What constitutes excellence in an eteaching environment?

Michael Coghlan

TAFE SA

eLearning Facilitator

michaelc@chariot.net.au

http://flickr.com/photos/98912535@N00/1297788517

Movie: The 21st Century Student

Abstract

The marriage of education and Internet technology has effected an extraordinary assault on perspectives about teaching and learning. The role of the teacher, the nature and context of learning, the role, relative importance and agency of course content* are all being challenged and redefined. The mobile nature of much 21st century learning complicates the picture even further.  The use of laptops, smart phones, and tag and code readers implies multiple contexts for learning, the blurring of social and academic spheres of activity, student collaboration and production of content, and a view of teacher supplied content as starting point rather than definitive resource.* Excellence in teaching now involves a new relationship with students and content. How many of us are ready and equipped for this task?

* With thanks to Dr Norbert Pachler for these perspectives

Learning in the 21st Century

http://flickr.com/photos/7447470@N06/1345266896/

Adrian Miles (RMIT)

“ make our institution…more porous to the students’ private technologies – their mobile phones, their laptops and their cameras.”

Learning in the 21st Century

“ I have seen predictions that a student doing a 3 year course by 2012 will experience the situation where most of the knowledge they have gained in year one will be completely out of date by the time they finish year 3.”

“…the only sustainable approach…will be to find the learning and teaching strategies which will ensure that people embrace attitudes and behaviours anchored in lifelong learning.”

“It is becoming …an imperative for industry to have staff who are lifelong learners and highly ICT literate.”

Greg Black, CEO, education.au (Campus Review 16/10/07)

Chickering and Gamson’s 7 Principles for Good Practice encourage contact between students

and faculty develop reciprocity and cooperation

among students encourage active learning give prompt feedback emphasize time on task (time

management) communicate high expectations respect diverse talents and ways of

learning

1. Self Awareness2. Online communication skills3. Learning together4. Facilitation skills5. Intercultural antennae6. Tolerance for ambiguity7. Switching contexts8. Technical skills9. Cut people slack

8 Competencies of Online Facilitation (Nancy White)

Paradigm Shift #1

Collaboration

Asynch

Synch

Oral Written

DialogicMinimalistic

Reflective; combination

of dialogic and monologic

Most structured form

ofcommunication

COMMUNICATION AXIS

Networked Learning

MULTIPLE CHANNELS

Paradigm Shift #2?

COMMUNITY-CENTRIC

Virtual Worlds

The excellent eteacher:

has an online presence/website (eg course homepage on LMS, or own website, blog, etc)

Knows how to use technology for delivery and assessment and therefore has a blog, a wiki, or podcast site

Includes media in delivery and production of teaching materials and student assessment

Models and teaches digital literacy Creates and provides digital resources Teaches search, validation, and verification skills Employs and models RSS as a means of aggregating

and distributing content

The excellent eteacher:

Teaches about, and employs collaborative approaches

Acknowledges the nature and influence of horizontal learning (multitasking)

Knows when to encourage vertical learning

Switches between sage and guide as appropriate

The excellent eteacher:

Knows when to call in the wisdom of the experts to balance the wisdom of the crowd

Acknowledges the value of informal learning

Accepts that engaging learners is necessary (and that probably means using technology)

The excellent eteacher:

Acknowledges that students may assess the value of a resource via their networks rather than accept the word of the expert (teacher/lecturer)

Uses social bookmarking for collective mining and sharing of resources

Is a good (and frequent) online communicator Knows how to effectively combine synchronous and

asynchronous modes of delivery Is able to teach in a virtual classroom/web conferencing

environment (eg Centra, Elluminate, etc) Must be e-connected and draw on the resources of their

networks to remain current (and demonstrate to students)

Resources

http://newlearning.wikispaces.com/ Chickering and Gamson’s 7 Principles for Good Practice (

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm)

Designing eLearning Flexible Learning Toolboxes Thinking about the ‘M’ in M-learning (Dr Norbert Pachler) (paper to

be part of forthcoming proceedings of mLearn conference, Oct 2007)

The 8 Competencies of Online Interaction (Nancy White) Multiliteracies for Collaborative Learning Environments -

http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=23

Michael Coghlan

eLearning Facilitator

TAFE SA

e: michaelc@chariot.net.au

Presentation will be available at

http://www.slideshare.net/michaelc