Core area 2: Teaching, learning and assessment

a) An understanding of teaching, learning and/or assessment processes

In my previous CMALT portfolio, I discussed my teaching experience at the University of Moratuwa - Sri Lanka and the University of Reading - UK.  I have gained the Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in December 2014. 

In this section, I am going to use two examples: creating a new module for Postgraduate Research for students and creating an Accessibility Awareness course for the staff.

Student Feedback

We used a Moodle anonymous survey to collect student views of checklists and how they found these.  We only received very few responses (11) for the survey but the students who have responded have found the checklists really useful.

I have found the checklists to be a really helpful tool.  Not only do they ensure you haven't forgotten to include anything in your final submission, they can also help you to plan what goes into it in the first place.  

Sometimes; I have forgotten basic items in my submission and would have lost easy marks had it not been for the reminder provided by the checklists.

The checklists helped me know where i should be at each stage of the project

All checklists were very useful and should be attached to every assignment. they can mean the difference between a pass, credit of distinction. This is because, at times one forgets to add very basic items and the checklist provides a reminder.

I think checklists should always be included in the modules.  Students can decide whether they want to use them but personally I have found them to be an excellent tool for staying on track

Staff Feedback

I received a UCEM excellence award for the creation of this course. The nomination is given below:

"I would like to nominate Tharindu for the award of excellence. We have been working closely together since June on the module development of the postgraduate project module as part of Transform. The module is a double credit forty week module and we committed to designing it without a VitalSource text. It turned out to be a real mammoth task but also a rewarding one. A great part of which has been the opportunity to work with Tharindu. It has been a real pleasure to work with someone of such a high calibre, with such a deep knowledge base, consistently exemplary attitude and wonderful disposition. I could of have nominated Tharindu for any of the values but feel that her excellence as an academic colleague can never be overstated - and I do think our collaboration has genuinely produced a really strong module for the students, informed by Thaler and Sunstein's Nudge Theory and Atul Gawande's Checklist Manifest, that is a definite step in the right direction toward the institutional aim of academic excellence. Luckily, we have agreed to evaluate the impact of checklists as part of a joint research project - so the collaboration goes on!"

Creating an Accessibility Awareness CPD Course for UCEM Staff

This course was created on my own initiative to raise accessibility awareness at UCEM. Unlike students, most professionals learn things that are relevant to them and at a point when it is required. Malcolm Knowles's adult learning theory is a study that aims to show how adult learning differs from that of children. He identifies several important features (assumptions) of the adult learner: self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learn, and motivation to learn.

When creating the course I tried to use the ABC learning design (Young and Perović, 2015) to make sure that there different types of activities involved to provide variety. In the ABC learning design, there are different learning types defined: acquisition, investigation, collaboration, discussion, practice, and production. In this course, collaboration and discussion opportunities are minimal as it is a stand-alone, self-paced course. However, the ABC learning design guided the way to design the course.

I also wanted the activities to be active, short, and sharp. The activities require learners to "do" something - that is actively getting them involved. The course has a suite of eight open badges. Seven sections of the course have relevant quizzes which allow the learner to earn a milestone badge. Earning all milestone badges and providing a reflective account of their own learning allows the learner to earn the final accessibility awareness badge.

I made a presentation about this course at the ALT Winter Conference 2021. You can see the slides and presentation.

Analysis and Reflection

Technology is changing continuously and these changes open up new opportunities for teaching and learning. For example, up until broadband was commonplace it was not possible to have streaming videos or webinars, and today we can't think of working without online meetings. Until the COVID-19 pandemic changed the "normal" to a new normal, many traditional institutions snubbed the idea of online teaching/learning. But when there was no possibility of continuing the traditional ways of teaching-learning, they all had to adapt and even embrace the new normal. UCEM has sent printed packs of learning materials to all its students in the past. With the advancement of technology now UCEM has become an online learning institution. As the technologies and the ways of learning change, if we try to stick with the same old methods of instruction it is not going to work well. That is we need to adapt to the changes in technology, ways of life, and in general to the changing world. While in the past teacher was looked upon as the ultimate authority of knowledge and content, today content is available in an abundance. The role of the teacher has changed to be more like a coach or a mentor who guides the learners. The learners' role has changed from being passive consumers of content to co-designers of content and courses. There is much more of a need to develop digital literacy where the learner is able to identify and distinguish authentic sources and authentic content from the rest. We as learning technology professionals must support both educators and learners in adapting to their new roles.

