Personalisation: the emerging ‘revised’ code of education?

In England, a ‘revised’ educational code appears to be emerging. It centres upon the concept of ‘personalisation’. Its basis is less in educational theory, more in contemporary marketing theory. Personalisation can be regarded in two ways. First, it provides the rationale for a new mode of public‐service delivery, one which seeks to enable ‘users’ to co‐produce with professionals a solution to their needs. In this endeavour, it takes further that process of marketisation which had been set in train under the New Public Management. Second, it portends a new ‘grammar’ for the school, in the guise of ‘personalised learning’. At this stage, what shall count as personalisation—particularly in relation to personalised learning—remains incoherent and inchoate. For its justification as a policy, personalisation appeals to child‐centredness, to democracy and to consumerism. The analysis draws on contemporary social and marketing theory.     

How comprehensive are research studies investigating the efficacy of technology‐enhanced learning resources in anatomy education? A systematic review

Anatomy education is at the forefront of integrating innovative technologies into its curricula. However, despite this rise in technology numerous authors have commented on the shortfall in efficacy studies to assess the impact such technology‐enhanced learning (TEL) resources have on learning. To assess the range of evaluation approaches to TEL across anatomy education, a systematic review was conducted using MEDLINE, the Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC), Scopus, and Google Scholar, with a total of 3,345 articles retrieved. Following the PRISMA method for reporting items, 153 articles were identified and reviewed against a published framework—the technology‐enhanced learning evaluation model (TELEM). The model allowed published reports to be categorized according to evaluations at the level of (1) learner satisfaction, (2) learning gain, (3) learner impact, and (4) institutional impact. The results of this systematic review reveal that most evaluation studies into TEL within anatomy curricula were based on learner satisfaction, followed by module or course learning outcomes. Randomized controlled studies assessing learning gain with a specific TEL resource were in a minority, with no studies reporting a comprehensive assessment on the overall impact of introducing a specific TEL resource (e.g., return on investment). This systematic review has provided clear evidence that anatomy education is engaged in evaluating the impact of TEL resources on student education, although it remains at a level that fails to provide comprehensive causative evidence. Anat Sci Educ 11: 303–319. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Academic workload: the silent barrier to the implementation of technology-enhanced learning strategies in higher education

The effect of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) strategies in higher education has arguably been transformative despite the not-insignificant barriers existing in this context. Throughout the discourse very little attention has been paid to those primarily responsible for this implementation—academic teaching staff. This paper aims to highlight the impact of academic workload allocations, an often silent barrier to the uptake of TEL strategies in higher education. We will discuss the effects of academic identity and culture, preferential time allocation to associative activities, academic technological capacity, university policies and workload and funding models on the uptake, and implementation on TEL in higher education. Our aim is to highlight the risks to staff, students and institutions should these concerns not be addressed and to propose a model for utilisation by all staff responsible for implementing flexible workload models supportive of further implementation of TEL strategies across the sector.     

Personalisation: the nostalgic revival of child‐centred education?

Personalisation is an emerging ‘movement’ within education. Its roots reside in marketing theory, not in educational theory. As a concept it admits a good deal of confusion. It can refer either to a new mode of governance for the public services, or it qualifies the noun ‘learning’, as in ‘personalised learning’. The concern here is with its intellectual affinity to child‐centred education, one which the government in England has strongly denied. On balance, the government’s view of personalisation is not of a piece with what may commonly be regarded as child‐centred education. But the strong semantic accord between the terms ‘personalisation’ and ‘child‐centred education’ provokes a question: why does the government not provide a term which unequivocally distinguishes its current ‘vision’ for education from child‐centred education? By retaining the term personalisation, the government purports to do two things: first, because of its focus on personalised ‘tailored’ needs and co‐produced solutions, it adapts education even further to a consumerist society; and second, because the term personalisation strikes a chord with the discourse of child‐centred education, it blurs the fact that little to do with pedagogy or with curriculum has in fact been changed. The term personalisation generates a nostalgic appeal to better times long gone.     

Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: what is ‘enhanced’ and how do we know? A critical literature review

The term technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is used to describe the application of information and communication technologies to teaching and learning. Explicit statements about what the term is understood to mean are rare and it is not evident that a shared understanding has been developed in higher education of what constitutes an enhancement of the student learning experience. This article presents a critical review and assessment of how TEL is interpreted in recent literature. It examines the purpose of technology interventions, the approaches adopted to demonstrate the role of technology in enhancing the learning experience, differing ways in which enhancement is conceived and the use of various forms evidence to substantiate claims about TEL. Thematic analysis enabled categories to be developed and relationships explored between the aims of TEL interventions, the evidence presented, and the ways in which enhancement is conceived.     

Global Online Learning Among Asia‐Pacific Economies: lessons learned

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a voluntary organization of 21 members working to strengthen open multilateral trading systems by encouraging the flow of goods, and services, capital, and technology. Since 1994, APEC's Telecommunications Working Group (TEL) has been actively working to use online distance learning to help it achieve its goals. The diverse multicultural nature of the APEC environment makes online learning very different from most online learning environments. Algonquin College has designed, developed and delivered several online courses for the TEL. The purpose of this presentation is to outline the lessons learned in that process.     

The logic of data-sense: thinking through Learning Personalisation

Big Data and Learning Analytics’ promise to revolutionise educational institutions, endeavours, and actions through more and better data is now compelling. Multiple, and continually updating, data sets produce a new sense of ‘personalised learning’. A crucial attribute of the datafication, and subsequent profiling, of learner behaviour and engagement is the continual modification of the learning environment to induce greater levels of investment on the parts of each learner. The assumption is that more and better data, gathered faster and fed into ever-updating algorithms, provide more complete tools to understand, and therefore improve, learning experiences through adaptive personalisation. The argument in this paper is that Learning Personalisation names a new logistics of investment as the common ‘sense’ of the school, in which disciplinary education is ‘both disappearing and giving way to frightful continual training, to continual monitoring'.     

Classroom Learning Environments and Students' Approaches to Learning

Four hundred and eighty-four students from two metropolitan secondary schools completed the Learning Process Questionnaire, the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire and the Learner Self Concept scale. Relationships between perceptions of the classroom learning environment, approaches to learning and self concept as a learner were investigated. Gender and level of schooling (junior high versus senior high) differences were examined. Results showed Deep Approaches to learning were significantly related to classroom learning environments which were perceived to be highly personalised and to be encouraging active participation in the learning process and the use of investigative skills in learning activities. High learner self concept was positively associated with Deep Approaches to learning and with classrooms perceived as high in Personalisation. It was negatively associated with Surface Approaches to learning. Differences in perceptions of learning environments and approaches to learning in relation to gender and level of schooling were small. The implications of these findings are discussed and strategies for facilitating Deep Approaches to learning are referred to. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rethinking the contributions of young people with learning disabilities to iPad storymaking: a new model of distributed authorship

Digital technologies such as iPads are now ubiquitous in classrooms and family homes, enabling new possibilities for all learners but particularly for those with disabilities. Existing literature explores how children with learning disabilities create and benefit from personalised digital stories but does not unpack theoretical understandings of their ‘authorship’. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an original model of ‘distributed authorship’ with three axes of distribution—interpersonal, technological and temporal—to account for the authorial contributions of young people with learning disabilities. Five families were given an iPad with Pictello storymaking app and instructed to use it with their young person in any way which was engaging for them. Data generation over 12 weeks included weekly diaries, home videos, semi-structured interviews and story collection. Findings indicated that whilst ability to directly engage with the app varied, all the young people could be said to exert authorial influence on the stories distributed across three axes: support from others, support from the technology itself and incorporation of prior embodied agency. The study has theoretical implications for our understanding of ‘authorship’ as well as implications for pedagogy and practice by reconceptualising severely disabled children as literate learners and co-authors.     

Charting the development of technology-enhanced learning developments across the UK higher education sector: a longitudinal perspective (2001–2012)

