Extending and enhancing blended learning and etutoring in psychology

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Extending and enhancing blended learning and
e-tutoring in psychology
Project TeamKevin Silber, James Elander, Paul
Staples, Yewande Okuleye(funded through the
HEA Psychology Network Departmental Teaching
Enhancement Scheme)
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Overview

• Background to the project
• Identify major drivers
• Link to earlier HEA mini-project
• Identify project aims
• Outline project design
• Report data from first phase
• Outcome of the staff needs analysis
• Conclusions

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Background

• Drivers
• External
• Review of the literature
• Benchmarking
• Pathfinder project
• Internal
• University of Derby context
• Departmental experience
• Differences between online and on-campus delivery
• Interactivity
• Identified as a weakness by a HEA Psychology
  Network miniproject (e-delivery)
• Staff only identify course materials (e-learning)
• Students identify course materials AND
  communication (e-learning AND e-tutoring)

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Project aims

• To evaluate the staff experience of creating
  on-line materials and their experience of
  engaging with on-line students.
• To provide staff development opportunities in the
  creation of e-learning materials and to develop
  their e-tutoring.
• To evaluate what on-campus students understand
  by, and expect from, blended learning
• To continue to improve the current online
  provision of the UG online degree through
  re-developing some aspects of target modules and
  evaluating these modifications
• To incorporate (or expand where it already
  exists) blended learning opportunities in a
  target sample of on-campus modules and evaluate
  these developments

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Project design

• Pre-training
• Identification of staff experience and training
  needs in relation to the creation of e-learning
  materials and e-tutoring.
• Student evaluation of exisiting e-learning module
  materials e-tutoring (Applied Psychology only)
• Training
• Training in developing e-learning materials
  provided by Carpe Diem
• Development of module materials
• Training in e-tutoring (e.g. barefoot e-moderator
  - tbc)
• Post-training
• Staff evaluation of training provision
• Student evaluation of re-developed e-learning
  materials e-tutoring (Applied Psychology only)

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Phase 1

• Identification of staff experience and training
  needs

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Staff experience and needs analysis

• Five distinct areas were highlighted-
• e-tutoring experience
• designing on-line materials
• interactivity
• blended learning provision
• the role of student feedback.

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E-tutoring experience

• All staff had previous experience of e-tutoring.
• The amount of experience varied between 2 10
  years, with an average of 3-4 years.
• All of the staff reported a percieved level of
  competence
• Two members of staff rated themselves as highly
  confident.

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Designing and developing e-learning materials

• Wide range of experience of different e-learning
  technologies
• converting text-based materials to web pages
  using course-genie (CG), incorporating pop-ups,
  on-line quizzes, flash activities and animations
  
• wikis, blogs and podcasts
• on-line discussion boards e.g. Blackboard (BB),
  Burning Board, departmental forum etc.
• Experiences of staff development activities
  varied
• only 3 accessed e-learning related staff
  development activities (CG, BB and e-assessment)
• The remaining staff desribed themsevles as self
  taught.
• All staff acknowledged the usefulness of
  attending staff
• development activities

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Designing and developing e-learning materials

• Seeking the advice of colleagues within the
  department and the university
• 3 members of staff had used central services for
  technological problems
• All members of staff sought the advice of
  colleagues in the department
• two members of staff are perceived to be expert
  in this area.
• No one reported seeking pedagogic advice from
  anyone outside the department.
• The majority of staff report having designed
  their e-learning materials on their own without
  wider consultation, with one staff member
  reporting that most of the design of new
  e-learning materials was
• very much trial and error, trying different
  tasks to see what worked and what didnt.
• All staff also pointed out that the development
  of e-learning materials, and effective e-tivities
  is time consuming. There is a relationship
  between the time spent on development and the
  quality of materials.

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Interactivity

• Staff typically desribed interactivity in terms
  of the learning material presented,
• how engaging they percieve them to be for
  students.
• Only two out of the six partcipants talked about
  interactivity in terms of communicating with
  students.
• Only one staff member had been on an additional
  course for communication and e-moderation.
• This was peer led training.
• The remaining staff who had not been on an
  e-moderating course (including the staff who had
  not attended any staff development activities)
  argued that the more communicative aspects of
  e-tutoring were learned on the job.

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Blended learning provision

• Blended learning provision was variable
• Staff acknowldeged that the online elements on
  their on-campus modules were not terribly
  interactive (and arguably not really blended
  learning!)
• this is in need of attention for the on-campus
  students.
• Staff were reasonably satified with the level of
  interactivity in the Applied Psychology modules,
  though improvements could be made.
• Staff were mindful that improvements in the
  Applied Psychology materials could inform
  improvements in blended learning for the on
  campus students.

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Student feedback

• All staff regularly sought feedback from students
  with respect to the quality of their modules.
• All staff recognised the potential usefulness of
  using students feedback to inform module design
• However all staff are aware of the issues
  surrounding simply changing something because the
  students dont like it
• staff acknowledged the need for pedagogic
  awareness.

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Discussion

• Encouraging to see that staff acknowledged the
  need to continue to improve the online modules
  and to address the issue of increasing and
  incorporating real blended learning in our
  on-campus modules.
• It was also pleasing that staff were able to
  evaluate and give an honest appraisal of their
  own abilities in designing and delivering on-line
  learning.
• Staff were keen to point out the need for
  training in this area as most staff were largely
  self taught.
• Hopefully their engagement with this research
  will go some way to addressing this.

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Key points

• Mis-match between what students and staff think
  of as interactivity
• This raises two important questions
• Do all staff recognise these distinctive aspects
  of e-learning and value them equally?
• Will interactivity in relation to staff
  communication have the same priority for
  on-campus students underaking blended learning as
  it does for pure e-learning students?
• Potentially different training needs depending on
  
• mode of delivery

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Key points

• Staff were more likely to seek advice from
  colleagues rather than central services within
  the university
• institutions must ensure that support staff are
  adequately trained so that they can work
  alongside academic staff to produce quality
  learning materials.
• Staff appear to design their own learning
  materials (sometimes by trial and error) often in
  isolation from the rest of the teaching team.
• There is clearly a need to invest in dedicated
  e-learning technologists and e-pedagogists.
• Furthermore, perhaps we should be designing
  learning materials within modules and across
  modules together as subject teams
• as advocated by the Carpe diem workshop.

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Conclusions

• The project has highlighted some important issues
  with respect to staff understanding of e-learning
  and e-tutoring
• the role of interactivity
• It has highlighted some areas of weaknes
• technological and pedagogic support
• This underpins the need for the provision of good
  quality staff development opportunities and
  access to specialised support from dedicated
  learning technologisits.
• Further work is needed to identify how blended
  learning for on-campus students might differ from
  that for pure e-learning students
• implciations for future staff development.