Tensions between e-learning innovation and institutional quality control: can we square the circle?

Maggie McPherson from the University of Leeds did the opening keynote for a symposium as part of the Institute for the study of knowledge in society.
•    Adopting a holistic approach to e-learning.
•    Need to step back and think about what is underpinning everything.
•    How can define and conceptualise learning?
•    What are the components?
•    Where is e-learning in this
•    Can we measure the quality of e-learning?
•    Learning – Claxto (1996) – adult learning is profoundly influence by implicit theories of learning acquired at school; teachers tend to reproduce their implicit models in the ways in which they themselves go on to teach
•    Atherton, J.S. (2005) Learning and teaching – what is learning? http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/whatleare.htm
•    Three overlapping circles – what is taught but not learnt – wasted effort, what is both taught and learnt and what is learned but not taught – for better or for worse.
•    What is taught is not the same as what the students learnt – Atherton, 2005; therefore perhaps before thinking about teaching quality we should first consider what education is for.
•    Perkins (1992) three goals
•    Retention of knowledge
•    Understanding of knowledge
•    Active use of knowledge
•    Confucius – I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand
•    Glasser – We learn 10% read, 10% hear, 30% see 50% we see and hear 70% discuss 80 experience 95& what we teach others
•    Before we teacher we need to remember there are also pre-conditions: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs + Glasser’s choice theory
•    Physiological needs (survival), safety (belonging/connecting), love/belonging (power/significance), esteem (freedom/responsibility) self-actualisation (fun/learning)
•    To design a more effective learning experience perhaps we should think of learning in new ways – move from teacher knows best model that replicates how we were taught, ditch content is king, thin about adopting strategies that encourage curiosity, create environments tat enable discovery.
•    So why e-learning? Is it about the technologies? Handheld devices, virtual worlds, etc. Can they help engender curiosity, but we have to think also about technological determinism.
•    We build a building but then the building shapes us, it constrains our actions, the same is true of learning environments using technologies. But with e-learning we can’t see the walls.
•    Benefits of e-learning: new forms of communication, access to previously inaccessible information, connects people in new ways, allows individuals/groups that previously had little or no opportunity to connect.
•    There are claims that e-learning is able to enhance teaching quality by enabling opportunities to create learning that is: individualised, adaptive, active, ubiquitous, contextualised, experiential (BECTA); but in reality we are only at the beginning of understanding how technologies can support these kind of practices
•    Elesig.ning.com useful community exploring how students are using technologies.
•    Where is your own “added value” to be?
•    Increasing active participation in learning
•    Providing ore personalised learning
•    Making available previously inaccessible materials
•    Connecting previously unconnected learners
•    Overcoming barriers to learning
•    Assisting diverse learners to achieve their potentials
•    Preparing students for employment
•    Offering more timely learning opportunities
•    What do students actually want – many students are increasingly familiar with interactive technologies and increasingly want to be in control of their own learning; they don’t want to be talked at – they want to be co-creators and be part of the cast; HE needs systems that allow a shared authority – this not only needs a change of culture in teaching, learning and assessment but a change in traditional quality control as well.
•    Can we really measure the quality of e-learning? What is quality and who’s asking?
•    Kirkpatrick 94: reaction/learning/application of learning/return on investement
•    Arboug 2001 – pedagogical issues/quality of materials
•    Zhao 2003 – course effectiveness/access – infrastructure/student satisfaction/academic satisfaction
•    Kistan 2004 – fit for purpose/value for money
•    Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance – Pirsig, 1976 quote – the philosophy of quality “You know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is”.
•    In terms of HE, quality of learning could be defined in a number of ways when considered from perspective of multiple stakeholders so it matters who is asking! Students, academic, institutions, learning and teaching committees, quality assurance agencies.
•    And when you add e-learning into the mix, you also have to consider the following
•    Technology developers, institutional accountants, learning designers, support staff (such as librarians), tax payers, parents, employers, government funding bodies, educational ICT agencies
•    Moreover there are real differences in perspective that need to be considered – lure of e-learning might be its potential to solve problems by better connecting students and tutors to admin through VLE, yet students like the liberated connectivity afforded by social software and technology that promised to dilute that supremacy just wont satisfy the most technically adept.
•    UK QAA is very administrative – focus on audit trails
•    We need to build evaluation into the fabric of learning and teaching to find out what is really happening.
•    Purpose – determine or fix something, examine and judge standards, reflect on objectives, decide the worth or merit of something.
•    Evaluation: What is our pedagogical design? How does it feed into course design, How do we evaluate the relationship between the two?
•    Pedagogical effectiveness + course content + tutor support + learning outcomes
•    McPherson and Nunes 2004 EMAR model: Action Planning (philosophy, learning models, ped stategy, ped tactics), Action Taking (Course environment, tasks, learning activities, learning outcomes), Action Evaluation (Evaluation of course and programme)
•    Learning theories website: http:carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/idmodels.html/#constructivism
•    Types of evaluation Barnhardt, Bruce and Rubin 1993 Electronic quills: a situated evaluation of using computers for writing in classrooms, designing evaluations. Three types of formative, summative and situated. Aspects: focus, audience, purpose, variability of setting, measurement tools, time of assessment, results
•    Checkland (1970s) Systems thinking and real world: Become familiar with the problem, express in a rich picture, create some root definitions, create conceptual models, compare rich pictures and models, discuss feasible/practicable changes, implement change. Can be used as a framework for carrying out evaluation.
•    Cabrera and Trochim, 2006 The dynamic between the components of a theory of systems evaluation: Boundary critique, cycles, perspectives, scales, phases, etc. Can convert these mental models into methodological models. Leads to a systems evaluation matrix.
•    Need to think of pedagogical and ICT as the building blocks for knowledge: Analogy: DNA + building blocks of life.
•    Need to think of new ways to think about learning and learning design. The tools we have available enable us but also constrain us. Learning can be as individual as DNA – have in the mix tutor, content, resources and tools, environment, culture, background, personal preferences, etc…