This article reviews key findings from six surveys of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) across the UK higher education (HE) sector, conducted by Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association in association with Jisc. Updating the findings presented by Jenkins, Browne, Walker, and Hewitt [2010. The development of technology enhanced learning: Findings from a 2008 survey of UK higher education institutions, Interactive Learning Environments. First published on: 22 January 2010 (iFirst)], the article reports on the emerging and planned patterns of TEL across the UK HE sector over the last decade. Our analysis shows that against the backdrop of Higher Education Funding Council for England capital funding, institutions have made considerable investments in technology and infrastructure to support learning and teaching – specifically in the domain of learning management and assessment systems. While the drivers for TEL development have consistently focused on enhancing teaching and learning over the years, the subject of this investment has been directed to the implementation of enterprise-wide systems to manage and control learning processes, delivering efficiencies of scale and standardised learning experiences through centrally managed solutions, rather than support for student-controlled tools. In contrast, the diffusion of technologies supporting collaborative learning and knowledge sharing has been more a feature of local TEL provision, as evidenced through the informal learning practice of students and departmental projects. The evolution of course delivery models and pedagogic developments supported through the use of technology have been noticeably much slower to realise; growth in “web-dependent” rather than “supplementary” course design models has been quite limited across the sector and we have observed negligible growth in distance learning provision over this period. The evidence suggests that challenges remain in developing course delivery models which focus on active student learning, maximising the opportunities that web and mobile technologies now offer for interactive student-centred learning design. We speculate that the recent upsurge of interest in Massive Open Online Courses may act as a catalyst in this respect, in driving campus-based courses to embrace new learning models supported by TEL tools.     

Personalised learning: lessons to be learnt

Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self‐regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framework for conceptualising and enacting this construct. We then report on an attempt to introduce personalised learning as one strategy, among several, to improve student academic performance and wellbeing in four low SES regional secondary schools in Australia. We report on a survey of 2407 students’ perceptions of the extent to which their school provided a personalised learning environment, and a case study of a programme within one school that aimed to apply a personalised approach to the mathematics curriculum. We found that while there were ongoing challenges in this approach, there was also evidence of success in the mathematics case.     

Ontology-based concept map for planning a personalised learning path

Developing personalised web-based learning systems has been an important research issue in e-learning because no fixed learning pathway will be appropriate for all learners. However, most current web-based learning platforms with personalised curriculum sequencing tend to emphasise the learner preferences and interests in relation to personalised learning services but fail to consider the difficulty level of course materials, learning order of prior and posterior knowledge and learner abilities while constructing a personalised learning path. As a result, these ignored factors thus easily lead to the generation of poor quality learning paths. Generally, learners could generate cognitive overload or fall into cognitive disorientation owing to inappropriate curriculum sequencing during learning processes, thus, reducing the learning effect. With the advancement of artificial intelligence technologies, ontology technologies enable a linguistic infrastructure to represent conceptual relationships between course materials. Ontology can be served as a structured knowledge representation scheme, capable of assisting the construction of a personalised learning path. This study thus proposes a novel genetic-based curriculum sequencing scheme based on a generated ontology-based concept map, which can be automatically constructed by the pretest results of numerous learners, to plan appropriate learning paths for individual learners. The experimental results indicated that the proposed approach could create high-quality learning paths for individual learners. The proposed approach thus can help learners to learn more effectively and to likely reduce learners' cognitive overloads during learning processes.     

An educational practices framework: the potential for empowerment of the teaching profession

This paper outlines new educational policy initiatives that have been recently introduced to Australian schooling contexts and describes the challenges of providing rich and empowering professional development opportunities for classroom teachers and educational leaders in an era of heightened accountability and change. A framework for large-scale professional learning is proposed; one that adopts a theoretical lens associated with practice architectures, situated within community- and individual-focused professional learning experiences. The theoretical component of the model has been utilised effectively in a number of countries, while the personalised learning component is drawn from an evidence-based project that established a national learning framework.     

欧洲技术促进学习研究新进展

技术促进学习研究是学习科学的一个研究领域,文章通过典型案例着重分析了欧洲技术促进学习研究领域在移动学习理论与实践、技术支持的正式与非正式学习设计、学习技术的设计应用、技术环境下的未来学习、技术促进学习研究社区等五个方面的主要研究及其进展,并简述了该领域的主要研究机构及其异同,评析了技术促进学习研究领域所做的研究.     

Flexible learning in teacher education: myths,muddles and models

While there has been widespread take‐up of the concept ‘flexible learning’ within various educational environments—and equally frequent references to the flexible ‘natures’ of the computer and communication technologies that often underpin flexible learning initiatives—the relationship between technologies and flexibility is not a simple one. In this paper we examine some of the more persistent myths about technologies that are intertwined with discourses of flexibility. We highlight some of the more common ‘muddles’ that these myths can lead us in to and argue that the ‘mess’ that so often results from well‐intentioned moves to ‘be more flexible’ is largely a result of the ways that CCTs, or indeed any new educational technology or strategy, is theorized. Drawing on a recent study of online teaching and learning in higher education, we outline a new framework for examining these and related issues as they apply to teacher education.     

