Theme 2: State of the Art?

Transformational Learning Design for Open and

Blended Learning

George Roberts

Oxford Brookes University

27 November 2014

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

Conundrum

Practical Wisdom

Activity

Dialogue

Experience

Participation

Reflection

Community

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

Snapping at the heels of the state of the art

Actually existing art

• Closed online

• Open online

• Flipped

• Blended

• Accredited or not

• Traditional modular

• CPD

Activity

Affective recallThink 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

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)?

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

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

flexible, active, collaborative

and professionally

authentic pedagogies

“... an industrialisedprocess, on a truly massive scale, made possible by

new technology.”

the landscape of

the virtual world has

altered beyond

recognition

It is difficult to argue that the physical and virtual dimensions of

the learning experience are still distinct, or in any way opposed.

In practice, the pedagogical models have hardly changed at all

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

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

Have we failed?

Pedagogically

Learners create their own learning environment outside,

inside and in-despite of the intentions of the institution or

the designer.

Viceroy’s Palace

Tavern of revolution

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)

the space of both community and

identity

In this sense of liminality, discomfort and uncertainty,

blended learning might be seen as a threshold concept

Where once the Internet seemed a vast

third space, it now appears hegemonisedby contingent global

forces where international

competition is normalised and

consumer debt a virtue

Moves to more open forms of

education have opened the sluice gates

Physical spaces as a central element of learning appear ever

more fluid

Reclaiming space for teaching through blended learning includes reclaiming

technologies as intermediate tools

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

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

• 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?

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

Thank you

George Roberts

Richard Francis

Oxford Brookes University

November 2014

groberts@brookes.ac.uk

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