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Article Excerpt
A constant challenge facing university faculty and academics is determining how innovative and authentic elements, based on constructivist philosophy, can be manifested effectively in online learning settings. In this article, we describe an educational technology postgraduate course on evaluation that incorporated a scenario whereby assessable tasks were grounded within the context of a fictitious consultancy company. The scenario was driven by the use of a fictitious character--a "remote" Chief Executive Office (CEO) and the reconfiguration of the teacher as a company-recruited Academic Advisor. Characters were used as a motivational device to drive the online activity for the course, which was delivered completely online. The evaluation findings highlighted that whilst the company scenario and use of character did provide an authentic learning experience for most students, its use required considerable support and scaffolding in order to maximise its potential to facilitate an engaging and authentic learning environment. This article describes the rationale for the course redesign, explains the approach taken to evaluate the effectiveness of its implementation and presents the findings of the evaluation.
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Teachers have long recognised the importance of anchoring learning within real-life contexts. Approaches to the design of learning environments, influenced by constructivist philosophy, have changed the way many students learn and the way many teachers teach. With the increase in learning affordances provided largely by information and communication technologies, there has been a great deal of research and development in refining constructivist approaches to the design of learning environments, such as anchored instruction (Bransford, Sherwood, Hasselbring, Kinzer, & Williams, 1990), problem-based learning (Boud & Feletti, 1997; Evensen & Hmelo, 2000), situated learning (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Herrington & Oliver, 2000) and scenario-based learning (Kindley, 2002; Wu, Huang, Chen, & Wu, 2003). All of these approaches aim to enhance the opportunities for students to engage with authentic situations and tasks which facilitate immersion with the content within realistic situations.
Many teachers and academics are now "moving online," either willingly or as a requirement of their teaching program, and for many, the prospect of teaching online presents a formidable challenge. A great deal has been written about the theoretical constructs and characteristics that underpin successful learning environments, but a challenge persistently facing academics is how these characteristics can be manifested effectively in an online learning setting.
The purpose of this article is to disseminate some ideas about how this challenge can be addressed by describing how an online learning environment, underpinned by constructivist principles, was designed and implemented totally online. Furthermore, how the environment was evaluated to determine its effectiveness once implemented, is also explored.
CONTEXT
An online course/subject on Evaluation and Implementation of Technology-Based Learning required redesign. The course was an educational technology postgraduate course and it was to be delivered, first, to a predominantly off-shore student cohort and then to a national student cohort comprising both on-campus and off-campus students. The content scope and overall objectives of the course were to remain the same as the previous implementation, however the subject structure, activities, and resources required modification for both practical and pedagogical reasons. First, the Faculty was expanding flexible learning opportunities to its students, and wanted to explore strategies to facilitate multiple modes of delivery in its courses. Second, the exposure to a variety of resources that represent multiple perspectives seemed an ideal opportunity to allow students to build their own understanding.
Constructivist learning principles such as: learning is a process of construction, learning occurs through social negotiation of meaning, learning is contextually mediated, and reflective thinking is an ultimate goal (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996; Jonassen, Mayes, & McAleese, 1993; Robyler, Edwards, & Havriluk, 1997) served as an overall guide for the team's redesign decisions.
The team was interested at a more specific level to explore the use of scenarios to provide an authentic context for the evaluation strategies that the students would undertake in the course. Scenario-based learning has been used effectively in a variety of training situations, and has been particularly effective in the service industries. In simulated scenarios, students are led through a typical encounter with a customer, with pathways leading to an outcome indicating success or failure (Kindley, 2002; Whitcomb, 1999; Wu et al., 2003). While elements of this approach, such as the use of a real context and a learner-centred focus, were deemed appropriate, other characteristics of the approach did not apply to the more complex, problem-solving approach appropriate at the postgraduate level of study. For example, Kindley (2002) advocated that scenario-based learning occurs by following "success and failure paths" that are limited in scope to prevent the scenario becoming too complex. In keeping with a more constructivist philosophy, the team felt it important to maintain complexity rather than minimise it, but to emphasise instead the collaborative nature of the environment and the scaffolding support provided by the teacher. In another difference, Kindley and Wu et al. (2003) argued that...
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