Literature+Review+re+Course+Structure

Use this page to post notes and comments about any literature to do with course structure
 * Literature Review : Course Structure**

Lehmann, K. & Chamberlin, L. (2009) Making the move to elearning. Putting your course online. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Co. Chapter 7 Basics of course design makes a few points which may be more or less useful:


 * 1. Determine learning outcomes- these inform structure - the design of learning activities and assessment must keep learning outcomes in mind MAGGIE**

In terms of the determining the learning outcomes for this course, there is relatively no further discussion or development of them within the assessment or learning materials. They are presented in the Syllabus document as a long list (18 in total), after stating that the course follows six key themes – following the Chiras book closely. What might be helpful is to structure the learning outcomes, by linking them to the themes, dividing them up in some way. Also, in terms of the assessment details, there is no mention of the learning outcomes in the materials given, except that the Chiras book is used every week, but no mention of the 6 key themes in the reading schedule issued to the students. I’m not sure how the students could begin to make the linkages to the learning outcomes. Sometimes we perhaps are too driven by learning outcomes, but I think here some additional structure would make the course clearer and perhaps more organised. The sheer number of learning outcomes is also perhaps ambitious, given the timescale and scope of the course, for example, asking students to: “reach an understanding ...”, “attain awareness of....” and “realise that individual actions are vital to securing an enduring human presence” – all of these are very difficult to actually measure, and it’s not clear how that measurement is achieved in the assessments given Biggs talks a lot about the importance of Intended Learning Outcomes, which we could use here - the idea that they should be an outline of what the student can learn, not what the teacher has to teach. He also suggests that the learning outcomes should explain the learning, but the student should also be quite clear about how to do them well. His recommendation is 5 or 6 (not 18!) to enable successful alignment to teaching and learning objecitves and to assessment tasks. The focus should be a "web of consistency", between Intended Learning outcomes, Teaching and Learning Strategies and Assessment. The sheer breadth of this course is also a point for disucssion, should Christina be focussing on fewer objectives, but making the learning deeper? she may have veered towards what Biggs calls, a curriculum, "a mile wide and an inch deep" **Biggs and Tang (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University** The written course information is very comprehensive. I think at the start of the course students could easily be completely overwhelmed by the syllabus document – it’s very comprehensive, but also very wordy, covering every eventuality from non – participation on the discussion boards to details of the assessments. The weekly schedule helps structure the course – and the “chunking” seems evident in the dividing of activities per week. This schedule covers reading, thought conference activities and Assignment requirements. Although the syllabus outlines the week by week, it’s not clear how the themes of the course translate into it, making it almost turn into a to do list, rather than a walk through what Christina clearly wants the course to be according to her Course Description – it’s almost over stated, and so wordy that it has lost track of itself. The course introduction is very passionate, but the translation of that into the written activity and assessment loses something, and also direction. If we look at the online presence, the course is highly structured and divided up clearly on a week by week basis. Each week a folder is released on to the VLE, with and introduction, some guided reading and 5 to 10 thought questions to be addressed and discussed. There is little time to do something with the materials and reading, only week 7 has no reading or a though discussion, but that's when they have their mid-term exam. In summary, this course is clearly “chunked”, but the online nature of it makes it very “live” and interactive, probably compensating for the very wordy syllabus document, which could be overwhelming
 * 2. Use of 'chunking'- dividing the work into modules, weeks or units and ensuring learners have enough work for each but are not overwhelmed- there may be natural points where you stop providing material and give them time to do something with it. MAGGIE**

The level of interactivity within this course is clearly set at a very high level. The expectation was that each student should use the discussion boards 2 -3 times per week, as suggested by Christina. The reality was that they contributed much more; she appeared to open up a whole other way of communicating to the group. The difficulty with this level of interaction arose because the tutor had stated that she would respond and moderate the discussions – this became a daily task, and in her course evaluation she admits that she felt she hadn’t responded enough, despite reassuring the students she had read all of their contributions. This must have been a very busy 14 weeks for the tutor! Maybe a review of the scale of contribution would be helpful. The group itself is quite diverse, and spread throughout the world, so maybe they unintentionally used the discussion board to compensate for that, to develop a sense of who they all were, creating some social linkages, not just course ones. A separate facility for this may help, or a streamlining of the number of contributions expected and ultimately assessed.
 * 3. Decide on level of interactivity with material and with instructor and students- ie is it daily interactions with instructor or student- or self-paced with no interaction MAGGIE**

