Ben R. Atkinson

In this final CRJ post for my PGCHE course, I wanted to reflect back on my learning as a whole in both the EDU720 and EDU710 modules.

It was when completing a second self-evaluation against the UKPSF (something I also did back in Week 1 of the first EDU710 module) that I realised just how far I’d come over the course of this PGCHE. I now have a diverse collection of experiences which I can draw on in my future practice, including being able to plan modules more thoroughly, write an assessment and feedback strategy and defend this to a group of senior academics and, most importantly, understand the diverse way in which students learn – bringing me to the realisation that the student learning is far more important than what I am actually teaching.

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This week’s learning activities which focused on the challenging aspects of facilitating online learning environments proved to be very interesting and thought-provoking in a way I had not considered before. Obviously, with any teaching task, you think first about the LOs and the approach to teaching, as well as the way students learn and the accessibility of learning for all students. But, in some cases, particularly with a fully online course, there are additional elements that require much consideration. Most paramount among these is how you will deal with any challenging events or behaviour in an environment where teaching is delivered fully online.

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I found the learning activities for this week and the focus on the CEG pedagogic framework a very useful way in to thinking about the design of online learning environments and in particular, online programmes of study. This last few weeks where we have focused on ‘online learning’ has been particularly interesting for me, as it’s not an area of teaching and learning practice in which I’ve previously had any experience. Therefore, I have learnt a lot about the way that certain online activities should be ‘staged’ to signpost students through the process of learning online. Often this kind of learning happens individually at any hour of the day or night, so it’s important that students are able to navigate through the resources and associated learning tasks in their own time. Moreover, there are particular benefits to colour coding various activities as they align the framework. Although I have to admit, this is not something I had picked up on within this PGCHE course until it was pointed out to me!

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This week’s topic of ‘Choosing Technology for Online Learning’ was particularly interesting to me, as in my current institution, the University of Lincoln, I am the Digital Education Developer (Learning Technologist) for the College of Arts. As such, I felt there was a lot I could bring to the discussion around the choice of learning technologies, however this did mean that I sometimes found it hard to navigate a path between the knowledge of learning tech that I already had and the exploration of new tools and platforms.

Thinking firstly about the learning technologies we use on a day-to-day basis, I decided to frame my response around the core tools that we support at Lincoln. The approach that we take at the institution involves have a ‘core’ suite of tools which are supported by the University and further outer rings of tools which can be used but may not be directly supported. Information on the core tools is available on our LALT blog. As such, I focused on technologies for video (Panopto), collaboration on the web (Collaborate Ultra), marking and assessment (Turnitin) and live audience response (Poll Everywhere). My own list of tools received some good responses from my peers, with Carols Garde-Martin taking forward Poll Everywhere as a tool to pilot later in the week and both Graham and Jill pointing out that the list was ‘useful stuff to know’ (Dunn, 2019). It was interesting to see what other colleagues suggested in this forum, particularly the use of Minecraft for Education which James C recommended (James C, 2019). I knew of the platform as a game, but was not aware that Microsoft had developed a version for education which has a specific application within the creative arts. I must admit, I did download the software and had a go – but I’m afraid I just couldn’t get my head around it. Perhaps this is one technology where the students are best leading the way. Finally for this section, I found Federica’s list late in the week when reviewing the forum and have to say it is a fantastic resource covering a full range of learning technologies that could be applied to any form of teaching and learning practice (Orandini, 2019). This list is a collection of all the ideas suggested by students on the module and it proves just how many varied approaches to technology there are and how useful they can be to pedagogic practice within higher education.

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Starting off in Week 8 of this EDU720 module, there was a focus on how our thoughts about designing key considerations related to designing learning environments in HE might differ between the traditional and online. This was a great way to segue into the second half of the module and there were some interesting ideas shared on the forum. For my part, I referred back to what we had studied in earlier weeks and the prior EDU710 module to come up with a list that encapsulated ‘the approach you wish to take’, ‘how you will assess’ and the ‘kind of students’ that are being taught. For this, I took a lot from MacDonald and her advice on blending learning and online tutoring where it is important to ‘understand what it is they [the students] are expected to learn, how they are expected to get there and in what timescale’ (Macdonald, 2006). This point of understanding the students is, I feel, particularly important as it informs all other aspects of curriculum design. I was pleased to get feedback from Federica who agree that ‘it can be quite important, especially with large cohort courses, to really be confident of the full range of ‘learning styles and needs’ that might be spread across the cohort’ (Orandini, 2019). We also agreed on the creative approach of module design which can be one of the most fun aspects of the task.

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