chrisohly_heuristic4

= Heuristic 4 =

The student’s perspective of their learning is the most important aspect when evaluating and improving your online topic
It takes time to develop a course for online delivery. Often the move online is driven by circumstances beyond the control of the teacher or teaching team. Agostinho et al describe the steps they took, to redesign, implement and evaluate their course, //Evaluation and Implementation of Technology-Based Learning.// The redesign was guided by constructivist learning principles and care was taken to ensure that appropriate research guided all decisions about the learning tasks. A scenario based task and resource repository was developed which aimed to maintain complexity, encourage collaboration, and provide scaffolded support (Agostinho et al, 2005). The scenario was fictitious, and included a CEO who provided the tasks to the students who took on the roles of new employees. The teacher’s role was of //Academic Advisor//, providing scaffolded support to the new employees (students). This course was extensively evaluated using evaluation frameworks developed by Philips et al and Reeves and Hedberg (cited in Agostinho et al, 2005). The purpose of the evaluation was to find out whether the redesign was successful and whether any improvements could be made. Teachers were satisfied with the work produced by all of the students, however, without evaluation from students it is impossible to gauge whether the course met their needs.

Comments about the use of the discussion forum were interesting. For example, teachers perceived that the discussion forum would be used to ask questions to generate discussion, but this was not the case. Students suggested that discussion postings were low because discussion was not compulsory, students had work commitments and also that maybe students didn’t recognise the teacher’s assumption about the use of the discussion forum. However, one student commented that, “little online discussion does not equate to ineffectiveness.” This comment suggests that student-to-student interactivity, although desired by the teaching team, was not considered the most important by this student. In the research review by Bannan-Ritland, the suggestion is made that there are many different interactions, for example, student-to-student, teacher to student, individual knowledge construction, self-reflection, interactions with the technologies themselves and also interaction with instructional strategies (2002). A broad view of interactivity is useful when looking at student’s perceptions of their learning. Another example from Agostinho et al, suggests that even when the teacher-student interactivity is low, this can encourage deeper interaction with provided readings and resources, saying “if you don’t provide guidance, then students need to read widely in the resources. I found that really useful” (2006, p. 238). Three students reported unintended learning outcomes, including, being able to use Internet search more proficiently and gain experience using online communication tools. Both of these outcomes relate to interaction with technology (Agostinho, 2006).

It is not always possible to get detailed information from the student’s point of view. Our generic survey from the university is always administered at the end of a course, which is too late for that particular cohort of students. I always advise teachers to survey their students at the beginning of the course, using a survey tool that is available within the LMS, so that timely adjustments can be made to course structure and content. The survey tool is easy to access to design your questions and data analysis is also simplified through use of the tool. Once the survey has been created, teachers can send a course announcement via the topic space, to students. Feedback from teachers is that they find it valuable. The detailed information that was obtained from students in the study by Agostinho et al, can help to remind teachers, that even when every effort is taken to design and deliver best practise, based on research, students perceptions of their learning will provide some surprises, and always opportunities for improvement.