Document Type
Conference Item
Publication Date
7-1-2011
Abstract
To design a personalized learning environment a teacher has to conduct a thorough instructional design, models the ICT culture and behaviour and provides scaffolding that eventually frees the learners to be creative and to take responsibility for their learning. This paper will present a Personalized Learning Environment and Students Engagement (PLEaSE) project that examines ways of embedding technology and empowering learners to become co-designers of their learning. One of the ways is to engage the lecturers in the design of the learning environment. This paper shares an initiative that models PLEaSE through a blended learning approach designed to help university lecturers to engage students online. The objectives are for lecturers to: 1) Apply some principles of instructional design that engage learners in blended learning environments; 2) Identify strategies that encourage active student participation online using the phases of engagement model, and 3) Examine issues related to sustain ability of online community learning. To date we have conducted six training sessions in four different higher education institutions in Malaysia. Each session provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our practice and improve the training and delivery of the subsequent workshops through action research. The participants are academic staff from different disciplines, teaching in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The participants are registered online a week before the session and are requested to complete an online survey with the purpose to profile and identify their needs. To prepare for the workshop the participants are also invited to read the materials posted on the site and to visit links related to instructional design theories and principles. The training consists of four parts, where each part is a demonstration of the application of the phases of engagement model by Conrad and Donaldson. The design and the engagement phases are demonstrated through the use of relevant examples, discussions and reflections, face to face and online. Data is collected from the online observations, online questionnaire and forums. The feedback and comments from the participants have shown that the training is useful and the engagement model is suitable for their own online courses.
Divisions
Education
Event Title
Personal Learning Environment Conference 2011
Event Location
Southampton, UK
Event Dates
11-13 July 2011
Event Type
conference