3. Practical Pedagogical IT Options for Your Course
Table of Contents
- Enhance their teaching by utilizing IT solutions to enrich their traditional educational methods.
- Support students and their parents in online education and doing homework outside the classroom.
- Easily exchange learning materials with colleagues and the professional field.
- Re-use (and adapt) their learning materials.
- Students and their parents expect a modern institute to use IT.
- Enhance students’ learning that would otherwise be impossible or difficult.
- Study at their own pace, in their own time, and in their preferred group.
- Opportunity to provide feedback to students.
- Motivate the students to study.
- Maximising the benefits from the wealth of information accessible online.
- Provide students using ITedu tools with greater control (and responsibility) over their study activities.
- Prepare students to succeed in the 21st century.
The six design principles for blended learning are elaborated in:
- Overview IT Options versus ITedu Tools in Modern Higher Education.
- The systematic description of the six Design Principles combined with IT pedagogical options.
- The Ecourse “Evidence-based Options on How to Apply IT in Higher Education” provides assignments on selecting IT options.
- The book “Evidence-based Options on How to Apply IT in Higher Education” provides assignments on selecting IT options.
Overview IT Options versus ITedu Tools in Modern Higher Education
Elaboration of the Design Principles and pedagogical IT options for Blended Learning
Knowledge comprises facts from the discipline and procedural knowledge (analytical and systematic problem-solving strategies, etc.). Students obtain knowledge through active learning methods. Such methods include active lectures, self-study assignments, problem-based learning assignments, projects, internships, case studies, group discussions, and the use of the Internet.
Students must be familiar with the context of a lecture or assignment to engage with it effectively. They learn to apply their newly acquired theoretical insights to the theories presented in textbooks and professional literature. The teacher stimulates this deepening of knowledge in F2F lessons. By carefully selecting problems and cases, students can build a body of knowledge necessary in the (future) professional field and learn how to apply it in practical, relevant situations.
Some concepts in a domain are complex and require a more extended study period to be understood. These concepts are named threshold concepts.
See also Design Principle 1: ‘Focus explicitly on knowledge’. The IT and other pedagogical options are outlined in greater detail here.
- Present learning materials through VLE: video lectures, digital texts, syllabi, articles, digital explanations and other course materials. Copyright is often no problem in HE;
- Facilitate students using the internet, eBooks, virtual articles and extra background information;
- Make the presentations or lectures of teachers and guest lecturers available on video. Students should be able to locate the relevant parts in the presentations easily.
- Use hyperlinks to additional resources on the internet.
- Connect with websites (professional), software, and libraries;
- Offer additional explanations to explain complicated topics or present electives.
- Wrap your course around a course available on the internet (MOOCs and OERs);
- Use an online virtual classroom, like Zoom, Teams or the BigBlueButton (Moodle);
- Provide case studies, videos, simulations, animations and games with regular and additional information;
- Use pictures and schemes (for example, built up step by step);
- Provide a glossary with defined concepts.
- Explore information on the internet with various search options.
- Use 3D programmes with a virtual and augmented reality spectacle.
Learning is an active process. Students study actively in the classroom, either in groups or by self-study, to master learning objectives instead of passively listening. This approach enables complex learning. The students learn to apply their knowledge in classroom assignments or through self-study.
The assignments focus on learning tasks relevant to the learning objectives. Students will receive feedback after completing the assignments. The complexity and size of the assignments will increase during the study years, motivating students to study these assignments. IT options to support student self-study are listed in the textbox.
The teachers’ expectations regarding students’ learning are clearly outlined in the course program on the VLE. A course’s learning objectives should be logically related to those of other courses and learning tracks within an academic curriculum.
Teachers, tutors, or both should support students’ self-study. Students should increase their capacity to study independently during their studies. Teachers’ design task is to find meaningful learning activities that stimulate students to study independently.
A suggestion in this respect is to stimulate students to study regularly, rather than waiting until just before the test. The simple principle behind this suggestion is that if students devote more time to study their results will improve. This is often referred to as the time-on-task principle. As a teacher, it is more stimulating for students to study the subject matter during the course. As a result, the substantive level of your lessons can often increase. A significant result can be that the test results improve, provided that the course program and test questions are aligned with the formulated goals.
