Download - Professional development for teaching online
Professional development for teaching online
Dr Janet MacdonaldThe Open University in Scotland
12th International Conference on Distance Education Quality, Moscow, Dec 2010
• Flexible part-time study
• Largest University in the UK
• Over 570 courses
• 250,000 students
• Over 2 million have studied with OU
• 1 in 4 of UK’s part-time undergraduates are OU students
• 10,000 staff (8,000 part timers)
The Open University (UK)
The OU in Scotland: 15,000 students
Population 5m
78,000 sq kilometres
790 islands
What do students need to be able to do?
How do we support their learning?
Who does this?
Listening, reading and sense making
(Course content)
Communicating and community
(Learning, belonging in groups)
Searching and researching
(Using online resources)
Writing and speaking
(Preparing assignments)
What do students need to be able to do?
Macdonald & Creanor (2010)
Reading andmaking sense of course content
- still mostly print
Course quiz
Communicating and community
- Mostly online using forums, wikis, blogs, synchronous
tools
Elluminate synchronous web conferencing
Writing and presenting
- assessments mostly online submission;
some courses have online assessment
Searching and researching
- most courses have links to
approved resources
How I do teach online?• Some anxious, others
terrified• Under skilled• 10000 staff• Highly motivated to learn• A significant quality issue
for the university
Online professional development:VLE Choices
Let’s start with the job..Intentions
Explaining course content
Strategies
Tutor contact; Learning activity on website
Tools
Synchronous conferencing; forum; online quiz; podcast
Learning from peersVLE-Choices: Teaching difficult concepts
Visit an online tutorial in Elluminate
Activity using Audacity
Activity checklist
Automated certificate production
CohortSelf
Study Total
2009-10
135 (58%) 96 (41%) 231
3%
33%
43%
20%
1%0%2%
10%
65%
21%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Complete ignorance Mostly ignorant Slightly aware Very aware Completely aware
(Mar 09 - June 10, n=107)
Start of course
End of course
Awareness of ways to support students using VLE tools
Which parts of the course were most helpful to you?
(106 respondents, 48% response rate)
Number of responses
Reflecting on intentions and strategies
35
63
96
Exchanging ideas with colleagues 40
Examples of good practice
Activities using the tools
Activities using the toolsBeing given the chance to try out various tools was the best part of this course as it's so difficult to see the possibilities until you are actually using them.
Seeing how others used the tools and then discussing my thoughts with others and gaining new perspectives.
Examples of use
The case studies are really useful, it's always an advantage to see what other
people have tried on similar courses - and to see what worked.
Peer support
It was useful to have the course in order to set aside dedicated time to look at the tools, and knowing that colleagues were doing the same so that we can discuss these together.
Making it work!
• Learning by doing activities and reflecting with others
• Peer learning: a sense of presence and community
• Near-synchronous activity• Activity checklist and certificate
OU in Scotland www.open.ac.uk/scotland