Adoption of Blackboard in the ELICOS system: Innovating and Augmenting Quality Education - Benjamin Carkagis and Kimberly Baskin, University of Sydney
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In 2016 the Centre for English Teaching (CET) launched Blackboard for its university pathway courses (DEC) as part of an initiative to innovate and transform them into high quality blended Academic English language programs that would support students in developing both academic skills and awareness of the technology and systems required to excel during the first semester at university. While LMS use is standard practice in higher education, for the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) sector the integration of an online platform is still new territory and there is great potential for innovation within teaching and learning practices. Moreover, the unique context allows for a fresh perspective on how Blackboard, at its core, is a dynamic and flexible platform in teaching and learning practices that fosters communities of practice and consolidates traditional educational practices. The implementation of Blackboard across university pathways courses at CET faced two major hurdles. To begin with, international students were less familiar with the culture and expectations surrounding LMS use at tertiary level and the nature of independent learning. Secondly, teaching staff had varying degrees of proficiency and experience in using technology in the classroom. Dealing with the challenge of educating, immersing and empowering both teachers and students simultaneously in their use of Blackboard as an integrated and powerful tool in teaching and learning raised numerous questions and helped gain valuable insights into adoption and adaption of technology and the opportunity for creative disruption. Grounding innovations in solid pedagogy, integrating technology and independent learning with in-class interaction and making learning objectives clear to both students and teachers enabled the successful uptake of Blackboard and allowed for greater support and autonomy for both teachers and students.
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Adoption of Blackboard in the ELICOS system: Innovating and Augmenting Quality Education - Benjamin Carkagis and Kimberly Baskin, University of Sydney
- 1. Adoption of Blackboard in the ELICOS system Presented by Benjamin Carkagis and Kimberly Baskin The Centre for English Teaching The University of Sydney
- 2. The University of Sydney Page 2 Session structure Challenges: • Supporting students • Supporting teachers • Designing purposefully Conclusions and feedback Our solutionsThe challenges
- 3. The University of Sydney Page 3 Focus of our university pathways courses DEC 5 WR DEC 5 SL DEC 25 DEC 15 DEC 10 Languag e focus Language and research focus Writing focus Speaking and listening focus Discipline specific All skills focus DEC 36 Writing and reading focus Source: CET Image Bank
- 4. The University of Sydney Page 4 Student profile The majority of students are from mainland China The majority of students are entering postgraduate courses Clear gaps in academic and digital literacies What is the cultural make-up of your learners? What gaps have you observed in the academic or digital literacies of your learners? Source: CET Image Bank
- 5. The University of Sydney Page 5 Gaps in skills 1. Spontaneous, critical discussion in tutorials 2. Navigating the LMS, posting threads, netiquette
- 6. The University of Sydney Page 6 Gap 1 “Students are less vulnerable and more open and forthright in private spaces such as online discussion groups. What this means is that it may be easier to build the ‘knowledge bridge’ in online spaces.” (Norris, 2015) Norris, L. (2015). Briefing Note- Knowing about your Chinese Students: A Quick Reference Guide for Australian Academics. Retrieved from http://chinapostgraduates.murdoch.edu.au/
- 7. The University of Sydney Page 7 Monday – activate students’ knowledge and interest
- 8. The University of Sydney Page 8 Tuesday – engage with texts
- 9. The University of Sydney Page 9 Thursday – engage with peers
- 10. The University of Sydney Page 10 Friday- in class tutorial Source: CET Image Bank
- 11. The University of Sydney Page 11 How do you know that lack of engagement is due to: gaps in digital literacy gaps in academic culture poor task design resistance other? How can you identify the cause? What are some of the possible solutions? Source: CET Image Bank
- 12. The University of Sydney Page 12 Gap 2 1. Spontaneous, critical discussion in tutorials 2. Navigating the LMS, posting threads, netiquette
- 13. The University of Sydney Page 13 Gap 2- Navigating the LMS, posting threads, netiquette
- 14. The University of Sydney Page 14 Screencasts for (and by) students
- 15. The University of Sydney Page 15 Key takeaways Use the tool to solve a current problem Build digital literacy into your course
- 16. The University of Sydney Page 16 What issues have you observed or experienced when institutions implement major change?
