Dr Maria Northcote
Lecturers are using online technologies to extend the reach of Avondale education and to supplement traditional methods of learning and teaching. Online courses are becoming more and more common for Avondale’s distance education students, while many other students study in a “blended” format in which on-campus activities are supplemented by online activities. A “blended” learning experience provides greater flexibility and choice for students, and prepares them for the future by guiding them in the use of learning and teaching technology.
Like many other educational institutions, Avondale uses the online learning system Moodle, developed in Australia. This system allows lecturers and students to meet online to access course material, learning activities and resources. Some activities are even conducted online, a feature especially popular with students who live a long way from our campuses.
Avondale lecturers are keen to continue the high quality teaching that already happens at the college, including the personal touch and pastoral care that characterise Avondale’s education culture. Avondale is now working hard to extend these experiences to the online context – to maintain the traditional strengths of Avondale’s teaching while equipping lecturers to teach in new and innovative ways.
In line with this strategy, four staff members – Dr Maria Northcote, Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, Dr Peter Beamish and Tony Martin – conducted research in 2010 about online teaching at Avondale, in collaboration with Dr Kevin Gosselin of Texas Tech University, USA. The research aimed to find out the lecturers’ current skills and concerns about online teaching; and to use these findings to assist staff to become skilled in online teaching and to provide a positive experience for students using online technologies in their learning. Dr Gosselin allowed the Avondale researchers to use a questionnaire that he had developed in 2009. The questionnaire was given to staff in two Avondale faculties to survey their ideas, their confidence levels and their concerns about online teaching. Dr Gosselin also helped analyse the data from the questionnaire.
So far, the research has shown that although lecturers may be concerned about using some aspects of online teaching technologies, they already have many of the baseline skills required to teach online. They already know how to structure courses and create valid assessment tasks, and are confident about transferring courses to online environments. They expressed concerns about how to select the best technology for teaching, how to make time to learn new skills, and how to use technology in purposeful ways. These concerns about technology are now being addressed in staff development programs through a series of workshops providing support resources, teaching guidelines and examples of good practice.
The research was presented at the Third Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium at the University of New South Wales, 2 July 2010, and at a staff colloquium at Avondale on 26 August 2010.
Tags: Learning and Teaching