4. ** To what extent is it structured to be facilitated? (not sure I understand this but I’ve answered how is the course facilitated.) HELEN ** Course is structured around reading, online discussion and home assignment papers written by individuals. Each week follows a similar pattern there is not much variety.

The online discussion space is facilitated by the instructor. Although it is interesting that she assigns a set of students each week to provide direct responses by Wednesday and then another set of students to be responders by Thursday. Others are then free to ‘wade in’. This structure presumably encourages students themselves to set the agenda, rather than the instructor doing so. In addition two students are assigned to summarize the responses submitted to 3-4 of that week's Thought Questions. The assigned "conference agents" will have until Friday of the following week to post their summaries. Again this means that the tutor does not have the responsibility of providing these summaries of the discussion.

At the beginning of each weekly discussion the instructor posts an introduction to the topic with hyperlinks. Then 8-10 thought questions that students are asked to respond to.

She also provides a range of additional resources and links for students through the (not) just for fun space and the library skills etc and Action Alert space (where she posts recent issues coming up in the press etc about environmental issues)

Interesting that she says that the ‘problem’ space was an area where students could answer each others problems and that they usually did this before she could respond – suggesting lots of learner-learner support.

Informal spaces also helped to create a learning community characterized by sharing issues and problems.

Although she was ‘pleasantly surprised’ about the amount of participation she was also concerned and struggled with the amount of ‘support’/ facilitation she felt she needed to contribute.

So despite the structures in place to encourage students to support each other and discuss with each other she still felt that students expected an individual response from her for every post that they made. Then again she also says that it ‘never felt like I was the tutor and they were students..rather they were all learners together, drawing from each others previous experience and knowledge.’ This seems to be a basic contradiction in her approach. One the one hand she is responding to every student and on the other referring to and facilitating the social learning between students and between student and herself.


 * 5. How are different activities structured/used to present opportunities for developing knowledge and skills?HELEN **

At the beginning of each weekly discussion the instructor posts an introduction to the topic with hyperlinks. Then 8-10 thought questions that students are asked to respond to. Different roles assigned to students each week help them to work through from knowledge acquisition to discussing and summarizing/ synthesizing (follows Blooms taxonomy in many ways). Interaction between students is encouraged but only in collaborative ways not in cooperative working (ie they are not asked to construct any learning together but only to discuss topics together before writing individual assignments. Social learning theory suggests we can learn better together. Activities on this course encourage collaboration but maybe not so much cooperative learning (writing assignments together etc). Although Cristina does mention some ‘group’ spaces can’t find what these group activities were in the materials we have access to.
 * // “You cannot succeed in this online class by muddling through the readings and assignments at your desk for 12 weeks! //** Environmental issues must be heard of, talked about, challenged, researched, debated, discussed, cross-examined, reevaluated, and analyzed by **ALL OF YOU** in the weekly Thoughts Conference.”

Four core course text books- also she provides a range of additional resources and links for students through the (not) just for fun space and the library skills etc and Action Alert space (where she posts recent issues coming up in the press etc about environmental issues). Students are also encouraged to add to the webliography section which is a shared space where students can upload web refs etc that they’ve found useful and want to share. Up to date knowledge and research seems especially useful in this field of study.

No case studies or scenarios used/ real life events etc (check this in the thought questions). In fact thought questions do include ones that use case study egs and real life examples and scenarios. Activities don’t seem very varied – follows same pattern every week. Although in the first week there is the ‘virtual scavenger hunt’ which is more active.