- 17. The University of Sydney Page 17 Challenges: • Supporting students • Supporting teachers • Designing purposefully Conclusions and feedback Our solutionsThe challenges
- 18. The University of Sydney Page 18 Teacher as advocate Teacher buy-in is essential Teachers need to regularly emphasise importance of in-class and online activities Teachers need to feel part of the decision-making process Management needs to convince teachers of the value of curriculum content Both bottom-up and top-down approaches (with the teachers at the centre) are crucial “the current research demonstrates just how crucial the teacher's role is to the success of a blended approach.” Fryer, L. K. & Bovee, H. N., (2016). Supporting students' motivation For e-learning: Teachers matter on and offline, Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 30, 21-29
- 19. The University of Sydney Page 19 Providing multiple feedback channels
- 20. The University of Sydney Page 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBWX3q0s5ZY&feature=youtu.be Screencasts to guide teachers through the basics of the new LMS
- 21. The University of Sydney Page 21 One-to-one interviews with teachers
- 22. The University of Sydney Page 22 Highlighting teachers who made innovative use of the LMS
- 23. The University of Sydney Page 23 Challenges: • Supporting students • Supporting teachers • Designing purposefully Conclusions and feedback Our solutionsThe challenges
- 24. The University of Sydney Page 24 “Engage rapid cycles of Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) to learn fast, fail fast, and improve quickly.” Bryk, A, (2016). The Six Core Principles of Improvement, Retrieved from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/our-ideas/six-core-principles-improvement Source: http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com
- 25. The University of Sydney Page 25 Conclusion: Key Takeaways Use the tool to solve a current problem Build digital literacy into your course Find early advocates Vary your feedback channels and methods of providing support Review and revise frequently
- 26. The University of Sydney Page 26 Reference list Bryk, A, (2016). The Six Core Principles of Improvement. Retrieved from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/our-ideas/six-core-principles-improvement Fryer, L. K. & Bovee, H. N. (2016). Supporting students' motivation for e- learning: Teachers matter on and offline, Internet and Higher Education. Vol. 30, 21-29 Norris, L. (2015). Briefing Note- Knowing about your Chinese Students: A Quick Reference Guide for Australian Academics. Retrieved from http://chinapostgraduates.murdoch.edu.au/
- 27. The University of Sydney Page 27 THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- Hello everyone. I’m Kimberly Baskin and this is Ben Carkagis and the name of our session is the Adoption of Blackboard in the ELICOS system. Let’s get started. ELICOS stands for English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students. We’re from the Centre for English Teaching or CET. We’re a school that sits within The University of Sydney and our courses help students to improve their academic skills and their level of English before they start undergraduate or postgraduate study. Since 2015, Ben and I have worked as Teaching and Learning Coordinators and Blended Learning Designers for the Centre and earlier this year we implemented Blackboard Learn as the LMS for our university pathways course. Blackboard Learn is the LMS used at the University of Sydney so our decision to adopt Blackboard to support blended learning in our classrooms was informed by wanting our students to practise the digital literacies that are required of them at university with the same tool. Ben- integrated learning/teacher-led curriculum design
- Today we’ve planned a session to discuss some of the challenges we faced in implementing an LMS with what was traditionally a very face-to-face course. Although we are presenting experiences that are unique to our context, we believe they will resonate with some, if not most of you here today. And hopefully today’s session will be an opportunity to share approaches to a common set of issues that academic managers and instructional designers face when implementing blended learning programs.
- To give you a bit of an idea about the course, it runs in 5 week blocks and the full course is six month long. Depending on their needs, students undertake between 10 weeks and six months of study. Twice a year we have about 1300 students enrolled in our 10 week course, which runs in the lead up to semester 1 and semester 2 at university. At these peak times we have over a hundred teachers on staff.
