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#Design4Learning 2014 Conference: From blended learning to learning analytics in HE: Theme 2 - State of the art?
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Theme 2: State of the Art?
Transformational Learning Design for Open and
Blended Learning
George Roberts
Oxford Brookes University
27 November 2014
Acknowledgements
• Richard Francis– Francis, R & Roberts, G. 2014. “Where Is the New
Blended Learning? Whispering Corners of the Forum.” Brookes Electronic Journal of Learning and Teaching (BeJLT) 6 (1)
– http://bejlt.brookes.ac.uk/paper/where-is-the-new-blended-learning-whispering-corners-of-the-forum/
• Frances Deepwell
• Mary Dean
• Greg Benfield
Conundrum
Practical Wisdom
Activity
Dialogue
Experience
Participation
Reflection
Community
Blended learning design
• Activity– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience – self-evaluative, practitioner-centered, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes
Snapping at the heels of the state of the art
Actually existing art
• Closed online
• Open online
• Flipped
• Blended
• Accredited or not
• Traditional modular
• CPD
Activity
Affective recallThink of a learning situation, a course, module, CPD workshop, etc, where you felt anxious, disempowered, uncertain.
With a neighbour, in pairs, interview each other, 3 minutes each way:
• Can you characterise the things that made you feel that way?
Paintings by Theodore Zeldin
Conundrum
• Why do we still find learners, institutions and the curriculum in such tension over technology enhanced learning (TEL), in an environment of ambiguity, anxiety, power and ideology (Morrison 2014)?
A journey of the mind
Through quite abstract spaces
Challenge our thinking about technology enhanced learning
The role and place of universities in the vast virtualised spaces that we have created
The blended learning debate has been locked in antagonisms
Poly-valent, multimodal tensions: bits v. atoms, virtual v. real, totalising grand narratives v. little local initiatives v. essentialist techno-optimism v. neo-classical or
traditional Luddism v. hyper-relativist social media identity play, etc etc
flexible, active, collaborative
and professionally
authentic pedagogies
“... an industrialisedprocess, on a truly massive scale, made possible by
new technology.”
the landscape of
the virtual world has
altered beyond
recognition
It is difficult to argue that the physical and virtual dimensions of
the learning experience are still distinct, or in any way opposed.
In practice, the pedagogical models have hardly changed at all
a place between the
virtual and the real, whose genius loci is the teacher
the main function of teaching is to inspire learners to venture into
unfamiliar territory
Where change has been most evident
• Blending the once largely distinct domains of “learning” and “socialising”
• Foregrounding the transactional component of the social learning space as a “one stop shop” for student services
Have we failed?
Pedagogically
Learners create their own learning environment outside,
inside and in-despite of the intentions of the institution or
the designer.
Viceroy’s Palace
Tavern of revolution
It is the ‘inter’ … the inbetween space – that carries the burden of the
meaning of culture...
And by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.
(Bhabha 2004)
the space of both community and
identity
In this sense of liminality, discomfort and uncertainty,
blended learning might be seen as a threshold concept
Where once the Internet seemed a vast
third space, it now appears hegemonisedby contingent global
forces where international
competition is normalised and
consumer debt a virtue
Moves to more open forms of
education have opened the sluice gates
Physical spaces as a central element of learning appear ever
more fluid
Reclaiming space for teaching through blended learning includes reclaiming
technologies as intermediate tools
Summarise• Blended learning, itself, is a threshold concept: liminal,
uncomfortable, uncertain and transforming• Each person and context is a hybrid: utterly unique• No cultural origin is privileged• Learning occurs in the gaps: the spaces between• Learning growth is non linear• People only partly inhabit any space and do so on their
own terms• All learning spaces are co-created• Social, learning, and transactional space are blending
physically and digitally• The spirit of the third space is “the teacher”• Any enclosure of space requires force, power or
violence
Blended learning design
• Activity– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience – self-evaluative, practitioner-centred, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes
• If all learning IS blended learning
• AND neither the physical NOR the digital has primacy
• AND each person and place is unique
• How do we respond?
For us, these follow
• Acknowledge the tension in all teaching
• Avoid totalising syntheses of data, content or process – even this!
• Practice “bounded openness”: provide multiple ways in and out
• Respect the uniqueness of each and every person.
• It’s the relationship, not the gadgets or analytics
Thank you
George Roberts
Richard Francis
Oxford Brookes University
November 2014
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