Ab in Sweden were established. Unfortunately the Swedish group was reduced to only one student just after the course started. The problems getting more students from Erichsson was mainly due to major structural changes within this company at that time.

The students were committed to fill in several questionnaires during the course, see Attachment 3 The questionnaires were based on assessment questionnaires, both student self-assessment and tutor assessment of the students pre qualifications, and exercises to be answered each week. They were used to reveal the

students background and pre qualifications with respect to both computer programming in general, the programming language C++ and the use of collaborative tools – such as email, web-sites and an asynchronous system called BSCW.

Every fourth lesson the students filled in a questionnaire giving rates to their understanding of the major syllabus of the course module and comments about the lessons/ teaching etc. throughout the last period.

In all the questionnaire a specific table, table B6 was included. This was done to be able to monitor the students progress throughout the course. In the table were listed all the main topics in the course module. The students should as a self assessment, rate their knowledge on each topics from totally unknown ,0, to known in depth, 6. These questionnaires were also, for each student, filled in by the teacher. The teachers student evaluation was based on the students answers to the weekly exercises, and other communication between the teacher and the students. The main course topics are listed in table B6.

B6: Please indicate your competence related to the main topics in the course module: Basic Programming in C++: (rate 0 to 6, o = totally unknown, 6 = known in depth)

Constant and variables
Assignment
Expressions
Operators
Conditional statements and loops
Strings
Arrays
Functions
Text files
Searching and sorting
To build a program from several files
Header files
Algorithms
Pseudo code
Stepwise refinement
Testing
Using debugger

The data from table B6 for each student at the different times were stored in a data base. This way of trying to quantify the competence/skills of the students, made it possible to do some quantitative/statistical analysis of the data. To be able to easily carry out a set of standard analysis, an administration and analysing system was developed. One of the main objectives of the system was to produce a set of standard reports and graphs, which made it possible for the teacher in an easy way to follow and document the learning progress for each student throughout the course period. A description of the system is given in Ch 4.

Theory (models for ODL and theory for AC)

Models developed for flexible ODL for adult learners within the MECPOL, DoODL and EC-project, was used in the C++ user trial. (McConnell and Haugen, 2000). Action learning methods (Winter, 1989), (McGill and Beaty, 1992), (Tiller, 1999) was tried adapted to the ODL environment.

In the ODL environment students are usually spread around the world and communicates through the net both with each other and the teacher. Most of this communication is through writing and could therefore easily be saved on digital files and stored as documentation. The ODL set up was therefore found to be a suitable platform for using action learning as part of the pedagogical model used for ODL based courses. Questionnaires used for student self assessment and teacher assessments and an administration and analyzing database system, was developed to support the documentation and analysis of the information to be done/used by the teacher in the planning and lecturing the course.

The ODL set-up

Within the ODL environment the intention was to use an asynchronous system for collaborative work called BSCW, (Basic Support for Cooperative Work). BSCW enables net based collaboration . It’s a “shared workspace” system which supports document upload, event notification, group management, among other things. To access a workspace you only need a standard Web browser. The first lecture was addressed to learning and using this system., see attachment 6.

Because the students at Siemens frequently met physically to discuss their programming problems, they didn’t feel the need of such a tool for this groups internal communication was not present. Since there was only one person in the Swedish group the same was the case there. The students for collaboration purposes did therefore not use BSCW.

Communication between the teacher and each students was through e-mail and through the course homepage (http://www.idb.hist.no/fag/X-Programming-EC/index.html. At the course homepage each lesson and different information regarding the course was published. ( textbook , curriculum, course leader, approved exercises etc.) Some of the students weren’t very familiar to these tools, but they got efficient help at their working place.
During the course a simple administration system/database has been developed to help the teacher to achieve easy access to the data from the questionnaires/evaluations and to a set of standard analysis and reports.