#Design4Learning 2014 Conference: From blended learning to learning analytics in HE: Theme 2 - State of the art?

1. Theme 2: State of the Art?
Transformational Learning
Design for Open and
Blended Learning
George Roberts
Oxford Brookes University
27 November 2014

2. Acknowledgements
• Richard Francis
– Francis, R & Roberts, G. 2014. “Where Is the New
Blended Learning? Whispering Corners of the Forum.”
Brookes Electronic Journal of Learning and Teaching
(BeJLT) 6 (1)
– http://bejlt.brookes.ac.uk/paper/where-is-the-new-blended-
learning-whispering-corners-of-the-forum/
• Frances Deepwell
• Mary Dean
• Greg Benfield

3. Conundrum
Practical Wisdom
Activity
Experience
Dialogue
Reflection
Participation
Community

4. Blended learning design
• Activity
– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience
– self-evaluative, practitioner-centered, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue
– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection
– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation
– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community
– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes

9. Snapping at the heels of the
state of the art

10. Actually existing art
• Closed online
• Open online
• Flipped
• Blended
• Accredited or not
• Traditional modular
• CPD

11. Activity
Affective recall
Think of a learning situation, a
course, module, CPD workshop, etc,
where you felt anxious,
disempowered, uncertain.
With a neighbour, in pairs, interview
each other, 3 minutes each way:
• Can you characterise the things
that made you feel that way?
Paintings by Theodore Zeldin

12. Conundrum
• Why do we still find learners,
institutions and the curriculum in
such tension over technology
enhanced learning (TEL), in an
environment of ambiguity, anxiety,
power and ideology (Morrison
2014)?

13. A journey of the mind
Through quite abstract
spaces
Challenge our thinking
about technology
enhanced learning
The role and place of
universities in the vast
virtualised spaces that
we have created

16. The blended learning debate has
been locked in antagonisms
Poly-valent, multimodal tensions: bits v. atoms, virtual v. real, totalising grand
narratives v. little local initiatives v. essentialist techno-optimism v. neo-classical or
traditional Luddism v. hyper-relativist social media identity play, etc etc

17. flexible, active,
collaborative
and
professionally
authentic
pedagogies

18. “... an
industrialised
process, on a
truly massive
scale, made
possible by
new
technology.”

19. the
landscape of
the virtual
world has
altered
beyond
recognition

21. It is difficult to argue that the
physical and virtual dimensions of
the learning experience are still
distinct, or in any way opposed.

23. In practice, the pedagogical models
have hardly changed at all

24. a place
between the
virtual and the
real, whose
genius loci is
the teacher
the main function of teaching is to
inspire learners to venture into
unfamiliar territory

25. Where change has been most evident
• Blending the once largely distinct
domains of “learning” and “socialising”
• Foregrounding the transactional
component of the social learning space
as a “one stop shop” for student services

26. Have we failed?
Pedagogically

27. Learners create their own
learning environment outside,
inside and in-despite of the
intentions of the institution or
the designer.

28. Viceroy’s Palace
Tavern of
revolution

29. It is the ‘inter’ … the inbetween space
– that carries the burden of the
meaning of culture...
And by exploring this Third Space, we
may elude the politics of polarity and
emerge as the others of our selves.
(Bhabha 2004)

30. the space of both
community and
identity

31. In this sense of liminality,
discomfort and uncertainty,
blended learning might be seen as
a threshold concept

32. Where once the
Internet seemed a vast
third space, it now
appears hegemonised
by contingent global
forces where
international
competition is
normalised and
consumer debt a virtue

33. Moves to more
open forms of
education have
opened the
sluice gates
Physical spaces as a central
element of learning appear ever
more fluid

34. Reclaiming space for teaching through
blended learning includes reclaiming
technologies as intermediate tools

35. Summarise
• Blended learning, itself, is a threshold concept: liminal,
uncomfortable, uncertain and transforming
• Each person and context is a hybrid: utterly unique
• No cultural origin is privileged
• Learning occurs in the gaps: the spaces between
• Learning growth is non linear
• People only partly inhabit any space and do so on their
own terms
• All learning spaces are co-created
• Social, learning, and transactional space are blending
physically and digitally
• The spirit of the third space is “the teacher”
• Any enclosure of space requires force, power or
violence

36. Blended learning design
• Activity
– we do or make things in groups (social constructivism: Vygotsky 1934, 1962;
Engeström 2001)
• Experience
– self-evaluative, practitioner-centred, pragmatic (Dewey 1916)
• Dialogue
– We engage with language over time: synchronously, asynchronously and in
many modes (Bakhtin 1981)
• Reflection
– Bringing experience into scholarly evidence (Brookfield 1995, Kolb 1984)
• Participation
– The teacher is also a learner (Warhurst 2006, Dyrness 2008)
• Community
– (Mathie & Cunningham 2003, McClenaghan 2000, Becher & Trowler 2001)
• Outcomes

38. • If all learning IS blended learning
• AND neither the physical NOR the digital
has primacy
• AND each person and place is unique
• How do we respond?

39. For us, these follow
• Acknowledge the tension in all teaching
• Avoid totalising syntheses of data, content or
process – even this!
• Practice “bounded openness”: provide
multiple ways in and out
• Respect the uniqueness of each and every
person.
• It’s the relationship, not the gadgets or
analytics

40. Thank you
George Roberts
Richard Francis
Oxford Brookes University
November 2014
groberts@brookes.ac.uk

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