The paper describes in brief initial attempts at using web-based material to link workplace training with learning in formal educational settings. Web-based learning material is used as a stimulus to prompt college learners to reflect on their workplace experiences. This material is interactive so that students are prompted to think about the topic in hand and make responses, receiving feedback from the learning material. Discussion tasks, in turn, are embedded in the material so that learners are required to make explicit links between the learning material, their workplace experiences and the perspectives they derive from fellow participants recounting their learning in a web-based e-forum environment. Web delivery in the particular context of the project combined with the communication tools seems to be providing an effective way of enhancing workplace learning and plugging a gap in a teaching delivery system.
The project which is in the early stages of development involves a collection of "action business mazes" which home in on an aspect of the world of work. Each action maze is self-contained but the material overall covers a mix of behavioural, attitudinal and office relationship problems under such headings as : dealing with personal conflict with a colleague, working with a slack colleague, coping with boring routines, understanding different management styles in action, managing time etc. They, therefore, deal with soft issues that are generic but also relate to the targetted Business Studies students who cover topics such as styles of management, decision making, motivation and the concept of teams and groups. Each scenario is set carefully in context with pre-questions that help the learner focus on the situation. Short hyperlinked readings are included that illuminate the topic that is being introduced as is important lexis which is glossed inside pop-up boxes. After the initial work-related problem is sketched, three choices are presented which lead to different outcomes. Only one choice is "correct" (although this could be disputed in e-forum activity) and detailed feedback is given on all the choices, whether right or wrong, which include links to the short readings already covered. If learners chose one of the two invalid answers they are directed back to the beginning of the scenario to read the background again. It is envisaged that mazes will, for the most part, be at two or three decision-making levels before the final denouement.
Thus far the web-based material provides some feedback to users (business lexis, readings to prompt thought, explanations of valid and invalid choices) which goes beyond merely covering the learning content to interacting with the content [HREF3]. However, by far the most significant form of interaction occurs when learners post their ideas to an e-forum seamlessly linked in to the scenario. Tasks are built into the scenario at strategic points. This is where web-based communication tools are at their most powerful. The e-forums allow for rapid asynchronous activity with fellow participants where the learners can post ideas and descriptions of experience in threads. Typically, the learning episode will work like this : students go to various companies on work placement schemes for a prescribed number of weeks. During breaks in their work schedules or after work they go through the web-based material exploring the business action maze. The e-forum activities (embedded in this material) are attempted where they are asked to make explicit connections between what they have experienced at work and the learning material that is presented. Opportunities are created for genuine learning to occur when a group of learners go through the material, individually experience events in the workplace that are specific to themselves and are prompted to recount their ideas in a threaded forum that all can see.
The learning episode might be envisaged in these four stages which is loosely modelled on Kolb's experiential learning cycle (Kolb 1984).
a. Exploration of the learning material through well-crafted, web-based material that attempts to use many of the design techniques now available to provide for customised feedback. Tasks are embedded in the material that require responses posted to an e-forum.
b. Experience with recognition : learners undergo experiences in the workplace and recognise how these experiences can be connected to the concepts contained in the learning material. Some experiences are more powerful than others but awareness can be developed so that the experiences that are undergone can be appreciated as having significant learning value.
c. Articulated reflection : as experiences are articulated in the e-forum, deeper reflection is generated leading to sharper insights. Motivation is enhanced by learner realisation that their experience can only be told by themselves. Initially the postings in an e-forum could be purely descriptive ("this happened to me yesterday....") moving onto an exploration of reasons which could arise out of the learning material to hand or other prior experiences. The asynchronous mode of working allows the learner to take the time to reflect, especially valuable for those whose learning styles are much more in tune with holding back until they are ready to contribute.
d. Collaborative Reflection and Re-examination of the learning concept : as students comment and reflect on their own and each others' experiences through the asynchronous communication tool, an accumulation of perspectives is built up and deeper insights are developed by incorporating other learners' ideas into their own thinking. It is this opportunity to become aware of what others see as significant that is most valuable. This internal process stimulates a re-examination of the original learning material, possibly expanding and/or modifying the learning material originally grappled with in the first stage. This is what Kolb (1984) calls "studying the theory", where an explicit link is made between the learning experience and the theories that are meant to underpin it.
Fig 1: The Learning Episode
In a real sense, web-based delivery seems to provide the answer to many of the factors that militated against workplace learning:
Web-based delivery in this case seems to meet a need that was not met by other methods of delivery (Draper 1998 [HREF4]). There is no point in delivering teaching using web-based material if there is no appreciable difference, no added value above and beyond what could be achieved by non-web-based teaching strategies. This seems clear if only for the simple reason that learners will always have problems somewhere along the line with technical failure or their own failure to master the technological tools. The very point of using the web for the delivery of this learning is the fact that these particular learners no longer have physical access to their college instructors. It is very much an example of niche-based success. In addition, the volume of feedback that is given overall (the responses built into the web-based instructional material combined with human responses in e-forums) is far greater than would be possible in other forms of delivery. The utility and strength of having an accumulated store of ideas on a topic all linked together and on "permanent" display facilitates an expanded surface area of contact. The disjuncture between learning in the workplace and learning at college has been eliminated and conditions are set up so that there is a greater chance that situated learning will take place. All good writing needs to have a focus and a purpose, both of which are catered for within the parameters of the e-forum.
It seems that the possibilities for real learning to take place are enhanced when the powerful features of interactive web-based material are fused with an asynchronous communication tool that allow for discussion of recently-undergone experiences. In a very tangible way the nature of learning activities has changed - pedagogical enrichment - and the course itself is radically restructured - pedagogical re-engineering (Collis 1996). This affords the real possibilities of assessing the process as well as the product of learning and for the instructor to make timely interventions during the learning process.
It is often very difficult to predict that learning will take place in the way an instructional designer envisages but first indications are promising: insights are being developed, different viewpoints are being aired and initial presentations of concepts are being challenged and re-examined. As a minimum the opportunities opened by this web-based learning are increasing awareness in the students of what happens in the workplace and facilitating the expression of ideas that would either have been lost or concealed in examiner-read reports. Learners seem to be taking a more active role in their own learning by seizing on the opportunities for increased interaction between instructors and fellow-students made available by web-based instruction and tools.
Collis , B.(1996) Tele-learning in a Digital world: The Future of Distance Education. International Thompson Press. London
Draper, S.W. (1998) Content and interactivity. Available online [HREF4]
Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential learning. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall
McDonald, J. & Postle, G (1999) Teaching Online: Challenge to a Reinterpretation of Traditional Instructional Models. Available online [HREF3]
Oliver, R., Herrington, J & Omari, A. (1996) Creating Effective Instructional Materials for the World Wide Web. Ausweb96. Available online [HREF2]
HREF2
http://www.scu.edu.au/sponsored/ausweb/ausweb96/educn/oliver
HREF3
http://ausweb.edu.au/aw99/papers/mcdonald/
HREF4
http://staff.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/interactivity.html