Jill Slay, Flexible Learning Centre, University of South Australia, The Levels Campus, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia. jill.slay@unisa.edu.au
Online Learning Environment, Higher Education, Staff Development.
In previous research I have suggested (Slay, J., 1998 (a), 1998 (b)) that in developing pedagogy for WWW-based delivery of teaching material, it is useful for academic staff, new to this medium, to consider expected outcomes, both in terms of student learning and the process required to obtain this learning. This provides an alternative to concentrating on the different and possibly conflicting models of teaching that they may have inherited from their academic discipline areas. This paper details how academic staff within the University of South Australia have been helped to produce their own on-line learning environment and have developed subjects and courses intended to produce identifiable indicators of "graduateness" in their students. It is illustrated in the context of the Professional Development program that has been established and details some of the conceptual changes that are necessary for the average faculty academic in developing subjects in this new medium. It gives examples of the various subjects and courses that have been developed in an on-line mode .
The University of South Australia has taken a strategic university-wide approach to online teaching and learning through the development of UniSAnet, its online teaching and learning environment. WWW pages are generated to provide home pages and subject and course pages from existing databases using Active Server technology. Staff access is attained through the provision of WWW based forms and wizards, which allows the authoring of quality online subjects with little prior computing experience. Basic training in MS FrontPage is provided for those who wish to create links to their own or other external WW resources.
This follows previous attempts to provide one-to-one support of academics in their individual preparation of homepages and subjects and courses, in an environment of limited economic and staff resources in a multi-faceted software environment. The major difficulty which was faced by staff developers using this training methodology was the amount of time and training resources needed to develop the skill level necessary for an academic to create high-quality on-line subjects and courses.
Two basic academic issues also emerged among academic staff. The first issue arises as the result of a direction some IT-literate academics originally took in the early development of networks and the use of the Internet in teaching in higher education (Slay 1998a). These early adopters arose generally in the IT field and did not always make wide-ranging investigations of the effectiveness of use of the Internet in teaching. Therefore the WWW has, in some quarters, been viewed as a place where knowledge is transmitted by the "dumping" of text.. While there is some anecdotal evidence that there is student demand for PowerPoint slides and Word-based lecture notes on the WWW, it is also apparent that the same material will not be suitable for remote students, and many on-campus students, as their sole source of learning.
The other issue is that some academics have felt overwhelmed by learning a new technology and appear so constrained by increased demands on their time that they have not known how to follow institutional trends and moves toward on-line teaching.
The technical environment selected by and developed within the University of South Australia, known as UniSAnet, is reported fully by Reid (1999). In summary, the environment is one where web pages are generated from linked databases (through Active Server technology). Staff can access their own home pages, or pages relevant to the subject they teach, and enter data through their browser using web forms and wizards. No IT skills other than those equivalent to basic word processing are necessary. The environment includes home pages for all 2000 university staff members and course and subject home pages for all of the University's offerings. It includes an online delivery area for each subject and will eventually incorporate administrative and support functions. UniSAnet has been built onto the existing IT infrastructure on which more than one million dollars has already been invested.
$220,000 has been allocated to the project annually for three years. While there is a dedicated project team of seven staff within the University's Flexible Learning Centre, this is supported by other professional development and technical staff as necessary. The current status of the project is that personal home pages are available for all staff, and course and subject pages are available for all the offerings within the University. Specific training has already been given to more than one hundred general and academic staff in the use of templates and other aspects of the environment.
The first semester's program (Semester 2 1998) was designed to provide a series of seven areas of focus for professional development in on-line teaching. Each of the seven areas consisted of workshops, resources materials and a named staff member to give on-going support.
The Workshops were based around:
The program however had an underlying agenda of skill development, and took the faculty academic through a process of learning to use a browser and a search engine, to fill in web-based forms and to create simple links and pages. It looked at teaching and learning arrangements including assessment and evaluation while considering other issues such as readability, page layout and copyright.
The learning outcomes were arranged in an overlapping way so that an outcome e.g. learn basic Front Page, was introduced in the first workshop and then reinforced as the learning was applied in a subsequent workshop.
