Collaborative E-Learning as an integral part of “MEDIAN_HE”, a master study programme on teaching an Home : ALT Annual Conference 2018

Public Group Active 4 years, 4 months ago

Thu, Sep 13 2018, 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Authors: Silke Bock, Daniel Erl, and Katharina Thuelen

Room: Rm 4.206

Theme: Collaboration for Learning Technology

Type: Short presentation – 20mins

Description

Session Description

The Master’s program “MEDIAN_HE” (Methodology and Didactics in Applied Sciences_Higher Education) at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen, the technical university of Central Hessia, is aimed at everyone who strives for a profound professionalization of individual teaching skills and is interested in issues of tertiary education or lifelong learning, after completing a first university degree. The MEDIAN_HE curriculum allows a combination a scientific deepening of the first university degree and the opportunity to address questions of education, research, teaching and learning in a university context. For this study program, an innovative process-oriented e-learning concept was developed, which accompanies the students in their continuous professionalization of their own teaching. Accordingly, the students should develop competencies in using e-learning concepts and tools in a didactically valuable and reflected way. During the study program this happens on the one hand by fostering their own experience of learning with digital media and on the other hand the students are challenged to create solutions for practical application of e-learning sessions by independently designing and testing media-based learning units which are reflected on the basis of peer feedback.
The platform Mahara offers the chance to learn with and about digital media. The concept envisages that the students develop artefacts for individual tasks, for example a concrete teaching scenario in the field of e-learning. So the e-portfolio presents the individual teaching idea of a student and shows related development on different levels. Using the combination of pre-defined tasks with self-selected digital tools and filling up with the students’ own teaching ideas means a maximum of freedom for the students. Additionally, the concept provides students with the opportunity to test a variety of digital tools for their own teaching. Within the curriculum, working with the e-portfolio and the attendance phases are supplemented by web conferencing. This is carried out by the students themselves as well as by the teachers. Thus, location-independent opportunities for joint communication and discussion with different professionals all over the world are created to provide students with access to international research.

Session content: evaluation and reflection

During the session we show how the different e-learning tools are integrated into the curriculum of the MEDIAN_HE study program. It is based on a blended-learning approach according to the “integration concept” as described by Claudia Bremer and others in the year 2013/14. It means, e-learning is not only used as a facultative add-on, but rather as a complex interplay of various e-learning activities, which are an integral part of the study program. We highlight the different ways to integrate e-learning activities into the MEDIAN_HE course plan and discuss the challenges we faced in the first year after the start of the study program. We will present the study program concept with its individual phases and the implemented e-learning tools (blogs, videos, mind maps, etc.). Based on the structure of an e-portfolio, the potentials of the various digital tools will be discussed and also the correlations will be reflected. For this purpose, some e-portfolios of the students with their subareas and associated individual designs are shown. Subareas within an e-portfolio could be such as the structuring of texts using mind maps, a learning diary as a blog or self-produced learning videos by the students.
In a practice-oriented part of the session we will present you a selection of students’ e-portfolios on the platform Mahara, inspect the interaction of the individual elements with each other and jointly discuss and handle requirements to enhance learning in similar settings. We also debate with you parts of the course evaluations and reflect our personal “lessons learned” from our role as teachers in the study program.

References

Chaudhuri, T.; Cabau, B. (2017). E-Portfolios in Higher Education. A Multidisciplinary Approach. Singapore. Springer-Nature.

Bremer, C. (o. J.). Überblick über die Szenarien netzbasierten Lehrens und Lernens. Available at: http://www.bremer.cx/material/Bremer_Szenarien.pdf [accessed by 23.03.2018]

Hornung -Prähauser, V. , Geser, G., Hilzensauer, W., Schaffert, S. (2007). Didaktische, organisatorische und technologische Grundlagen von E-Portfolios und Analyse internationaler Beispiele und Erfahrungen mit E-Portfolio-Implementierungen an Hochschulen. Salzburg.