Reframing the Debate About the Relationship Between Learning and Development: An Effort to Resolve Dilemmas and Reestablish Dialogue in a Fractured Field

The field of early childhood education (ECE) is currently unable to reach consensus on the extent to which ECE should be based on child development. One manifestation of this situation is the dilemma that early educators purportedly face between teaching the whole child and the curriculum, between developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and standards. The source of this dilemma is attributed to a one-dimensional understanding of children’s development in which development is privileged over learning. Addressing this dilemma begins by discussing a theoretical difference between Piaget and Vygotsky: for Piaget, development drives learning; for Vygotsky, learning drives development. This seemingly dichotomous difference is reframed, however, by the insight that Piaget and Vygotsky focused on different types of development: Piaget studied universals (e.g., object permanence); Vygotsky studied nonuniversals (e.g., cultural tools often learned in schools). Their dispute stems, therefore, from this factor: development drives learning in nonuniversal developmental sequences, but learning drives development in universal sequences. Teachers who adopt a multi-dimensional developmental framework—a framework that makes visible how the relationship between learning and development may vary within universal versus nonuniversal developmental sequences—may be better prepared to (1) make informed decisions about the extent to which they should guide children’s activities and (2) avoid the DAP versus standards dilemma. The most recent iteration of DAP moved toward adopting a multi-dimensional developmental framework when it encouraged teachers to base instructional judgments on the extent to which children’s emerging capacities will likely require greater versus lesser degrees of adult guidance, structure, and support.     

Exploring the Dimensions of Medical Student Engagement with Technology-Enhanced Learning Resources and Assessing the Impact on Assessment Outcomes

Anatomy curricula are becoming increasingly populated with blended learning resources, which utilize the increasing availability of educational technology. The educational literature postulates that the use of technology can support students in achieving greater learning outcomes by increasing engagement. This study attempts to investigate the dimensions of student engagement with technology-enhanced learning (TEL) resources as part of a medical program’s anatomy curriculum using exploratory factor analysis. A 25-item five-point Likert-based survey was administered to 192 first-year medical students, with three emergent factors discerned: satisfaction, goal setting and planning, and physical interaction. The three factors closely aligned with the existing literature and therefore additional nonparametric analysis was conducted that explored the levels of engagement across three custom-made anatomy TEL resources, including: (1) anatomy drawing screencasts; (2) an eBook; and (3) a massive open online course (MOOC). Usage data indicated that the most popular resource to be accessed across the cohort was the anatomy drawing screencasts via YouTube, with the MOOC being used least. Moreover, some evidence suggests that those students who utilized the MOOC were more engaged. Generally, however, no correlations were observed between the levels of engagement and TEL resource usage or assessment outcomes. The results from this study provide a clear insight into how students engage with TEL resources, but do not reveal any relationship between levels of engagement, usage, and assessment outcomes.     

信息化学习视域中的开放学习质量框架

开放学习与开放教育是信息时代人才培养模式改革的主流发展方向。开放学习理念的产生、发展与技术发展以及信息化程度密切相关。从学习者角度看,开放学习是技术促进学习的一种主要组织形式,信息化学习是开放学习的典型特征。早期的远程教育和校园教育各有其教育与学习质量保障体系,但是遵循开放学习理念的教学过程将颠覆传统课堂教学过程,单纯以学生自学为主的活动单元或任务组织形式难以达到预期的学习目标。因此,基于开放学习的"技术促进学习"特性,探讨影响开放学习质量的要素并建立质量框架,是当前网络与远程教育研究与实践的难点问题。从质量保障的相关因素来看,课程设置、资源开发、学习能力、学习支持、生源质量、教学管理、教学过程、信息化基础设施、学习氛围、实践条件、教师队伍和教学研究是影响开放学习的12个质量要素。这些质量要素按照开放学习系统的组成要素与发展水平,可以形成四个部分(环境与设施、学习与支持、教学与资源、教师与课程)和三个层次(业务基础层、教学支撑层、持续发展层)组成的开放学习系统质量框架。基于该质量框架,我国开放大学建设可以从加强学科建设、健全教学环节、共享优质资源、优化学习环境、提升学习能力和建设学分银行6个方面提升开放学习质量。