Keynote given by Rebecca Ferguson at the JTEL Summer School in Bari, Italy, on 4 June 2019.

1. Innovating
Pedagogy
Rebecca Ferguson
The Open University, UK
JTEL Summer School,
Bari, Italy
4 June, 2019

2. Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK

3. Why look for the
next big ideas?

4. Preparing for the future
careers2030.cst.org/jobs

5. Rapid change
2012: ‘Year of the MOOC’
2007: Launch of iphone
2006: First tweets
2011: Siri
2006: Most visited site in USA

6. A critical perspective
http://bit.ly/2Edq8m6
http://bit.ly/2HtZupX
New York Post

7. Because you’re an expert
FutureLearn
poster (detail)

8. What competencies do we
need in the 21st century?
What is education for?

9. From learner to earner
• Learning Design to develop
employability (2014)
• Learning Analytics to support
progress towards learning
objectives (2012)
• Badges to accredit informal
learning (2012)
• MOOCs to bolster
professional development
(2012)
• Action Learning to find
workplace solutions (2019)

10. From learner to wife?!

11. Taking our place in society
• Learning for the
Future – teaching
students to be
responsible citizens,
contributors and
innovators (2016)
• Roots of Empathy –
social and emotional
learning (2019)

12. Building our community
Changing perspectives
and opening up
opportunities
• Decolonising
learning (2019)
• Event-based learning
(2014)
• Maker Culture (2013)

13. Healthy mind, healthy body
• Incidental Learning –
enabling individuals
to reflect on
experiences and
build coherent
learning journeys
(2015)
• Support self-
regulated learning –
‘Learning to Learn’ –
and the individual
skills required (2014)

14. Questioning and learning
• Learners reshaping their
own Open Textbooks (2017)
• Understanding the nature of
knowledge and justification
with Epistemic Education
(2017)
• Understanding other
perspectives through
Intergroup Empathy (2017)
• Understanding the world
through Big-data inquiry
(2017)

15. How do we look for the
next big ideas?
Learning analytics

16. The first phase of the Policy Delphi
drew on the expertise of consortium
members to develop visions of learning
analytics in 2025 in the form of short
scenarios… The second phase
involved an online survey of designated
experts, and volunteers… In the third
phase, the scenarios with their
desirability and feasibility ratings were
shared with stakeholders, who added
their responses.
Policy Delphi

17. Provocations

18. Expert workshops

19. VV
Visions
of the
learning
analytics
future
Full report
bit.ly/28X5tq7

20. What
would your
superpower
be?
Holstein et al, Journal of Learning Analytics, 2019

21. Coming up with the
next big ideas

22. www.open.ac.uk/blogs/innovating/
Innovating Pedagogy reports

23. We proposed a long list of new
educational terms, theories, and
practices. We then pared these
down to ten that have the potential
to provoke major shifts in
educational practice, particularly in
secondary and tertiary education.
Lastly, we drew on published and
unpublished writings to compile the
ten sketches of new pedagogies
that might transform education.
Innovating Pedagogy

24. The innovations described in this
report are not technologies
looking for an application in
formal education. They are new
ways of teaching, learning and
assessment. If they are to
succeed, they need to
complement formal education,
rather than trying to replace it.

25. 2012: MOOCs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/6185054720/
Key issues to be
resolved will be in
accrediting the outputs
of MOOCs, and in
making them financially
sustainable for
institutions.

26. 1. Spaced learning
2. Computational thinking
3. Epistemic education
4. Threshold concepts
5. Flipped classroom
6. Intergroup empathy
7. Making thinking visible
8. Learning with robots
Eight pedagogies
Different relationships to tech

27. Spaced
learning
For details and resources, see the 2017 report
1.

28. Spaced learning
It has long been known that
we learn facts better in
a series of short chunks with
gaps between them, rather
than in a long teaching
session such as a lecture.
Recent research in
neuroscience has uncovered
the detail of how we produce
long-term memories. This
has led to a teaching method
of spaced repetition
There was no significant
difference in exam scores
between students who had
done spaced learning in a
single day and those who
studied over four months.
Building on findings acquired with
the use of sophisticated tech

29. Spaced learning
Session 1 (20 minutes)
Rapid presentation
Break (10 minutes)
Physical activity
Session 2 (20 minutes)
Recall key concepts
Break (10 minutes)
Physical activity
Session 3 (20 minutes)
Apply the knowledge
through problem exercises
A study of spaced learning
shows a significant increase
in learning compared to a
typical lesson. The method
has been tested successfully
in schools, but a larger-scale
trial is needed to show
whether it can be
implemented at scale.
Evaluation report
http://bit.ly/2CkMAWu

30. Computational
thinking
For details and resources, see the 2015 report
2.

31. Computational thinking
Each area of the curriculum
is associated with a set of
skills that can be applied
throughout our life, giving us
new ways to understand the
world. In the case of
computing, as we learn its
principles and languages, we
also acquire a set of
problem-solving skills.
Together, these are known
as Computational Thinking.
Using techniques from computing
to solve problems in many areas

32. Computational thinking
Decomposition Breaking a
large problem down into
smaller ones
Pattern recognition
Recognising how these smaller
problems relate to ones that
have been solved in the past
Abstraction Identifying and
setting aside unimportant
details
Algorithm design Identifying
and refining the steps
necessary to reach a solution
Debugging Refining those
steps
Presenting a solution
in a usable form
Researchers who have investigated
how children engage with the
programming environment Scratch
have identified skills and shifts in
perspective related to
computational thinking:
experimenting & iterating, testing &
debugging, reusing & remixing,
abstracting & modularising,
expressing, connecting and
questioning.
https://scratch.mit.edu/