Evaluation of the first four workshops, which had been developed during the Semester in various versions, suggested that:
Workshops have focused on taking academics through a process where they begin by considering, for each subject that they teach, its:
The University of South Australia has committed itself to a process of the development of
a unique set of generic attributes or qualities of graduates to define the intended outcomes of all courses. Course teams in the various faculties would then use these generic qualities in shaping elaborated statements about course outcomes (Bradley 1997)
The Graduate Quality Profile produced for each subject describes the weighting given to the development of seven attributes within the subject.
These attributes consist of:
In each workshop which examines teaching and learning aspects of the use of UniSAnet, this profile is examined, along with the Aim and Objectives of the subject. There is opportunity for the academic to consider the types of Internet technology and tools available, and to experiment with the tools, and consider how he or she might use them to produce the desired outcomes. There is a continual emphasis on the individual academic's ownership of the subject and his or her autonomy as the content specialist.
Academics are also shown that in developing pedagogy for WWW-based delivery of teaching material, it is useful to consider expected outcomes, both in terms of student learning and the process required to obtain this learning, rather than to concentrate on instructional technology. The following chart is supplied and gives some indication of the method by which a particular Internet technology might be used to produce a specific learning outcome. This chart was first developed as a theoretical model (Slay 1997) and has been modified by the input of participants from a wide range of disciplines over a two year period.
Feature of Learning Environment |
Graduate Quality |
Internet Technology |
Teaching methodology |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Stimulating and well-structured teaching with emphasis on integration of parts into a coherent whole |
1 |
WWW pages Embedding of files Links FTP |
Well-designed WWW pages to provide content, embedded or downloadable files and links provide extra teaching resources to add to students' understanding |
|
Opportunities for interaction and reflection for the learner and the opportunity for the development of critical thinking ability, problem solving skills and information literacy |
2,3 |
Newsgroups Discussion group Listserve Chat WWW pages FTP |
Provision of peer-peer e-mail, newsgroups, chat and discussion group aids interaction and development of information literacy. Well-structured WWW pages contain exercises directing problem solving and critical thinking exercises and assignments and quizzes. |
|
Communication between student and lecturer to provide instruction, guidance and feedback |
6 |
Discussion group |
Lecturer provides support through e-mail and provides answers to FAQ by discussion list |
|
Individual and group exercises to develop communication skills and autonomous and collaborative work skills |
4 |
Newsgroups Discussion group Listserve Chat WWW pages FTP |
Use of E-mail, newsgroups etc for electronic debate and provision of expertise. |
|
An awareness of the moral, ethical, social and cultural values in which the learning is situated |
5,7 |
Newsgroups Discussion group Listserve Chat WWW pages FTP |
Students can gain wide understanding of social and political issues by direction to important WW sites and can be guided in discussion with peers and teacher |
Academics are shown that on-line teaching may be used in three ways, as shown below.
Supplementary Usage |
Material which supplements the traditional delivery of course content is placed on the WWW
|
Complementary Usage |
Material which is interconnected and inter-related to the course - major course components dependent on the WWW
|
Whole Course Usage |
Entire course, activities, communications and assessment fully presented on WWW.
|
They are then helped to think through their own subjects and to decide how they wish plan their own on-line teaching. They are asked to consider issues such as access for remote and international students and to examine the specific constraints which may apply within their own discipline and subject area.
One of the first academics to trial parts of the UniSAnet environment was a senior academic in the School of Engineering who wished to put 4 subjects of a graduate diploma/masters course in manufacturing engineering on-line. From the professional developer's view point, this was a relatively simple case since the subject was already well structured and much of the material which forms the outline of the course was available electronically. The lecturer was also IT literate (but not in the PC area). The lecturer was aware too that he wanted to develop his online subject to deal with Graduate Qualities 1, 4 and 6. He wanted to find an alternative method of presenting the 'body of knowledge' and also to develop his students' skills in working autonomously and provide alternative methods of peer-to-peer and student-teacher communication.
A prototype template was developed in FrontPage (with the intention of transferring the subject to the database and thence to the Active Server pages later) and the academic was offered approximately 2 hours of one-to-one support in transferring some Word documents to the template, and then in simple techniques such as embedding and linking. He was then offered telephone support which he used regularly.
The academic initially spent two weeks in developing the four subjects in this mode, and progressively incorporated a threaded discussion and links to papers and other sites. His basic provision for his students was an outline of lectures (but not detailed notes), tutorial questions and exam papers, references and links.
