chrisohly_heuristic3

=Heuristic 3=

Online delivery of higher education courses is increasing. This is due to a variety of pressures, for example reductions in government funding in higher education, increasing demand by students for more flexible delivery, often due to financial pressures of part-time work and full-time study (Oblinger, 2010). Lockyer and Bennett (2006) describe in detail their process of moving from face to face delivery to online delivery of the //Information Technology in Education// course run at the University of Wollongong. The report of their process makes it clear that constructivist teaching pedagogies were already being implemented in the face-to-face delivery of the course, and that the move online provided another medium in which to explore constructivist teaching. As this study has shown, good technology support is vital when teaching an online course. Lockyer and Bennet also highlight the importance of support, not just for the teacher, but also for the academic unit and the institution, for example, in the areas of design, research, process facilitation, advice, assessment, content facilitation, technology and management/administration (2006, pp. 216-219). The article could serve as a checklist for higher education institutions to monitor their organisation for online delivery. Following are a couple of examples from my experience.

The instructor’s main role should be to teach, however, in an online unit, teachers often become the first point of contact for all the student’s problems (Lockyer and Bennet, 2006). For example, teachers are often confronted with technical problems from students, “I can’t remember my password”, “how do I search for my readings?”, “I can’t get the LMS to load in my web browser”, “my lecture recordings are not showing” are only a few examples of common experiences. Teachers should be able to refer these types of problems on to the relevant support units within their faculty or institution for solving, for example, the student help desk. Structures also need to be in place to educate students, such as, introduction seminars for students to the LMS during O-week, and relevant support links from within the topic space, so that students can find the relevant support unit themselves.

Teaching staff should know what content and processes they wish to facilitate in their unit. In the example by Lockyer and Bennett, constructivist pedagogy was the underlying principle, prior to going online. This is not always the case. For example, Zane Berge suggests, “It takes courage to move away from the idea of classroom lectures of stable content, delivered by expert teachers to students who are homogenous, passive recipients and who work alone as they learn” (Berge, 2005, p. 20). Berge also believes that the greatest barrier to the use of technology involve the people and culture of higher education institutions (Berge, 2005). When providing technology support to academics it is important to be able to conceptualise the learning problem to interface it with the appropriate technology and task that engages the students and more importantly is linked with the learning outcomes. This enables face-to-face learning ideas to be translated into something that makes sense in an online environment. Often teaching staff are confused by the number of technologies available, and are not sure which technology provides the best solution to their problem. Sometimes it is necessary to go beyond what the learning management system can offer. My role is more challenging, however, when academic staff are entrenched in old ways of teaching. It is necessary then to educate about the most basic functions of the LMS, and how these can be best utilized towards a more constructivist approach.