Online discussions and thought questions: often prompt deep level thinking as time for editing and critical thinking (though may not be the case for those tasked with ‘direct responding’ each week. Also there is a capacity to go back to content and review it. The anonymity of online discussions can encourage people/ help people to feel comfortable to disagree with each other (Wenger, 1998)

From the evidence that we have access to the Thought questions in this course appear to be a mix of questions that have particular answers (scientifically correct answers) and those that are much more open and discursive in nature. Although Cristina says that they were all about deeper thinking

Home assignments: correct or incorrect answers, designed to make sure students had ‘basic’ knowledge Thought questions: assessed on level of understanding so engagement with fellow students and the issues, linking to resources etc got higher marks than ‘I agree’. Applying learnining. Midterm: factual and basic knowledge plus some thought questions that assessed critical thought and understanding Final: 5 thought questions, assessing deepness of understanding.
 * Assignments and knowledge/ skills **

Think tank space- provides keys to critical thinking activity. Some thought questions encourage reflection eg ‘how did you feel’ Those participants asked to summarise the discussions are reflecting on learning – though perhaps not necessarily in a personal manner.
 * Is there a rubic for any reflective activities?HELEN **

Can’t find much about how and if reflection was built into the class at all.

'Constructive alignment' has two aspects. The 'constructive' aspect refers to the idea that students //construct meaning// through relevant learning activities. That is, meaning is not something imparted or transmitted from teacher to learner, but is something learners have to create for themselves.
 * Additional Stuff (HELEN)**
 * Biggs and constructive alignment (from 2003 article) **

This is certainly something that cristina tried to achieve (in a variety of ways- see above) and discusses how this worked out. Though again this contradiction here in her feeling she needs to respond to all posts on a one on one basis. The way that student roles are assigned each week in the thought questions activity is interesting and may well assist //all// students to develop ‘deep’ learning.

Biggs ‘ we have to state our objectives in terms that require students to demonstrate their understanding, not just simply tell us about it in invigilated exams. The first step in designing the curriculum objectives, then, is to make clear what levels of understanding we want from our students in what topics, and what performances of understanding would give us this knowledge.’

Cristina states that she wants them to show ‘deeper level understanding’ in the thought questions and in the ‘think tank’ section there is information about what ‘critical thinking’ means – this space is not accessible to us (at least I haven’t seem it) so we don’t know much about how she articulated this to them.

7. **Accessibility and differentiation of learning activities- hope Ok but brought together- think we have a lot already and on second reading the differentiation bit does not seem so different! ANNE** Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009) consider that elearning //‘both encourages diversity and is blind to it’// (p.64), recognising that aspects such gender, race and physical distinguishing features may not be readily obvious online. Learners may come to an online course with diverse needs, including physical disabilities, learning difficulties, and a variety of different learning styles, all of which present accessibility issues for course designers and developers. In their competency framework for e-learning, the Institute of IT training (2007) suggested course developers take account of the opportunities and constraints of a VLE (or ‘user interface’), and collaborate with usability and accessibility specialists to ensure:
 * * text is legible and comfortable to read by varied learners, (presumably with scope for adaptation in those with particular issues such as dyslexia or dyspraxia, or non-English speakers) ||
 * * a consistent layout, graphic design and navigational system is used throughout ||
 * * the number of menu levels is kept to a minimum ||
 * * navigational controls allow learners to: move backwards and forwards between pages in sequence; return to the top of long pages; move upwards through the menu hierarchy; access help at any time; and exit at any time ||

Whether we subscribe to the VARK (visual, auditory, read, write) framework (Fleming 2006) or others such as Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences (Gardner 1983), it is likely that courses that incorporate a variety of media, for example, different forms of text, audiolinks, visuals, animation will enhance accessibility. In terms of Christina’s course, there does not appear to be much use of visuals and graphics. In some places a great deal of written information and instruction is provided. However, the material appears quite well organised, and for example, the rather long syllabus is presented online in more palatable sections, accessible through a menu.