I think I have a good understanding of teaching, learning and assessment having worked in the area for over 15 years now. While teaching in a face-to-face setting could be viewed by some as the ultimate experience, the effects of the pandemic showed us that life has to go on even without face-to-face contact. In a face-to-face teaching session, you can see your learner's faces and gauge whether they have understood what you are teaching. This we cannot do in an online environment (unless it is a synchronous event with quality video) and therefore, the materials have to be very clear in explaining the content. This is why content creation in online environments or in fact any distance teaching has to be done with care and attention. 

In this situation, you need to give learners a chance to interact and provide feedback because otherwise, it will be too late when they face exams and not do as well as they could have. It is important to have quizzes and other formative ways where the learner is able to gauge their knowledge and understanding of a topic. Learning analytics also provides some help in this respect by identifying resources that are most or least accessed and time spent.  

On the other hand, when it is a self-directed self-paced course such as the Accessibility Awareness CPD course, there is not a cohort doing the course with you. It could become a lonely experience. This is why I designed the course with open badges to keep learners motivated (hopefully). There are many other initiatives that support the Accessibility Awareness course at UCEM. For example, I run online workshops, badge achievement is acknowledged in the institutional bulletin. If the staff member is happy to make social media posts these are promoted and most of all the staff members are aware that they can directly approach me should they have any queries.

Looking back at the experience of creating the accessibility awareness course, I am really glad I invested the time and effort to do this work. I applied for VocTec Seed funding in 2020 to create an open accessibility awareness course. However, I was not successful in my bid. As a regular blogger writing for the UCEM Online Education Blog I had authored a lot of accessibility-related posts, which I could use in creating the learning materials. When I did not get the funding, I tried to reuse these posts to create the learning content by myself. Having created so many modules as a learning designer and an instructional technologist it was not difficult to put it all together. However, this took a long time as I was working on this as a pet project.

This course could have been good as an open course given there is so much need for upskilling staff with accessibility awareness, especially with the new Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 coming into effect. However, as I was not able to secure the funding I wasn't able to do this. Now that the course is created and has received favourable feedback, I am in the process of putting together a case for offering this course as an open course on UCEM Online Academy.

The take-home message from this experience is that you need to identify and connect with your learners and their purpose for learning. Once these can be complemented you can create an effective course. This leads nicely to the next topic of understanding your learners.

Reference

Gawande, A. (2011). The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Profile Books: London. 

Knowles, M. S. (1968). Andragogy, not pedagogy. Adult Leadership, 16(10), 350-352.

Young, C and Perović, N. (2015) ABC Learning Design method available from https://abc-ld.org/ 

b) An understanding of my target learners

In my previous portfolio, I discussed my target audience from the University face to face sessions and a MOOC. This included learners who have English as a foreign language, learners with disabilities, adult and elderly learners, as well as young university undergraduates.

At UCEM, our learners tend to be part-time, much older (the average age is 30 years) and more than a quarter of them are international learners.  We also have a considerable proportion of students (about 11%) who have declared disabilities. The common characteristic of our students is that they all are time-poor learners. Most of our students are in full-time employment and they take part-time studies while also managing their households. All these make our learners very time-poor. According to Butcher (2015) "part-time higher education students are marked by their heterogeneity – they cannot be considered as a single homogeneous group" (P6). They also suggest that a higher proportion are female students with caring responsibilities for children (38%) or older relatives (12%). Furthermore, Butcher (2015) states that "choosing part-time was effectively an illusion because students were faced with ‘Hobson’s choice’ – it was either part-time or nothing. Most respondents admitted to preferring the idea of full-time study, but believed the cost was too great; they could not afford to give up a job when they had extensive family outgoings, and in many cases they were debt-averse".

How can we support time-poor learners? There are various case studies and approaches documented in the literature (Royal College of Physicians, 2018; Karwowska and Tse, 2019).  Royal College of Physicians (2018) highlights the importance of "creating brief learning opportunities" for medical trainees.  Karwowska and Tse (2019) highlight the importance of distributing information in ways that is easier for the participants to access. For example, they reported that while email and printed material were readily accessed a wiki site was less likely to be used by the respondents who were also postgraduate medical trainees. 

At UCEM we already follow the practice of creating bite-sized learning opportunities. Larger longer activities are broken into small chunks to help engage the learners. We provide a "Module Map" which highlights the topics per week and assessment weeks.

However, something we have not been doing so well in the research project modules is providing the learner with a good outline apart from the Module Map. Because the module runs across two semesters, by providing a module map for each semester we were not giving our students the full overview of the module. Also, when the module map only contains topic weeks students may miss-interpret that to be the only work needed. But in the project modules, most weeks are self-directed research. It is important to provide learners with a clear outline of what is essential along with a structure of the module and where they should be at a given point. This is what I tried to do in the new Postgraduate Research Project module with module overviews and checklists. At each submission point, we included a checklist, which allows our students to check whether they have covered all criteria required to make a successful submission. 

