Flexible Learning in Higher Education

John Arfield, Keith Hodgkinson, Alison Smith, Winnie Wade, Arfield, John, Hodgkinson, Keith, Smith, Alison, Wade, Winnie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780749414184
• eBook ISBN: 9781135355814
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Analyzing the collective experiences of staff from a variety of departments within organizations of higher and further education, this study demonstrates how flexible learning strategies have been adopted to face new challenges.

Part One: Broad Issues in Flexible Learning

Chapter One
Flexible Provision for Student Diversity

Keith Hodgkinson

Expansion and diversity

In planning to expand higher education provision in the 1990s the govern ment clearly intended to widen access to non-traditional groups. As a consequence, 'Not only will entry requirements and procedures have to be changed; institutions of higher education will have to adapt their teaching methods and the design of their courses to accommodate new types of student' (DES, 1987).

If by 'traditional students' is meant a homogeneous group aged 18 -21, white, British, middle-class and 'hardly ever ugly' (Tight, 1988), then the characteristic of non-st andard students is the extent of their heterogeneity. They come in all shapes and sizes, with or without formal qualifications, at any age and in very individual personal and economic circumstances. Localized research indicates considerable differences in patterns of recruit ment between institutions even within the same geographical region. Intake figures vary partly as a reflection of different application, admissions and recording practices, and partly by academic subject strengths. Total numbers of non- standard students are rarely high (MacDonald, 1992) except for those institutions such as the Open University and Birkbeck College, London, which specialize in non-standard provision. Elsewhere the one reasonably common trend would seem to be the increase in the pressure for vocational academic courses from women returnees (Hart, 1988). Moreover, one of the effects of increasingly mixed modes of provi sion in higher education has been the blurring of the once-clear distinction between full-and part-time modes of study, between the mature student and the schoolleaver, between European and domestic students.

Policy and action

By the essentially egalitarian terms of their charters, universities and colleges have always been reluctant to make discriminatory policy in favour of what are seen as minority groups. The furthest that institutions are normally prepared to go is to develop equal opportunity clauses in line with statements of support for non-standard students. Historically there has been a gradual and steady translation of generalized public policy by even the most traditional of Higher Education institutions. Separate teach ing or welfare units have been set up to cover specific needs on demand. Such support mechanisms have sometimes been under-recognized and under-fin anced but their committees rarely ask for cost-benefit accounting. Often the institution is very aware that gains are made in PR terms. In sum, there has been a localized, flexible and increasingly regularized and more appropr iately funded response in recent years.

It is debatable whether such a development indicates 'a genuine desire to open up higher educational opportunities to mature students and others from non-traditional backgrounds', or 'an expedient means to compensate for demographic changes which have cut back on institutions' traditional intakes' (Tight, 1988). In traditional institutions, such flexibility as has been developed is therefore usually a product of individual or departmental initiative often in the face of political pressures to, for instance, increase admission points or improve quality through efficiency.

Diversity by locality and degree subject makes an appropriate response less likely at the institutional level. In the absence of well-founded national statistics there is clearly a great danger of ad hoc reactions to individual student needs by individual course tutors. The proactive design of flexible courses for student diversity needs to be related to global trends in order to anticipate and respond to further demand.

Flexibility for diversity

There are a number of general points to be made about flexible responses to student diversity. First, regulations can be modified to allow for a higher proportion of wider access students as in the English Access and the Scottish Wider Access and Mature Student Entry programmes. Induction can be smoothed by the development of pre-course study skills teaching and, for overseas groups, language and cultural adjustment programmes. For students on courses requiring linear learning, such as maths, physics, chemistry and languages, the prerequisite for a standard level of 'hard' knowledge can be met by specific 'Return to study' courses. Mid-course modules may also need to be preceded by similar units plus appropriate counselling.

Flexibility should thus extend well beyond technical matters of qualifica tion and intellectual suitability. Academic success will very much depend on the meeting of other needs, whether social, dietary, spiritual or domestic. Much depends on students' linguistic and cultural background, learning skills and methods of study experience, and the meeting of sometimes very personal needs, eg family settlement, needs of children in schools and the process of cultural adjustment. For non-standard students the notion of course or study flexibility will present problems in terms of their expectations and of their perception of standards and legitimacy (Weil, 1986). Students from socially and politically repressive regimes, for example, may approach loosely structured and non-authoritarian study practices very differently from those from more liberal backgrounds.

Generic information retrieval and investigation skills need to be taught by student support and library services. For this, entry skills for information work need to be identified and more advanced information skills should be offered before major project and research activity. More specific library skills programmes should be keyed into departmental requirements and made available on demand for non-standard groups or designed as flexible self-teaching units.

Flexible course design will only meet the needs of non-standard students when strong support mechanisms, the infrastructure of diversity, are in place.

Mature students

Financial considerations will colour the interest of mature students in tradi tional courses since their grant-earning capacity as fully independent students is frequently more than offset by the need to meet accumulated commitments. In a recession, redundancy and early retirement create a buoyant market for higher education but students seeking a second career may compete only for places on vocational courses with a strong employ ment payoff. For those without sufficient support, part-time courses are a particularly attractive option. Thus the distinction between mature and part-time groups is easily blurred and so for our purposes the two groups will be considered together. The particular needs of mature students are discussed further in Chapter 4.

Part-time students

Those part-time and mature students who have experienced twilight, home or worked- based learning programmes will already be familiar with many features of flexible learning and will have well-developed time manage ment skills. Their experience could be exploited by encouraging them to share with traditional students who will be less secure in flexible environ ments. On the other hand some may prefer more tightly structured courses in order to maximize their limited time and opportunities for learning. They may find the traditional lecture/seminar format more stimulating and more efficient for their needs. Their right to opt out of as well as in to flexi ble learning schedules must be acknowledged.

Much flexibility can be built into the timing of course modules using Summer School, weekend and twilight teaching. Flexibility is needed in access to tutors and to tutorials since part-time students may or may not want twilight teaching. Similarly, provision of study facilities for 'day' students needs to be widened. Library and computing services need to be flexible, with generous opening hours more sensitive to student demand and a flexible range of loan periods.

Technical developments, though initially very expensive, would open up more versatile study practices. Lap-top word processors, e-mail links and international computer networking will allow part-timers to continue to study in the home and in the workplace. Teleconferencing would encour age tutors to design courses around group and syndicated learning and would reduce problems of tutor-student access. Off-site library access will enhance study patterns and will help to level out the differences between residential and off-site activity.

Finally, it is important to recognize that part-timers may either be in work or out of work. The former have transferable skills and experience to be recognized. Both sub-groups need prior learning and achievement to be recognized via credit transfer.

Disabled students

A generation of disabled students has now benefited from support from specifically appointed tutors and units within Higher Education institu tions. Unfortunately, statistics on the pattern of disabled student participa tion in higher education are not very meaningful, relying, as they do, on self-disclosure on the UCAS application form. The government collects and publishes only figures on the registered disabled, which can be very misleading in terms of actual student needs. Carefully worded institutional literature has encouraged applicants to volunteer information on needs such as epilepsy and dyslexia which they might otherwise fear to admit. Discussion with administrators and responsible tutors has provided the author with anecdotal evidence that, in fact, something like 2 to 5 per cent of students currently request support on arrival.

In a sense, an appropriate response to an individual student need repre sents a flexible learning initiative. Traditionally-taught courses present disabled students with many fairly obvious physical barriers to learning (Griffiths et al., 1993). Any study programme dependent on core lectures in traditional lecture theatres will present specific problems. These include for example:

• wheelchair access and participation
• deafness
  • - with or without an induction loop system
  • - lip reading of a moving lecturer
• blindness/partially sighted
  • - OHP/board clarity (especially in maths)
• dyslexia
  • - note-ma king (see Aspden and Hinton, 1993).

Many difficulties could be removed or reduced by technical and therefore expensive modifications to the lecturing environment, such as ramps and lifts, modified doorways, space clearance at the front or centre, tape record ing and pre-lect ure recording or handouts. The primary source of such information is to be found in Part M of the current Building Regulations (Department of the Environment, 1992) which cover all new buildings and major rebuilding projects. Older structures present more serious problems and may require professional advice and discussion with individual students. The attendance of a British Sign Language interpreter provides satisfactory communication at all venues except, possibly, for open discus sion groups. Pre-lecture communication between interpreter and tutor should avoid frantic finger-spelling (slower than BSL) of unexpected tech nical terminology. Visually impaired students now have access to larger print through more sophisticated copying, and Braille now extends to tactile diagrams of various types (Hinton, 1993). Course guides and flexible learning packs should be available in such modified forms.

In many respects the move towards flexible learning creates enormous advantages for disabled students. They have more to gain than most people from information technology. Adapted terminals in each teaching room are still needed, but a well-resourced residential room will include adapted networking and e-mail facilities as well as personal access to library and other information sources. Peer discussion and collaborative work may be organized in such accommodation. Self-paced study releases those with particular medical needs from their dependence on fixed lecture timings, as exemplified by a mathematical sciences student in Chapter 9.

The final point is that for all of these provisions the real expert is the disabled student. It is all too easy for well-intentioned and even experi enced providers to embark on their own solutions without consulting the individual student who is to receive 'benefit'. The student must be involved in the planning and be empowered to influence the decisions of profes sional advisers, yet not be made to feel the weight of responsi bility for future learning. There is a fine balance to be struck between overzealous and overbearing provision, however sensitive and 'flexible', and responsive and supportive enablement.

Overseas students

Types of student need and social expectation will vary enormously. The study requirements of most courses create general linguistic and social barriers, but these needs cannot be considered or dealt with en bloc. Apart from specific language backgrounds, there are many pitfalls for the unwary tutor. For example, North American, EC and ex-Commonwealth/Pakistan students do not necessarily speak English or have experience of Roman script. Those from authoritarian or very traditional (and sometimes formerly British colonial) educational backgrounds may need induction into western-European learning processes. The concept of open libraries, where literature is available on open shelves without ordering and there is unrestricted access to information, may come as a considerable culture shock. Some cultures do not accord equal status to female staff and some have a very keen awareness of the significance of professional and acade mic hierarchy. A period of disorientation will precede acclimatization and acculturation.

Many overseas students will therefore require strong personal and acad emic support before starting their courses. Departmental personal tutoring systems should prepare for problems of isolation and identity crisis which can be worsened by the lack of a compulsory structure at the centre of a course. The provision of specialist teaching to individuals and necessarily small groups across the campus makes the establishment of a properly funded support structure a matter of central planning and provision. Language support units struggle to gain academic recognition while they are insecurely staffed and find research work inappropriate. Study skills programmes need to be carefully designed to take account of individual differences, especially where information retrieval and manipulation are concerned. Library staff need to interact with other service groups.

Overseas students may not have encountered many flexible learning techniques. They may be unused to open discussion with tutors or even with their peers. The notion of peer discussion, student-led tutorials/semi nars, conferencing, syndicated study groups and team assessment may be anathema to students, as indicative of lower standards. Their performance, initially, may be held back if study modes require mature social interaction and well-developed social skills. Initiative may have to be explained and fostered. On the other hand many may well be very experienced in individ ualized work.

The future?

Market forces alone may not be enough to encourage universities to develop increasingly diverse patterns of teaching and study opportunities. In the next few years increasingly diverse student populations, constraints on student funding and the subsequent development of loans may well lead many more undergraduates to look to their local university for their first and higher degrees. A rise in residential costs and the consequent reduction in the number of campus- based students will increase the pres sure to provide a wider and more flexible base of study facilities and to open up teaching hours within a standard week and academic year. On and off-site movement and learning links will destroy the traditional isola tionism of the campus and of restricted notions of academic values.

Improved information technology will undoubtedly increase the versatil ity of learning patterns especially for non-standard student groups. Inter regional and international links at cheap telephone rates (via fibre-optic tech...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART ONE: BROAD ISSUES IN FLEXIBLE LEARNING
• PART TWO: FLEXIBLE LEARNING IN ACTION- INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDIES
• PART THREE: THE STUDENT VIEW OF FLEXIBLE LEARNING
• Index