On-campus or On-line – best practice learning resources making the difference

Description

This paper outlines a whole-of-course approach to the design of learning materials for on-campus and on-line delivery, that seeks to minimise anxiety of both academic staff and students through focus on clear guidelines for engagement in learning; comprehensive and consistent pre-recorded lecture materials; virtual tutorial support; and the development of communities of practice for both staff and students engaged in virtual learning and teaching.

Takeaway

The takeaway from this session is the importance of quality planning and consistency in learning design, alongside ongoing and longterm collaborations between academic staff and the blended learning team. This paper demonstrates the value of these in minimising staff and student anxiety in virtual learning contexts.

Abstract

Over a three-year period, a whole-of-course approach has been taken to the design and development of a Communication program that offers the same content to on-campus and on-line students. The key difference is in the offer of either campus-based or virtual tutorials; and the types of community interaction – either on campus or through virtual contact associated with the learning and teaching.

Working with a collaborative academic and blended learning team, the learning design approach has been implemented across a diversity of program content. This has included regular online tutor support meetings for sharing practices that has been vital in the development of the project. A key feature of the approach has been the development of ‘lecture pods’ – short 7-12 minute segments that are linked to resources and weekly activities, informing assessment tasks. The work done by academic staff to pre-prepare these materials for uploading has been achieved using best practice information design principles for content display on a range of digital devices.

Whilst individual units and teaching styles across the program may vary in their delivery, the overall approach for the on-line delivery in virtual tutorials is underpinned by in-common clear and accessible rules of engagement for both staff and students, to simulate best practice learning and teaching, supported by structured digital learning materials. As well as the lecture pods, these include e-Workbooks, modularised weekly content on digital learning sites, and closed social media sites.

This approach seeks to encourage the development of communities of practice, through shared and group student work in breakout chat rooms, plus an expectation of pre-class preparation. Learning design features include clear guidelines for taking part in the virtual tutorial; short instructional videos about using the tutorial technology; and in providing recordings of relevant sections of the weekly tutorials for students to view.

As shown by student feedback so far, these resources have helped the online students adapt to the virtual learning context, providing a space for learning that is clearly defined in terms of expectation and process about how the learning will take place, and what is expected from them. For staff, having been through a process of scripting and pre-recording their lectures into the smaller segments as lecture pods, has also significantly reduced their performance anxiety of delivering lectures in real time. Whilst there may be a loss of spontaneity as a result of the pre-recorded nature of the lectures, there has been a significant increase in viewings by both on-campus and on-line students of these online lectures materials. In addition, student presentations online are increasingly being pre-recorded for viewing in the virtual tutorials, to minimize their anxiety around the potential for technology mishaps.

The project continues to develop, with further tutor reflections about the kinds of interactions and issues that are coming forward. Data evaluations of student access of online materials also continues to inform an understanding about what materials work best in specific content areas. For both on-campus and on-line students, feedback demonstrates the importance of connecting through learning, through engagement with both the tutor and well designed and delivered course materials.