Embedding Blended Learning in a University’s Teaching Culture:

Experiences and ReflectionsHugh Davis and Karen Fill

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Who are we?

Hugh Davis – PI on DialogPlus Project. From ECS. Head of Learning Technology Research Group. Recently University Director of Education (e-learning)

Karen Fill – Educational Researcher employed by RGSE and based in Centre for Learning and Teaching.

Two other D+ papers Martin and Treves describe the School perspective on

change Durham and Arrell describe a particular Geographic

outcome

Our paper focuses on the institutional perspective.

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What were the barriers?

Institutional At Southampton/Leeds there is little (no?) central support for e-

learning (educational delivery is a School matter) The ethos of these universities is all about evidencing world class

research. Purchase of educational software unrelated to educational needs

School Schools are charged with education, but have insufficient funds to

experiment with changing the current methods (even though increasing class sizes have stretched these methods to their limit)

Reluctance to change (“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”).

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Barriers (contin)

Teaching Staff Teaching staff must keep research focussed Occasional early adopters have set very high standards for others

to achieve Concerns about technical ability Reluctance to change / not convinced that change will be

improvement Lack of a “library” of resources to start with (I hope we have avoided the “fear of redundancy” rubbish)

Technical Lack of Interoperability of LO’s Non standard VLE’s Authentication issues IPR / DRM issues

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What did we do?

Most importantly, recruited Heads of Schools as part of team (there was no steering group)

The HoS’s were able to conduct curriculum reviews to identify places that could benefit from blended learning

Employed teaching assistants to either implement innovations or cover teaching of those who would

We allowed Geographers to define Learning Objects/technology

Provided Learning Design Toolkit (scaffold) Learning technologists into schools Partnership with other schools provided validation

(what was the US benefit?)

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Did it work?

From an Institutional Perspective (Soton) The culture in the School of Geography has changed (thanks also

to the UKeU as well) We have developed a model for helping those that want to

change to change We have embedded that model in our university learning and

teaching strategy DialogPlus cost JISC £500K at Southampton over three years. But

now we have done that we believe we might be able to help another School repeat the process at maybe 30% of the cost…

From Geographer’s Perspective See Martin & Treves and Durham & Arrrell

From the Student Perspective Like all innovations, the student response is not uniform, and we

need more time to evaluate the extent of improvements. We have learned some lessons at the micro level about things

that work and don’t.

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Some things did not work

The US collaboration was not wholly successful Sharing of learning resources was not widespread – but

we learned a great deal about sharing courses/students

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Will it last?

The change in approach in Geography at Southampton will most likely last (will it a Leeds?) School now has curriculum that includes blended learning School now supports 2 full time learning technologists Will new activities be created?

The lessons learned at the institutional level are embedded in the e-learning strategy. We will attempt to repeat the exercise at our own cost.

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Critical Success Factors

Active Involvement of Senior Management Whole Curriculum Approach Put Education before Technology Funding models Support at the point of need Collaboration