DSE232 Applying Psychology

provides an example of a second level course where the team spent some time considering how to use...

33 views

Cloud created by:

Niall Sclater
9 February 2010

provides an example of a second level course where the team spent some time considering how to use learning systems to help students communicate with one another online and use their online experiences to inform their assessment. The team will describe how the size, shape and scope of their asynchronous forums changes during the course, as students become more confident in working online.

Extra content

Got extra information or live blog notes about this cloud? Add them here!

Live blog of Volker Patent's presentation

15 point online course uses VLE. Students have to be online. 1:25 tutor-student ratio. Course text book still provided in print.

Course includes:

formative quizes
wikis
forums
polls

Recruiting around 500 students each presentation. High retention rates which may be due to way forums are used.

Key skills: using variety of online tools, planning, structuring and writing short answers and professional reports, online searching.

Questions:

How do we ensure that students get adequate coverage of tutoring? Used team teaching so that tutors could cover a larger group.

Wouldn't students get overwhelmed in a large forum? Decided that ability for tutors to create forums on the fly wasn't necessary as people could create new threads.

Types of forum:

Simplest design of forum is a single forum for all throughout course. This is used to support tutors.

Also use separate forums for different periods of the course.

Single group forums in parallel run through full course (not used on this course much)

Multiple grouped forums

A challenge is to allocate tutors to forums. So you need to take different tutor groups and combine them into one group. This works well.

Polls are used for students to select what topics they're interested in - and therefore what forums they're going to be participating in.

Niall Sclater
9:44am 9 February 2010 (Edited 9:53am 9 February 2010)