See also ‘Design Principle 2 Issues and problems professional fiels). The IT and other pedagogical options are outlined in greater detail here.
- Present the assignments through the vle. The teacher can easily include all relevant information for the case studies in the VLE, such as pictures, Excel sheets, videos, written text, and URLs. If there is no time for extra exercises in the classroom, the vle allows additional assignments with feedback that should be used in self-study. Sometimes small groups of students are organised to discuss their results;
- Increase the difficulty or complexity of your exercises or tests in the vle. The complexity and difficulty of learning activities should increase when using a sequence of assignments: the last assignment should be identical to the final test questions.
- Offer (additional) study questions, assignments, case studies, games, simulations and exercises. Provide feedback with the correct solutions and short explanations.
- Use online pedagogical tools (e.g. discussion forum, glossary, etc.) in your classroom and self-study;
- Deliver the assignment results through the vle to the teacher/students; Offer remedial teaching to help students acquire the entry-level of your course;
- Apply fixed deadlines for delivering an assignment to the teacher or fellow students.
- Discuss the results in the classroom. The teacher, tutor, and fellow students can give feedback. Or provide standard answers through multiple-choice questions or short-answer questions;
- React to students’ results through the forum, a short video film or an online lesson. The teacher should elevate the students’ knowledge to a higher theoretical level.
- Discuss the learning track with students to help them develop their study skills. Supporting tools, such as checklists, formats, logbooks, timesheets, and step plans, are available for students.
Correlate learning with the professional or academic field to make IT more relevant and engaging. Students can develop professional competencies, attitudes, and applicable knowledge necessary to succeed in their careers. The focus will be on complex learning.
Students learn to apply the subject matter in real-world scenarios (authentic learning). This will help decrease the gap between theory and practice in the professional and academic fields.
The transfer of knowledge is a challenging process that requires significant practice in various scenarios. Students prepare themselves for lifelong learning during their studies (see Hattie’s article in Chapter 13).
The university staff chooses competencies in cooperation with professionals and academic fields. Theory, skills, professional attitudes, and 21st-century competencies are integrated into the learning activities.
Students are encouraged to build a repertoire of solved professional cases crucial to problem-based learning. They should also be involved in innovative projects and study relevant developments in the discipline. Nedermeijer and Pilot (2000) explain how to design and develop professional education focused on professional competencies.
See also Design Principle 2: ‘Issues and problems from the professional field are central’. The IT and other pedagogical options are outlined in greater detail here.
- Introduce students to professional occupations through videos, professional websites, pictures, expert presentations, case studies, projects, and other assignments.
- Assign tasks that utilise authentic problems and issues from the professional field. Use real cases (from simple to complex, from easy to complicated theoretical content, from 0.5 hours to five weeks). Cases represent the typical activities, situations and problems from the professional field of the students.
- Assign tasks to students that require them to provide feedback to their peers (peer feedback). Use rubrics as evaluation criteria. An important aspect is that you must teach students how to evaluate their colleagues. The teacher will organise some special assignments for this activity, providing test examples.
- Organise project work, other group work and internships to exercise relevant professional problems, issues and software. Provide support to the students with the available software.
- Track the development of students’ competencies throughout their educational careers with the aid of a portfolio. These competencies and their assessment criteria must be compared with the professional field.
- Prepare university students for the possibility of having to complete a test before entering an internship or other practical activities. Often, students are allowed to start an internship only if they have demonstrated a certain level of mastery in the competencies of their field. Offer additional modules and tests to support the students’ preparation.
Social bonding is crucial to keeping students committed, active and on track. Students learn from each other by verbalising and exchanging their knowledge, insights and approaches. Peer learning is often applied in blended learning and moocs.
Collaborative learning enables students to learn from one another. Students must learn 21st-century competencies to collaborate with other professionals and clients. Tutors (e.g., teachers, volunteers, and senior students) support and guide students through self-study and group assignments. Ideally, tutors are available for support at specified hours.
