Combining reusable learning resources and services to pedagogical purpuseful units of learning

ion of pedagogy In an ideal world of reusable learning objects, all objects could be udes by a teacher for a course, irrespective of the pedagogy or 'learning design'. Let’s explore this assumption further. When teachers have to design or plan a lesson or course, there are several ways they can proceed (Hoogveld et al, 2001). Vermunt and Verloop (1999) have identified that the majority of teachers employ an implicit design idea based on ‘knowledge transmission’. When preparing a lesson or course (subsequently termed a ‘unit of learning’), they think about the content, the potential resources (texts, figures, tools), the sequence of topics and how to assess the learners. In this way, the teacher is designing his or her own teaching activities within the context of a specific teaching environment. Students expect straightforward activities in order to learn: listening, taking notes and thinking. So not much effort has to be put into the design of these activities. If these teachers design e-learning courses using the transmission model, they proceed along the same lines: deciding on content, resources, the sequence of the topics and work within the constraints of the e-learning environment. The older instructional design approaches (e.g. Bloom, 1956; Glaser, 1977; Gagné & Briggs, 1979; Merrill, 1988; Reigeluth, 1989) are based upon this model and these still form the basis of many teacher training courses. However, these instructional design models include a “cascade” approach to design which begins with an analysis of the learning objectives and learning outcomes. In practice, this cascade approach is seldom followed and most teachers start to think in terms of the content instead of the objectives, which often remain unarticulated. In many countries worldwide, this rather traditional view of education is rapidly changing. Many educational institutions and training companies are adopting new approaches in order to increase their effectiveness (Koper, 2000). The demand for change arises from several factors, including: • The need for a more individualized, personalized approach to learning. Cognitive research has shown that knowledge cannot be transferred, but is (re-)built within a cognitive framework (schema, mental model) in the long term memory by each individual (Mayer, 1992, p.431; Winn & Snyder, 1996). The creation of these frameworks is dependent on each learner’s cognitive style. • The need for collaboration, discussion and product creation. Research in (social) constructivism has shown that dialogue and context both play an important part in learning (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996; Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O'Malley, 1996). • The need to focus more on teaching complex skills, such as analysis and critiquing, instead of transferring chunks of information (Van Merriënboer, 1997). • The focus on life long learning and the need for the accreditation of previously acquired competences (Klarus & Nieskens, 1999; MEA, 2000). For example training companies now focus on performance improvement instead of knowledge transfer (Stolovitch & Keeps, 1999). One of the major shifts in these new approaches to learning is that more emphasis in placed upon the design of learning activities for learners, instead of the content to be transferred through teachers’ activities. The key problem in education is to make learners active by providing them with a range of tasks, problems and prompts (here referred to as ‘learning activities’) to stimulate thinking, discussion and learning. In addition, it is essential that educational institutions can assess the performance and competences of learners in a valid and comparable way. The role of the teacher is changing: they are now being asked to think from the perspective of the learner and to place themselves in a supporting role while designing courses. Learners have to be more responsible for their own learning, as advocated by scholars such as Shuell (1988, 1993). In response to these new approaches to learning and teaching, new instructional/learning design approaches have been devised (see for example Reigeluth, 1999 for an overview). So, when learning technology is said to be ‘pedagogically neutral’, it should be able to support both ends of the spectrum of approaches to teaching (from knowledge transfer to active learning) and any model in between: 1. Technology designed to search, order and package resources in a way that fits into the traditional view of teaching. The basic components in this approach are the ‘resources’ or ‘learning objects’. 2. Technology designed to stimulate learning activities, discussions and advanced assessment at the other end of the spectrum (see, for example, Colloquia by Liber,O., Olivier,B. and Britain,S. (2000) as well as other collaborative environments). The basic components in this approach are the ‘services’ which support the learning process (such as email and discussion fora). In practice, learning technology specifications are not neutral to these perspectives. For example the IMS Content Packaging specification (http://imsproject.org), the ADL SCORM (http://www.adlnet.org) and the IEEE LTSC LOM (http://ltsc.ieee.org) pertain to a traditional approach to learning, though most of these specifications claim to be ‘neutral’ to pedagogy. What this means in reality is that, given the traditional pedagogical model described above, teachers can apply whatever learning strategy (sequence and aggregation level of learning objects) they want. More advanced environments can also personalize the learning strategy according to certain criteria. In this way the learning technologies are not prescriptive nor expressive. (For example,when writing a poem with MS WORD the editor does not force you to write a specific kind of rhyme schema for the poem (prescriptive) nor does it express the syntax/structure of the poem at all: it isn't even aware of the fact that you are writing a poem). Collaborative environments used in education are focussed primary on the second pedagogical model described above (promoting active learning). In this model, the collaborative learning environment is used to support the sharing of ideas and resources through discussions which aim to stimulate the creation of new ideas. In this case, the reuse of shared content is not really a problem the main issue is the reuse and sharing of ideas. However, the arrangement of the collaborative environment can be reused and described by a learning design which enables collaborative learning. In practice, most teachers applying modern pedagogies use a more eclectic stance (Roblyer & Edwards, 2000): sometimes they use principles gleaned from the resource based approach and at other times they use a more constructivist approach. In our view, a modern e-learning environment, including the underlying learning technology specifications and standards, should support pedagogies coming from both ends of the spectrum. Not by being ignorant of the pedagogy, not by being prescriptive in any of the hundreds of different pedagogical models around (for example Koper, 2001), but to allow the pedagogical model to be explicit. Abstraction of contextion of context In an ideal world, learning resources would be developed independently of the setting, in order that they can be reused in other contexts. However, teachers normally design within the context of the educational setting. There are several ways we can think about this. Educational settings are defined by the organization of the educational institution: individuals as well as groups of people who are engaged in learning at a certain time/place and have the means by which to organise the educational experience. Educational settings can be as follows: Campus based education and training; Distance education and training; Situated learning; Informal education and training. When designing e-learning within one or more of these contexts, teachers in campus based education usually consider the possibility of face-to-face meetings, last minute changes, an institutional environment where copyright is less restrictive, a tradition of exams and so on. As a result, the e-learning products which are successful in residential settings are often difficult to use in other contexts, such as distance education. Within most institutions of distance education working in knowledge transfer mode, most teacher activities are ‘baked into’ the learning materials, reducing the requirement for expensive distance contact. Examples include learning objectives, self tests and student portfolios. Real collaborative environments, based on the group model, are seldom used by institutions of distance learning, because groupwork is difficult to organize in settings where students can learn at their own pace, in their own time and location. The same is true for the other two settings. In general, when designing resources, teachers take into consideration the constraints of the educational setting, resulting in resources which are context dependent and less reusable in other settings. Abstraction of mediaion of media In an ideal situation learning resources would be produced such that the same content could be published or used in different formats. This could be achieved by applying a specific stylesheet to suit each format. Furthermore, the format should be selected after a teacher knows what to teach and who will be the students (see the classical medium selection models, for example from Romiszowski, 1988). In practice, however, when designing a course, teachers first decide upon the media. When a teacher writes a text, it may not be in the best format to publish on the web, alternatively when a teacher produces a website, it may cause problems for students trying to print out the text. This makes learning resources difficult to reuse in other formats (see Koper, 1989).