Below are some of the feedback recieved in the accessibility course that related to its design

As an accessibility champion at UCEM, I am very aware of accessibility challenges posed to students with disabilities. The whole campaign to raise awareness about accessibility is to help students with disabilities.

I use English as a second language.  Therefore, I understand and empathise with students who are learning in their second or subsequent languages and how important it is to provide content in easy to digest manner. As a migrant, I was not always aware of some cultural and contextual events, and scenarios relevant to the UK. Therefore it is also important where possible not to depend on a learner's context knowledge. For example, in the UK Construction industry if someone refers to Grenfell it is understood that they are referring to the tragic fatal fire at Grenfell tower block which was exacerbated by combustible cladding. However, given that we have international students, it is unfair to make the assumption that those students too will be aware of the specific case. Therefore, it is important to make sure to give a reference and a short background to a case when writing content for a wider global audience.

The UK Construction industry is begging for diversity. According to Government statistics, the working-age BAME population is about 14%. However, in the construction industry, it is about 6%. Women comprising half the population represent about 15% of the construction sector. UCEM has helped attract a more diverse workforce into the industry by opening its flagship Level 3 Surveying Technician apprenticeship programme. However, as learning designers and learning technologists, we too have a responsibility to show the diversity in the content we present. When we use images in eLearning do we use diverse learners in our images or do we show a white man in a suit reinforcing the traditional industry norm and alienating the few minority ethnic students and females who were brave to join a sector seen as white male-dominated? When using case studies are we looking for UK-only case studies or are we looking more widely? When giving our students an assignment are we asking them to consider their environment or are we restricting them by giving a UK case study?  When you are doing a podcast or voice-over screencast are you using voices that reflect our diverse learners? These are some questions we can think about when designing our learning to suit our learners.

Analysis and Reflection

Understanding your learners is of great importance to providing a fulfilling learning experience. When I started as a new lecturer at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka we had an almost homogeneous group of students in terms of learning ability (the University of Moratuwa Computer Science and Engineering attracts the top Maths Advanced Level students in the country), age, and all being second language learners. In Sri Lanka, in those days, learning disabilities were hardly identified/recognised. 

The ability to post questions, thoughts in an asynchronous way where you can take time to compose your reply could be an opportunity for those learners to engage. On the other hand there could also be the barrier or the fear of being seen as the one to have posted the "imperfect" response which is going to be on the VLE forever. We at UCEM are investigating the possibility of offering anonymous posts to forums in an attempt to encourage students who are lacking the confidence to post. UCEM has a branch in Hong Kong and students who join us from there are very reluctant to engage actively. However, we also have a duty of care to prevent any abuse on forums. Therefore, this has to be done with great care.

Sometimes things beyond you dictate what can or can't happen. When I launched the face-to-face accessibility workshops at UCEM, they were very successful. We always had full participation in the sessions. I did a very successful activity at the start of the workshop to show the need for accessible content. The task was to navigate to UCEM website's accessibilty statement blindfolded using the Windows Narrator. Everyone struggled to just use the keyboard to navigate to the said page. This was very impactful. 

However, as the Covid restrictions were imposed we had to move online. Therefore, I could not ask participants to do this task on their own because even in the face-to-face sessions they needed lot of help. Instead, I created a video to show how a screen reader works, which I then shared in the session. 

When the accessibility awareness course was launched there was sudden flurry of activity and badge earning. However, this died down. I realised that the staff who are too busy to invest the time are reluctant to go into the course because it is available indefinitely they procrastinate. I organsied an accessible colour workshop which was 40 minutes and within two hours of the workshop six accessible colour badges were earned on the course. These six learners participated in the session and then completed the accessible colour component of the course and subsequently completed the whole course. This shows that the UCEM staff requires an impetus or stimulus to get them started. So I am planning to run a few more accessibility online sessions where I can direct the staff to the online accessibility course.

Take-home message here is whether it is online or in-person you need to know your learners. You have to empathise with them and understand your learners, their backgrounds, and their experiences to be a good educator/facilitator.

Reference

Butcher, John (2015). 'Shoe-Horned And Sidelined’? Challenges For Part-Time Learners In The New HE Landscape. Higher Education Academy, York.

Karwowska, A., & Tse, S. (2019). Keeping busy learners informed: email is most useful for medical residents!. Canadian medical education journal, 10(3), e78–e81.

Royal College of Physicians. (2018). Never too busy to learn. London: RCP.