Feedback from the student group was totally positive and uniform. The major feature which was highlighted by the students was the improvement to their learning by provision of the lecture outline. It should be noted too that lecture attendance was high and apparently unaffected by the supply of online resources. The lecture outline was a particularly important resource for the class which consists almost totally of international students who, although from many national backgrounds, have Mandarin as a common dialect.
Conclusions drawn from this type of a case seem to indicate that where templates and individual support are provided to an academic, and particularly one from a technical discipline, the transfer of a well-structured subject to on-line mode is a relatively speedy process which enhances the learning experience of the student.
Difficulties which have arisen are that the UniSAnet environment is one designed to allow for a 'mass migration' to on-line delivery. Older models of professional development which allow for one-to-one professional support are not feasible within this scheme. A shift is being made towards the detailed provision of on-line professional development resources, and the encouragement of a 'mind shift' to the place where face-to-face support is the exception rather than the rule.
In working with a group of academics from a humanities background, it was first necessary to examine some of the resources available online in this area. Examples which were investigated were links to political parties, law libraries, Asian and European studies resources and the many national government sites which provide, in English, a modern internal perspective on the political, social and cultural issues being faced.
A subject which deals with issues of state, power and society was examined. The Graduate Quality Profile was such that, although a reasonable emphasis was placed on the understanding of the body of knowledge (Graduate Quality #1), the development of an international perspective (Graduate Quality #7) was given a high priority.
In discussion, lecturers were asked to focus on how this international perspective could be developed. Suggestions ranged from involving the students in international debates and role plays (Alexander 1996).
The redeveloped subject is detailed below:
To introduce students to key social and political concepts and relate them to contemporary issues; to examine existing political, social and economic institutions in Australia and engage with critiques of these; to examine the impact international forces exert on domestic issues and policy making; to ensure students are introduced to notions of power and identity within society.
To introduce students to the study and critique of key national and international political and social issues, which impact on policy and identity in society.
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
By undertaking this subject, students will progress in the development of the following qualities:
Graduate Quality |
Weighting) |
Suggested use of Internet/WWW |
|---|---|---|
|
Body of Knowledge |
1.75 |
Use of UniSAnet templates to produce well-structured WWW pages Use of Unisa Subject Guides (http://www.unisa.edu.au/library/internet/internet.htm#subject) Use of WWW to provide information such as
|
|
Lifelong learning |
0.5 |
Structure tutorial questions and set ndividual and group assignments which for example
|
|
Effective problem solvers |
0.5 |
|
|
Work alone and in teams |
0.5 |
|
|
Ethical action |
0.25 |
|
|
Communicate effectively |
0.25 |
|
|
International perspective |
0.75 |
Use of international government WWW sites to provide local perspective on political situations. eg
|
The outcome of this workshop, from conversation and an examination of the evaluation sheets completed by the academics, was a real understanding of the world wide web as a powerful educational medium within their own discipline area, and the development of a basic structure for a sociology subject, which could be transferred to other subjects within the school.
Using a framework that focuses on indicators of students' learning, academics have been assisted in developing outcome based WWW-mediated courseware. This has facilitated the preparation of, and has helped to develop enthusiasm for, online teaching across the university. A University wide approach has allowed for the development of an effective learning environment and allowed academics to concentrate on the production of inclusive and cross-cultural online resources rather than get sidetracked by the technical demands of the online environment.
Alexander, S. (1996). Teaching and Learning on the World Wide Web. Paper presented at AusWeb96, Gold Coast, Australia,July 1996.
Bradley, D (1997). Graduate Qualities [HREF1]. Presentation to the Staff of the Faculty of InformationTechnology, University of South Australia.
Reid, I (1999). Online Strategy In Higher Education[HREF2] Ausweb 99. Proceedings of the Fifth Australian WorldWideWeb Conference.
Slay, J. (1997). The Use of the Internet in Creating an Effective Learning Environment. Ausweb97. Third Australian World Wide Web Conference, 5-9 July 1997, Southern Cross University, Australia.
Slay, J., (1998a). Using the WWW to Create an Effective Cross-Cultural Learning Environment. Hong Kong Web Symposium 98, Hong Kong University, April 9th-12th, 1998.
Slay, J., (1998b). Using the World Wide Web to Create Foundations for Lifelong Learning - An Australian Perspective. Teleteaching, IFIP World Computer Congress98, Vienna, Sept 2nd 1998.
Jill SLay, © 1999. The author assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web.