Protein Structure - threading Protein modelling pptx
Transformational Learning Design for Open and Blended Learning
1. Theme 2: State of the Art?
Transformational Learning
Design for Open and
Blended Learning
George Roberts
Oxford Brookes University
27 November 2014
2. Acknowledgements
• Richard Francis
– Francis, R & Roberts, G. 2014. “Where Is the New
Blended Learning? Whispering Corners of the Forum.”
Brookes Electronic Journal of Learning and Teaching
(BeJLT) 6 (1)
– http://bejlt.brookes.ac.uk/paper/where-is-the-new-blended-
learning-whispering-corners-of-the-forum/
• Frances Deepwell
• Mary Dean
• Greg Benfield
4. Blended learning design
• Activity
– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience
– self-evaluative, practitioner-centered, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue
– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection
– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation
– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community
– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes
10. Actually existing art
• Closed online
• Open online
• Flipped
• Blended
• Accredited or not
• Traditional modular
• CPD
11. Activity
Affective recall
Think of a learning situation, a
course, module, CPD workshop, etc,
where you felt anxious,
disempowered, uncertain.
With a neighbour, in pairs, interview
each other, 3 minutes each way:
• Can you characterise the things
that made you feel that way?
Paintings by Theodore Zeldin
12. Conundrum
• Why do we still find learners,
institutions and the curriculum in
such tension over technology
enhanced learning (TEL), in an
environment of ambiguity, anxiety,
power and ideology (Morrison
2014)?
13. A journey of the mind
Through quite abstract
spaces
Challenge our thinking
about technology
enhanced learning
The role and place of
universities in the vast
virtualised spaces that
we have created
16. The blended learning debate has
been locked in antagonisms
Poly-valent, multimodal tensions: bits v. atoms, virtual v. real, totalising grand
narratives v. little local initiatives v. essentialist techno-optimism v. neo-classical or
traditional Luddism v. hyper-relativist social media identity play, etc etc
24. a place
between the
virtual and the
real, whose
genius loci is
the teacher
the main function of teaching is to
inspire learners to venture into
unfamiliar territory
25. Where change has been most evident
• Blending the once largely distinct
domains of “learning” and “socialising”
• Foregrounding the transactional
component of the social learning space
as a “one stop shop” for student services
29. It is the ‘inter’ … the inbetween space
– that carries the burden of the
meaning of culture...
And by exploring this Third Space, we
may elude the politics of polarity and
emerge as the others of our selves.
(Bhabha 2004)
31. In this sense of liminality,
discomfort and uncertainty,
blended learning might be seen as
a threshold concept
32. Where once the
Internet seemed a vast
third space, it now
appears hegemonised
by contingent global
forces where
international
competition is
normalised and
consumer debt a virtue
33. Moves to more
open forms of
education have
opened the
sluice gates
Physical spaces as a central
element of learning appear ever
more fluid
34. Reclaiming space for teaching through
blended learning includes reclaiming
technologies as intermediate tools
35. Summarise
• Blended learning, itself, is a threshold concept: liminal,
uncomfortable, uncertain and transforming
• Each person and context is a hybrid: utterly unique
• No cultural origin is privileged
• Learning occurs in the gaps: the spaces between
• Learning growth is non linear
• People only partly inhabit any space and do so on their
own terms
• All learning spaces are co-created
• Social, learning, and transactional space are blending
physically and digitally
• The spirit of the third space is “the teacher”
• Any enclosure of space requires force, power or
violence
36. Blended learning design
• Activity
– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience
– self-evaluative, practitioner-centred, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue
– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection
– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation
– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community
– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes
38. • If all learning IS blended learning
• AND neither the physical NOR the digital
has primacy
• AND each person and place is unique
• How do we respond?
39. For us, these follow
• Acknowledge the tension in all teaching
• Avoid totalising syntheses of data, content or
process – even this!
• Practice “bounded openness”: provide
multiple ways in and out
• Respect the uniqueness of each and every
person.
• It’s the relationship, not the gadgets or
analytics
40. Thank you
George Roberts
Richard Francis
Oxford Brookes University
November 2014
groberts@brookes.ac.uk