University teacher approaches to design and teaching and concepts of learning technologies

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Abstract

This study investigates the experience of teaching of 19 teachers who are teaching on university courses involving face-to-face and on-line learning. The teachers are asked about how they think about learning technologies and how they approach the design and teaching of their courses across these two contexts. Results show that there are qualitatively different ways of thinking about learning technologies that relate logically and positively to qualitatively different ways of designing and teaching using learning technologies. The results have implications for teachers and those interested in maximising the likelihood of learning for university students when teachers teach with learning technologies.

Introduction

Teaching for quality student learning at university is a challenge that never ceases. For teachers and researchers who strive to understand how to achieve successful student learning outcomes, the challenge becomes greater when new and unknown aspects are introduced to the university classroom. This is particularly true when learning technologies are used. The literature does not offer a clear and consistent understanding of how learning technologies can be used to enable students to engage in deep and purposeful ways.

Seminal research has emphasised the importance of approaches to teaching (Entwistle et al., 2001, Prosser and Trigwell, 1999, Ramsden, 2002) by identifying qualitatively different approaches to teaching which are closely related to variations in the quality of student learning. However, when learning technologies are used as part of the approach to teaching, it is not clear how they are related to student learning.

Some aspects of the experience of teaching come to the foreground when learning technologies are used. This study argues that two important aspects are the approaches to design and the concepts of learning technologies that teachers hold. Design is important because it can be shaped to help achieve the intentions underpinning teaching. Concepts of learning technologies held by teachers are important because it is unlikely that a concept that views learning technologies as purely delivery mechanisms is likely to be related to a meaningful use of them. On the face of it therefore, it would seem that these two aspects are likely to be an important part of the approach to teaching, but there is yet to be sustained research into these parts of the experience and how they are related to variations in the quality of approaches to teaching.

The purpose of this study is to investigate associations amongst the way teachers report thinking about learning technologies, their approaches to design when learning technologies are used and their approaches to teaching when learning technologies are used to enable student understanding. Teachers from two research-intensive, predominantly campus-based institutions on two different continents were interviewed with a view to better understand variations in experiences of teaching involving learning technologies, so that we might be in a better position to offer insight into ways of thinking about and using learning technologies in teaching approaches at university.

Related prior research for this study falls across two areas; research into relational student learning in higher education (for example Prosser and Trigwell, 1999, Ramsden, 2002, Marton and Booth, 1997) and learning technologies in higher education (for example Hawkridge, 1999, Reeves & laffey, 1999, Reiser, 2001).

This study adopts a view of learning and teaching which is a relational one, one that links the experiences of teaching to the student experiences of learning. The key parts of this view of teaching in this study include the teachers' prior experiences, the situation they find themselves in when teaching, their perceptions of the context, their approaches to teaching and the outcomes that occur as a result of their teaching (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). This research approach is part of a tradition of research into student learning in higher education often referred to as phenomenography (Marton & Booth, 1997). Broadly expressed, it adopts the view that qualitative differences in approaches to teaching are logically related to qualitative differences in the way students experience their learning. In terms of the teachers' experience, the quality of the approach to teaching adopted is related to their perceptions of the context, the conceptions of learning which they bring to the experience, the situation they find themselves in and the outcomes they are able to achieve. Studies in this area have focussed on the conceptions of, and approaches to, teaching adopted by teachers and links between these aspects and the student experience of learning (Dall'Alba, 1991, Prosser et al., 1994, Trigwell and Prosser, 1996).

Another area of related research for this study is learning technologies. For the purposes of this study, learning technologies are defined as those technologies used to help students to attain the learning outcomes of their course (derived from HEFCE, 2005). The field of learning technologies has been a significant part of the higher education landscape for more than 30 years (Hawkridge, 1999). As a field it has been influenced by instructional design ideas, pedagogical ideas, ideas related to motivation, experiential validity, and collaborative learning, most of which have been situated in relation to each to help guide approaches to design and evaluation (Reeves & laffey, 1999, Reiser, 2001). Perhaps because of its integration with so many other fields, the field of learning technologies continues to be a rapidly evolving one which must continue to seek to inform its principles and practice with the latest developments across the international educational sector (Kozma, 2000). Relatively recent books have provided frameworks which allow teachers to make the most of the affordance of the current generation of learning technologies mostly for predominantly on-line contexts (Anderson and Elloumi, 2004, Clark and Mayer, 2002, Collis and Moonen, 2001, Garrison and Anderson, 2003, Lockwood and Gooley, 2001, Palloff and Pratt, 1999, Palloff and Pratt, 2003, Salmon, 2001, Salmon, 2002).

This study complements and extends the existing research by focusing on the implications of the experience of teaching when learning technologies are included to support student learning. Little research has been undertaken which attends to associations amongst qualitatively different experiences of teaching and their relationship to concepts of learning technologies. Research methodologies from phenomenography (Marton and Booth, 1997, Prosser and Trigwell, 1999) are adopted in this study. They are particularly suited to identify qualitatively different experiences of learning and teaching. The research methodologies aid the researchers in unpacking the internal and external structures of the phenomenon under study in order to identify its key aspects and qualitative variation of those aspects.

In the context of this study, learning technologies provided the means by which students were able to engage in on-line learning. The key aspects that are focused on in this study are teacher conceptions of learning technologies, approaches to design for university courses when students are expected to learn across face-to-face and on-line contexts, and approaches to teaching when students are expected to learn across face-to-face and on-line contexts. In the context of the interviews with teachers, the combination of experiences of learning and teaching across face-to-face and on-line contexts is referred to as blended experiences of learning and teaching.

Section snippets

Method

This study arose from a collaboration between researchers at two metropolitan campus-based, research-intensive universities: one in Britain and one in Australia. Its structure follows earlier studies, but focuses on different variables (Crawford, Gordon, Nicholas, & Prosser, 1994; Ellis, Steed, & Applebee, 2006). As the study and interviews progressed, it became clear that for the majority of the teachers being interviewed, the course each chose as the focus of discussion had previously been

Results

The results are presented in three sections: (1) teacher conceptions of learning technologies; (2) teacher approaches to blended design; and (3) teacher approaches to blended teaching. The main findings of the study presented below present qualitatively different categories of conceptions and approaches to teaching using blended learning environments.

Discussion

This study was designed to investigate the emerging associations in the experience of teaching at university when learning technologies are part of that experience. This is an important focus for research into learning in higher education because of the increasingly ubiquitous use of technologies in student experiences of learning, which is yet to develop a substantial, evidence-rich, research base. Without studies into this area, uninformed approaches to design and teaching using technologies

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