Abstract
For many educators, the adoption of learning technologies as part of a ‘technology-enhanced’ approach to learning and teaching implies change. Technology takes on a disruptive role. Therefore, it is important to understand the pedagogical commitments associated with current practices in order to better understand any change implied by the use of particular technology ‘enhancements’. This article reports on a case study of the change experienced by one tertiary educator in the shift from successful on campus to flexible online teaching in an undergraduate Numeracy course. The study addresses the question: How do teaching academics translate a robust, proven on-campus course into a successful, flexibly delivered technology-enhanced course? The case employs an autoethnographic approach to recording and analysing the educator’s experiences to highlight comparisons between on-campus (face-to-face) and online teaching practices. The findings support the conclusion that ‘good teaching is good teaching’, based on sound pedagogical principles, regardless of the mode of delivery, but that the enactment of those principles in face-to-face and online learning environments differs in significant ways.
Highlights
The application of networked computing and communications technology to create a technology-enhanced version of educational programs is commonplace in higher education
Key framing questions included: How do teaching academics translate a robust, proven on-campus course into a successful, flexibly delivered online course? What technological and pedagogical skills are required? How do they experience this change in the shift from on campus to online teaching?
They are aligned with the work of Coomey and Stephenson (2001) whose literature review of online teaching practices foreshadowed the experiences of the first author with respect to the categories of (a) dialogue which includes teacher-student and student-student communication leading to an ongoing dialogue or conversation which is part of interactive learning such as the social constructivist approach used in this case; (b) involvement which describes active engagement, of students in productive learning activity; (c) support or ‘learner support’, which involves anticipating and responding to learners needs as part of facilitating productive learning activity (Thorpe, 2002) and (d) control or, learner control, with respect to pacing, timing and management of the learning process
Summary
The application of networked computing and communications technology to create a technology-enhanced version of educational programs is commonplace in higher education (de Laat, Lally, Lipponen, & Simons, 2007; Larreamendy-Jones & Leinhardt, 2006; Laurillard, Oliver, Wasson, & Hoppe, 2009). An increasing number of teaching academics have been required due to technological innovation and university initiatives to teach in an online space As they have been required to adopt technology to enhance their courses, they have been confronted with several difficult unknowns: (a) the unknown affordances of available technologies, (b) the unknown of unfamiliar technology-mediated practice contexts and (c) the unknown of implied changes from current practices to something ‘technology enhanced’. Exploration to identify the effects of these disruptions on (a) teacher intentions and beliefs and (b) teaching practice, with the use of technology (Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Sadik, Sendurur, & Sendurur, 2012) may provide better understanding to support the transition from face-to-face to blended or online teaching and learning. Within the overall program development project, each individual course was planned, designed and developed for flexible delivery in two modes: a blended ‘on campus’ experience and a wholly online ‘off campus’ version. The experiences described are part of the design, development and teaching of the online offering
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