33. Epistemic
education
For details and resources, see the 2017 report
3.

34. Epistemic education
Epistemic Aims and Value Goals and
values that drive cognition and
action.These include wanting to know,
seeking the truth, and avoiding error.
Epistemic Ideals Criteria people use to
decide whether they have achieved their
epistemic aims. These can also be used
to evaluate other people’s epistemic
products, such as arguments and
websites.
Reliable Epistemic Processes
Strategies that enable the achievement
of epistemic aims. Even though truth is
hard to achieve, a reliable process is
more likely than other processes to get
to the truth.
Epistemic = Relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation
Dealing with problems
exacerbated by social media

35. Epistemic education
• Expose learners to the diversity
of knowledge
• Help them to develop epistemic
criteria
• Support development of
reliable strategies for making
sense of the world
• Encourage learners to reflect
on their assumptions
• Motivate learners to care about
truth and knowledge
Reading like a historian
sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons

36. Threshold
concepts
For details and resources, see the 2014 report
4.

37. Threshold concepts
Concepts that learners struggle to
understand. They may be
• transformative: they shift a learner’s
perceptions of a subject
• irreversible: once learned, they are
hard to unlearn
• integrative: they expose the inter-
relatedness of some things
• bounded: they border with other
threshold concepts to define a
disciplinary area
• troublesome: they appear difficult
and unintuitive.
A good starting point
is for teachers to
explore which
curriculum topics
seem strange and
counter-intuitive
An example is inertia. An
object in motion will
continue in motion unless
an external force acts on it.
This goes against the
‘common sense’ notion that
it will stop when it runs out
of energy.
Collaborating and mapping ideas
(with the help of technology)

38. Tricky topics
tricky-topics-guide.ac.uk
Bring teachers
together
Brainstorm
activity
Mind Maps
Plenary for
‘identify’ stage
Stumbling
blocks
Capture
problems
Develop quiz
Construct
intervention
In-school
activities
Analyse
success

39. Flipped
classroom
For details and resources, see the 2014 report
5.

40. Flipped classroom
Image from Flipped Learning Network
If you are repeatedly
explaining basic
concepts that could be
better covered via online
instruction, it makes
sense to flip and apply a
more engaging style for
the face-to-face element.
Using technology to take
resources home to study

41. Flipped classroom
flippedlearning.org
• Students study resources (such
as videos, books and software)
at home
• Classroom is used as a space
for dynamic, interactive learning
• Can reflect a shift towards
collaboration and groupwork
Teachers who flip are
enthusiastic – 96% say they
would recommend it, 71% report
an increase in grades,
85% report an increase in
student engagement and
classroom participation.

42. Intergroup
empathy
For details and resources, see the 2017 report
6.

43. Intergroup empathy
Skills and knowledge that help
people develop a more positive
outlook towards other groups:
• Gaining accurate knowledge
• Correcting wrongly held beliefs
• Overcoming anxieties
• Reducing feelings that the other
group is a threat
• Re-humanising the other group
• Realising a common, unifying
human identity
• Developing an ability to judge the
merit of different perspectives and
narratives
Foster Empathy through
E-Learning (FEEL) is an
approach based on the
understanding that developing
empathy in group members is
key to improving relations
between groups of people
Using technology as one-way of
dealing with long-standing issues

44. Intergroup empathy
Elements to consider:
• Mediation helps people to
overcome negative feeling
• Gamification helps to overcome
anxiety
• Role playing helps learners to look
at issues from a new angle
• Virtual reality can offer challenging
encounters in a safe environment
• Imagined contact is useful when
face-to-face contact is difficult
• Constructive issues help
participants to avoid potentially
explosive situations
theenemyishere.org

45. Making
thinking visible
For details and resources, see the 2019 report
7.

46. Making thinking visible
When thinking is visible, it
can be used by teachers to
adapt teaching and provide
feedback and by learners to
make more informed
decisions about their study
Software enables
• Creation of models, videos, or
texts that bring together audio,
images and video
• Dialogue and interaction
Augmented reality enables
• Creation of holograms, or objects
that can be used in a virtual space
Response systems enable
• Students to ask questions
• Educators to collect answers
Using technology to understand more
about learner perspectives

47. Making thinking visible
Just-in-time teaching
Using digital tools to make student
thinking visible before class, so
activities can meet their learning
need. Questions and assignments
are given before class. Five phases
1. Ensuring students understand
the purpose of the approach
2. Creating purposeful questions or
tasks
3. Setting a deadline for responses
4. Analysing responses
5. Presenting responses to students
and adapting learning activities to
take responses into account

48. Learning
with robots
For details and resources, see the 2019 report
8.

49. Learning with [ro]bots
• As conversational partners who are
always available and who are non-
judgmental, robots can help
students to understand a subject
• Robots can help teachers by
responding to frequently asked
questions
• Robots can help with assessment,
for example though Programming
by Discussion
• Robots can free teachers to
redirect their energy towards
essentially human tasks, such as
exercising judgment
Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash
Technology that can free teachers
to spend more time teaching

50. Learning with robots
The widely recognised Logo Turtles
were described by Seymour Papert
in 1980. The thinking behind the
development of these was based on
constructionism. This theory of
learning states that people construct
their own understanding of the world.
They do this through making objects
that are tangible and shareable. They
become active creators of knowledge
who explore, question, and assess
what they have learnt.
Schoolchildren use Logo Turtles to
solve problems.

51. Photo by Giuseppe Famiani on Unsplash
Which pedagogies are
on the horizon this year?

52. slideshare.net/R3beccaF
r3beccaf.wordpress.com/
twitter.com/R3beccaF
www.open.ac.uk/blogs/innovating/