See also: Design principle 5: Consider collaborative learning and learning from fellow students seriously. The IT and other pedagogical options are outlined in greater detail here.
- Provide students with information about your course through the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or email. Present the study guide, notifications, and ad hoc changes in the programme and activities through a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Present short videos and virtual reality programmes where senior students show and explain how to study at their university/faculty. By doing this, new students will obtain a first idea of what they can expect from the course.
- Organise the teachers’ availability through email, including consulting hours and informal meetings, before and after lectures and workgroups. Utilise the opportunity for an FAQ section. Often, standard answers are sufficient;
- Formulate clear procedures for email handling. Establish rules for class emails, including response time, use of respectful language, standard layout, attachment format, and clear indication of when students can expect a response from the teacher. Also, please keep a copy of vital correspondence for each separate course under its own email address.
- Support small or project groups (in your classroom) with the VLE or other available software or plugins;
- Organise a buddy system, involve (student) moderators or stimulate cooperation between students living in their neighbourhood to motivate them to study regularly;
- Organise a discussion forum, a virtual classroom or E-coaching (video, chat or exchange of documents) to support the students during their studying periods outside the classroom or campus; Enable the submission of group work results or individual self-study for informal assessment by the teacher or through peer assessment;
- Stimulate face-to-face and online student contact before and after online sessions through email, digital lessons, chat functions, and other software.
Through testing, faculty can determine whether students have the desired or expected level of competency. The study behaviour of students is strongly influenced by the content and format of the tests (constructive alignment) and the various feedback formats provided by their teachers.
Students will be more motivated if they are informed about their study progress and receive regular feedback, answering two questions: How did I do it? Am I doing it correctly and for the right purposes? Arrange for proper feedback on the students’ performance during the course.
Spreading exams over time is more effective because there is less competition for he learning time of students when preparing for the different tests. The same applies to the test results when subsequent courses have already started.
Consider preparing a summative and diagnostic test to organise the various tests in the programme. It is beneficial to schedule a test plan for both summative and formative assessments that aligns with the learning objectives and instructional methods. An extra element is to consider measuring the qualities of the summative tests, for example, by the VLE.
See also ‘Design’ Principle 6: Testing and feedback are the motor of learning. The IT and other pedagogical options are outlined here in greater detail.
- Provide students with the option to do self-tests with the same difficulty and format as the final test. Performing a test is a more effective learning activity than reading a book twice or three times. Students can do a progress test to evaluate whether they have already reached the expected level required by the teacher. Often, a standard checklist is available for use in the assessment.
- Provide appropriate face-to-face feedback through the VLE (e.g., a forum, a short video, or an extra online lesson). It should be clear to the students whether their assignments and tests were correct or not, and what the correct answers were.
- Discuss the results of the self-study and classroom tests. If necessary, provide additional explanations in the classroom and the vle. The tests may have the same level of difficulty and format as the final test.
- Use assignments that require students to provide feedback on the work of their peers.
- Combine test results with the extra assignment(s) to incentivise additional study periods for students.
- Involve students in evaluating a paper or the products of other students. For example, all students must evaluate two documents using a checklist (peer feedback).
- Ask students to develop their test questions to demonstrate their understanding. Some of these questions could be used for future test opportunities.
- Provide feedback based on the study result overview of the students.
- Check for plagiarism with special software. A computer check for plagiarism is a possibility for evaluating papers and bachelor’s theses.
- Follow the progress of students with a (virtual) portfolio;
- Stimulate social (virtual) contacts before and after a lecture or workgroup.
Information about students’ learning processes can be collected in the VLE and other education software. For example, Moodle and other VLEs use analytics models to collect and organise information about the progress of the study and the students’ study activities in the VLE.
Moodle also gives an overview of each student’s study results.
Another example is you can prepare, organise, and analyse a questionnaire in the VLE and other educational software.
- Evaluate your course using the questionnaire function available in the VLE.
- Analyse the results of students in the overview of the test results in the VLE.
- Analyse the test results of the students. Did the students meet the learning objectives?
- Analyse the use of the course materials (and the students) with the learning analytics software in vle (surf, 2023a).
