Last changed 14 Oct 1998 ............... Length about 900 words (6000 bytes).
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Models

by Steve Draper

Contents (click to jump)

Preface

This is a collection of notes, mainly for myself, on some related issues. Related that is to:
  • Teaching collaboration,
  • Propagating learning technology in a university
    Glossary
    CHI = Computer-Human Interaction a.k.a. HCI
    CS = Computer (Computing) Science
    EUROMET = a project on meteorology.
    HCI = Human-Computer Interaction
    HEI = Higher Education Institution (e.g. a university)
    LT = Learning Technology
    MANTCHI = MAN Tutoring in CHI: a project
    OHP = OverHead Projector
    T&L / TLP = Teaching and Learning / the Teaching and Learning Process.
    (Actually, "Learning and Teaching" is more PC.)

    Models of teaching collaboration

  • The "Carey" model is for a whole course to be jointly designed, and the same course delivered from/by multiple HEIs.
  • The MANTCHI model is to collaborate (only) on very small units.

  • The argument for small units is that this maximises re-use across situations with very different constraints. The smallest unit size may be a single learning objective, or a single exercise/learning activity.
  • The argument for a single course is that course design is work too, and sharing one design saves work for just the same reasons as sharing smaller units.

    It may turn out that somewhere in between is best. For more on this, see:

  • Cross-HEI collaborative teaching.
  • the "MANTCHI" model for reciprocal collaborative teaching
  • An attempt at a cost-benefit analysis

    Units of T&L exchange

    The measurement units are hours of learner time.
  • [30 mins.] EUROMET goes for single learning objectives (say about 30 mins of learner time).
  • [8-10 hours] MANTCHI went for "ATOMs": student exercises 8-10 hours. Tom's larger case studies.
  • [20-30 hours, over several weeks] A major seminar activity, including writing and presenting a paper.
  • [100-130 hours] A module / semester / course.

    Models of organisational change (for learning technology)

    Key ideas:
  • If you put technologists or technophiles in charge, you get glamourous technology and few if any learning benefits. This has various forms:
  • If you rely on teachers to implement things, change does happen but slowly. Teachers have learned to use OHPs, word processors, spreadsheets, and are now starting at least to refer to the web. But authoring tools have got to be REALLY easy to use for this to happen, or to do other useful work for the teachers.
  • If you reduce the technologists to a service, you don't get much call for it, and you don't get much LT spread, and you don't get much vision of how technology can help, because the teachers only think of old teaching methods, and subject experts don't think of teaching at all.
  • The trick surely is to get interdisciplinary collaboration: not to have either teachers or technologists in charge. That is because
  • And the guiding principle must be looking for a niche where the technology can make an important difference. See: Draper, S.W. (1998) "Niche-based success in CAL" Computers and Education vol.30, pp.5-8 also at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/niche.html

    Tom Carey is executing a real try at this. Organisationally, the original twist is for the change agent to be someone hired as a "support" person i.e. in Staff Development, but to put on a for-credit course, and use students to identify niches, design and implement the niche-ware. A pyramid approach that gets real leverage.

    A learner-centred design idea kit for student/faculty teams: Scaling up a learning technology strategy by Tom Carey, Kevin Harrigan, Antonia Palmer and Jonathan Swallow; University of Waterloo.

    Models of software kit / design

    Where are the bottlenecks in designing authorware or other support for teacher/authors?
  • It used to be in functionality. Building the first kit with the right features used to be important.
  • Getting the right user interface to the kit is important. It used to be that bad interfaces were done, but if you want a teacher to use it without having to think about the computer (only about the teaching and the topic), then a really effortless interface is needed.
  • But it may (now) be that the real bottleneck is in supporting the design method. In getting users of the kit to think about pedagogy, not screen design or clever functionality. Putting examples of the use of each feature in there; perhaps making the user walk through an explicit method.

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