Which comes first the Chicken or the Egg ?

This week saw the start of our new initiative aimed at supporting curriculum development in our region - we're calling it Collaborative Course Design (CCD) and beginning pilots in 3 of our supported institutions. My colleague and I spent 2 days this week working with a course team exploring technologies and how each can add value to the learning experiences both for the learners but also for the staff. It kind of brought home to me the chicken/egg nature of making decisions about how to exploit new technologies in general. In other words how do you know which technology to use unless you are exposed to them in an appropriate context.

Although I had a few concerns, the original plan for our sessions to explore and establish a common understanding of new technology was a good one. While individuals have ideas about the role of technology in the context of learning & teaching, ideas are constrained, quite naturally, by an individual's own experience and exposure to technology and software. I did wonder if spending time showing and explaining the scope and range of new learning technologies might be perceived as a waste of precious preparation time. However it became evident that a brief and concise demonstration provided enough of an insight for staff to quickly realise the potential of and application of new technologies for learning & teaching. The experience also supports our new 20 minute topic briefings aimed at senior & operational managers which we are offering and delivering to our supported institutions. These are also aimed at assisting the decision making process but in an institutional context rather than a course context.

Working with a course team meant that, as a group, ideas could be bandied about and the practicalities, suitability and local issues regarding the use of hardware and software could be considered as a group and introduced to a course in a more coherent way. The whole experience seemed to me to promote a very creative and positive experience with real commitment to making some changes and doing things a bit differently. Reservations about making what might be considered to be a significant departure from previous methods are understandable but I'm quite delighted that our Collaborative Course Design (CCD) initiative has got off to such a positive start.

CPD, PDP & ePortfolios

I've said before that I'm surprised about the impact doing this Blog each week has had on my capacity to reflect (see posting on 4th of April) and I do feel I really benefit from it. It provides an opportunity to have another think about my activities each week, firms up my ideas and files them in amongst the rest of the nuggets of knowledge that are in my head - (bet you're glad I shared that thought with you!)

I've previously advocated the use of Blogs with learners as a tool for reflection. Many eportfolio systems include them along with templates that encourage Personal Development Planning (PDP) which is often an element in guidance programs, but a paper I was reading this week as part of some personal study that I'm undertaking, got me thinking a bit more about the idea. The paper was written by Lorraine Stefani the Director of the Centre for Professional Development at the University of Auckland. It essentially explores the link between PDP, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the use of ePortfolios. She makes the point that there is a very low uptake by education professionals of formally recording the CPD that is an implicit part of their work (by virtue of their professional status). Stefani suggests a link between the attitude of staff to recording CPD (i.e.the resistance to it) and how it mitigates against the successful implementation of PDP with learners and the embedding of eportfolios into the curriculum. In other words if teachers have difficulty formally reflecting on their own development and documenting it, how can they really expect learners to be able to effectively reflect on theirs.

At the University of Auckland they  implemented an initiative where staff were encouraged to develop a Teaching ePortfolio and there was the possibility that it would become mandatory for new staff to have one. Some staff development input was necessary and Stefani posed some interesting questions that would need to be resolved before a significant cultural shift might be seen:

Do line managers understand and value the concept of reflection on teaching and learning ?
Do line managers recognise the importance of teaching staff modelling the use of technology ?

They are not easy questions to answer. The initiative was introduced initially as a pilot with staff members, as part of an assessment strategy and staff who were facilitating and mentoring were also expected to maintain their own Teaching ePortfolio. It will be interesting to revisit this and have a look at the outcomes of the pilot and I'll update the blog once I find out more.

The idea of staff modelling the use of technology is something that the team here have always agreed with and is one of the reasons that I began to write this blog last year. If institutions embrace new technologies for their own business processes, robust systems would develop and wouldn't it make perfect sense for teaching staff using new learning technologies for their own CPD.

The team here at the RSC endeavour to use the technologies that we advocate whenever possible and I do feel that it provides us with a real insight into the issues that will crop up for the people that we support in the post 16 education sector. It's really invaluable and I'd certainly recommend that learning by doing yourself will help to you to introduce ICT into the curriculum more effectively.

Joan

Stefani, L. (2003) ‘PDP/CPD and e-portfolios: rising to the challenge of modelling good practice’ [online], Association for Learning Technology. Available from: http://www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc