Using Technology in Teaching and Learning

Liz Barnett, David Brunne, Pal Maier, Adam Warren, Barnett, Liz, Brunne, David, Maier, Pal, Warren, Adam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138421219
• eBook ISBN: 9781136356674
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1997. The infrastructure for using new technologies is already being established in many areas of society and there will be an explosion of their use. This comprehensive guide looks at the issues involved in integrating these learning technologies within teaching and learning. The book is full of activities, case studies and notes with areas that include: educational perspectives; developing new teaching strategies for larger student groups; using computers to deliver teaching and learning resources; and using computers to communicate with an between students. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in using technology to enhance their teaching and learning. To be used in conjunction with Technology in Teaching and Learning An Introductory Guide.

1 Educational perspectives

1.1 Why change how we teach in higher education?

This resource learning pack is all about innovation and change in teaching and learning in higher education. Its focus is on the roles of information technology and computer technology in improving the quality of teaching and learning, and on looking to future possibilities and challenges.

But why bother? Why change?

For most of us, there are likely to be two primary motivations — or types of pressure —to change:

• external — changes in who we teach, what we teach, what resources are a vailable to us for teaching, and how our teaching is judged by others; developments in educational research, which highlight alternative approaches to teaching and learning
• internal — personal interest in improving and developing our teaching, based on current experience.

If your motivation for picking up this package is primarily personal — perhaps you are facing a particular teaching problem, and are looking for ways to solve it — it may be worth going directly to the sections on teaching and learning. You can always come back to this section later!

If you have a more general interest in exploring why and how you might change the way you are teaching now, it will be worth spending some more time on considering the effects that external pressures are having on you. Different pressures will suggest different options for change. The following pages look at some of these pressures, which you will find grouped into four key categories:

• pressure from changes in the students we teach
• pressure from new public expectations of higher education
• pressure from the impact of technology on the production and dissemination of knowledge itself
• developments in educational research which suggest more effective and efficient approaches to teaching and learning.

1.1.1 Changes in the students we teach

The first and most obvious change is in the nature of the student body itself.

• Student intake has more than doubled since 1982 — and this has not been matched by a commensurate increase in numbers of lecturers, nor in resources for support of teaching.
• Entry qualifications have changed, with more students entering on the basis of 'non-traditional' qualifications.
• Mature student intake has risen considerably. For example in the United States between 1980-1990, student enrolment for those under 25 years increased by 3%, compared to a 34% increase in enrolments for students over 25 years.¹
• There are more overseas students, both from Europe and from further afield.
• There are more part-time students, often faced with both family and employment pressures on top of their degree work.

As a university lecturer today, you are likely to be facing much larger and more diverse classes than you would have done ten — or even five — years ago. Yet much of university education is still geared to the lecture/seminar/tutorial (and sometimes laboratory/practical) system. It is heavily dependent on the face-to-face contact between lecturer and student which you yourself probably experienced. There is ample evidence to indicate that on the whole, teachers are prone to replicate the teaching they have experienced — unless they actively pursue development in this field. The difficulty with trying to continue today what has been done in the past is that it will inevitably put an ever-growing strain on you as you try to provide adequate support to students. Furthermore, given the current student body, this system may simply not work as well as it used to.

Figure 1.1 highlights some of the pressures created by increased numbers and diversity. You will find several of these issues picked up again later in the teaching and learning sections.

J.M. Consulting, HEFCE Publication (1997)¹

Figure 1.1

There are further important, but less obvious, changes in students. First, an increasing proportion are contributing much more of their own money towards their education —leading to an increasing 'consumer orientation' within higher education. This adds two new pressures:

• Increasing questioning by students of what they are 'getting for their money' —raising the importance of taking on board student feedback about courses and addressing student concerns.
• Greater expectation from students that their higher education will somehow improve their employment prospects, and will start to provide them with some of the skills they need for work — making it more important for universities to consider the extent to which degree courses should and can be seen as preparation for employment.

Secondly, many students are entering higher education with a different level of awareness about IT and computers than we, their predecessors, did. They (and their future employers) increasingly expect not only access to new technology, but also experience in developing their skills in its use.

To put this point into context, look at Activity 1A on page 6. In the first column are a range of possible IT skills we might expect students to develop. Looking back, five years ago we probably wouldn't have expected any of them. But what of today? Look down the list and tick those you would expect of your current students. Then look at the next column to assess for yourself whether the courses in your department do anything to help students develop these skills. Finally, are there adequate facilities to enable students to practise their IT skills?

Personal experience with computers and research both demonstrate that IT competence can be achieved only through regular, frequent use of IT. If students need these skills in the future, and have already started to develop them prior to entering university, it is the duty of university teachers to strengthen and develop these skills. This does not simply mean telling students that essays must be word processed: it involves providing tuition on IT skills, getting students to apply those skills in a variety of ways, and finding ways of assessing them. This pressurises us to change what and how we teach, for core IT skills need to be embedded in the curriculum.

This book is not specifically designed to help students to develop IT skills. However, many of the ideas in the other sections will contribute to this.

Activity 1A Your expectations of student IT skills

1.1.2 Public and political expectations of higher education

Beyond students, there is a wider public with an important stake in higher education. This includes:

• public and private sector employers of graduate students
• the bodies funding higher education (especially the HEFCE)
• central government
• the tax payer
• the individual sponsors of students (parents, students themselves, employers etc)

These groups are increasingly demanding that higher education accounts for the public funds it gets. They also expect higher education to pay greater attention to the relevance of student degree programmes to their future employment prospects.

Public accountability in higher education

The most obvious manifestation of the 'accoun...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Educational perspectives
• 2 Larger student groups: developing new teaching strategies
• 3 Using computers to deliver teaching and learning resources
• 4 Using computers to communicate with and between students