Early on in the course, the introductory work included the virtual scavenger hunt (I think this is a strange name for it!) that signposted students to this syllabus; an audio file of this information may have been useful for some students. (I think she could have included the statement of intent at the start rather than near the end of the syllabus, as it is more engaging than some of the other info). The course activities were supported by regular announcements but the different colours of text in the announcements, may affect readability and accessibility for some students. Pacing information about the weekly topics and asynchronous discussions using weekly postings was likely to be helpful, but, again, use of audio files that students could download to a iPod or MP3 player, may have been appreciated by some.

Laurillard (2002) considered that we cannot predict the exact sequences and pacing of each student as they follow the online course materials, but that greater accessibility and control over the learning experience can be provided to students through well designed use of icons, buttons, or pull down menus. She suggests that an interface must be //‘operationally transparent’// (p193), so students know how to get started at the beginning of a course. Also, that there is a need for testing and evaluation with feedback from students on interface design and learning activities.

Christina does make the course fairly accessible. The menu is set out with various conference areas down the left side, to readily direct students to relevant activities and information, for example, the librarian, and different forms of help and support, including the Chatterbox informal discussion site. Each week there is a Thought Discussion with a preamble/introduction that includes hyperlinks, making source material fairly accessible. However, these introductions are often very long and some students may have preferred these as audio files.

Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009) also suggest that learning activities must have capacity for differentiation and be adaptable to the needs, talents and limitations of different students. While this seems to be related to accessibility, it is also about the degree of flexibility provided within a course, for students to pursue areas of personal interest, for example. As learning activities were fairly structured and students were assigned by the course tutor to particular activities, there does not seem to be much degree of choice or flexibility in this Environmental Change course.

Christina talks of her difficulties in adapting what was a face-to-face course, and it seems likely that the course was not pre-tested, nor fully evaluated when it ran, and she seems to have had to follow the evaluation strategy set out by the university. It is not clear from the evaluations how intuitive the students found the interface but the impression from her is that they interacted with it and the various activities quite effectively. It is also not clear if any students had a disability or particular learning difficulty. There was a wide variety of levels of engagement with the discussions, suggesting that some students interacted very little with the materials. It is unclear if this is due to their skills in digital literacy, their ability to evaluate the usefulness of resources (information literacy) (HEFCE report 2011) or practical aspects of the VLE and course design that influences accessibility. In her review of accessibility practices in e-learning, Seale (2004) has suggested that disabled people should be involved in the design of online material.

A further aspect may relate to the cultural accessibility of the course and whether, for example, material is culturally relevant, particularly in an international context- we need to find some literature on this? It might be interesting to know if the ‘non-native English speakers’ that she identifies as course members, found the text easy to follow.

Other thoughts- Her style is rather instructional in places, but may have greater cultural relevance to an US audience. It is not clear whether the critical approach that she wants to promote incorporates reflective activities in terms of student’s own situation and experiences but is rather more of a foray into wider political and social issues.


 * Goodyear, Peter: Chapter 4: Psychological foundations for networked learning** - from Steeples, C and Jones, C Networked Learning: Perspectives and Issues pp49 - 75

This is on our reading list for Unit 3, but has some good points about networked learning - and creating a learning community (p56)

(p59) Also outlines a module with 5 characteristics of learning - active, cumulative, indidivual, self-regulated and goal orientated (Shuell, 1992, Goodyear and NLinHE Project TEam, 2000)


 * Biggs J : Teaching for Quality Learning at University**

Biggs uses the phrase "constructive alignment" to denote the aim of removing inconsistencies between the curriculum we teach, the teaching methods we use, our assessment procedures, the educational environment we create and the learning objectives we want our students to achieve.

CA focusses attention on having clearly defined learning objectives, well-chosen learning tasks and appropriate forms of assessment

An important job for educational design is the articulation of eductional purposes and the construction of tasks appropriate to those purposes.


 * Conrad, R-M and Donaldson JA: Engaging the Online Learner : Activitities and REsources for creative instruction**

chapters 1 and 2 give good frameworks for setting up an online experience. CHapter 2 focusses on engagement - useful discussion around the design of an online course.