- (These are some of our students on an excursion.) In our university pathways course, over 90 per cent of students are from mainland China, then we have some from the Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia. Once these students have passed the requirements of our course, they enter the first year of undergraduate or post-graduate study at Sydney University. They go into a range of disciplines from Business to Engineering and Science or Nursing, Education, Architecture or Pharmacy and in these courses they are mixed with local Australian students and follow exactly the same program of study. They do the same lectures, tutorials, seminars, labs and all of the same readings and assessments. The majority of our students come to Sydney to do a post-graduate degree, which means they have already completed an undergraduate course back home in China or Saudi Arabia or Brazil by the time they come to us. However this does not mean that they have the skills in academic and digital literacy that are core to studying at an Australian university. We can’t assume that international students (or any students for that matter) simply know what’s expected of them at university. Before I go on to talk about our learners, I’d like you to think about your own context __________________________________________________ TALKING POINT – WHAT ARE THE GAPS THAT YOU IDENTIFY IN YOUR OWN STUDENTS? (Do this before revealing our two key gaps – put these 2 key gaps on the PPT) I’ll give you two examples of gaps in skills that we identified and how using Blackboard helped us to better prepare our students for the transition to university. Firstly, tutors and course coordinators from some of the faculties we talk to on a regular basis explained that the international students in their classes we’re not participating in tutorial discussions to the same extent as local students. We can all appreciate that tutorial discussions can be daunting for anyone, even for local students. It’s also true that expressing your opinion spontaneously in a second language is not always easy. But the problem is usually more than a language issue alone. In some cases there’s quite a gap between the students’ undergraduate experience and what they are expected to do here. For instance for students coming from China, responding to a question or some other prompt spontaneously in a tutorial is not something they likely would have practised at home. QUOTE NORRIS
- We wanted to help our students build confidence in participating in a live tutorial discussion. To do so, we scaffolded the task using the group discussion boards on Blackboard and I’ll show you some examples in a minute. What we found was that this resulted in better quality tutorial discussions every Friday in class. By this stage, students had engaged with the discussion board tasks and the readings three times over the week. We saw less vocal students becoming more engaged because the tool allowed them to spend some time first considering the prompt and formulating a response.
- This is what our Monday discussion board task looked like. The topic here was the effects of the tourism industry. Students were asked to find a picture of a positive effect and a negative effect of tourism, drawing upon their own experiences and post them to the discussion board with a description. The second part of the task asked students to then comment on a peer’s post. So, step one (refer to visual)- draw on your experience and comment on someone else’s.
- On Tuesday, the task asked students to examine a reading on the effects of tourism on culture. This narrowed the discussion on tourism to just one aspect. The task here was for students to find another example of tourism either protecting or harming a local culture and to describe it in a 100-150 word post. Step two (refer to visual)- students engage with an academic text.
- On Thursday, students were given the tutorial discussion question and asked to respond, drawing upon the week’s reading and lecture to structure their response. Students were also asked to reference these sources appropriately and comment on one other person’s post with their own opinion. By this stage of the week, the students were doing two things- justifying ideas with reference to core texts and questioning the responses of others.
- BULLET POINTS/KEY IDEAS The tutorial discussions then ran in class, as per usual, on Fridays. But this time students had prepared throughout the week, they had read the material, could personalise the discussion with examples from their own experience, they could refer to the readings to justify their response and they were already commenting on the input from other classmates. These skills that were honed over the week through group discussion board tasks made the in-class tutorial much less daunting for our students and teachers noted the difference in their ability to express ideas and engage with the content critically.
- BE VERY SPECIFIC WITH QUESTIONS – MAKE SURE THEY ARE TARGETED AND LEAD INTO THE NEXT SECTION If there is a lack of engagement in the classroom, how do we know what the issue is? And how do we find out?
- I mentioned earlier that we had two examples of building gaps in skills. The second area is a common assumption for many educators. Our students are young- the majority are aged between 19 and 24 years old. They all have smartphones and laptops and use social media on an hourly basis. There all young enough to be called digital natives. But we would be wrong to assume that their skills in technology for social purposes translated to academic digital literacies.
- NOT ENOUGH TIME TO SHOW AT EA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv3ztLpBWHs Clip and embed + bring file for desktop _______________________________________________________ I’ll show you one example of a screencast with an online tutor and a student. We ended up creating a suite of screencasts to guide students around the site tools and to show them how to complete the tasks.
- SLIDE NOT NECESSARY We ended up creating a suite of screencasts to guide students around the site tools and to show them how to complete the tasks.
- Add key takeaways from this section in bullet point.
- BE VERY SPECIFIC WITH QUESTIONS – MAKE SURE THEY ARE TARGETED AND LEAD INTO THE NEXT SECTION If there is a lack of engagement in the classroom, how do we know what the issue is? And how do we find out?
- So far we’ve been discussing how to support students, but of course the success of any major change in practice within a school hinges on the teachers. This applies to any organisational change and there are a number of issues that come into play with implementing changes in curriculum and technology amongst teaching staff. Just as with students, we can’t assume digital literacy skills. All our teachers are highly skilled and well experienced in ELICOS and most are incredibly innovative – like any engaged teacher, they find creative ways to help students learn. An interesting point that Jeremy Harmer makes, and one that most people will agree with, is that for any new technological tool that we use in class, there is still an underlying pedagogical principle that we as teachers already follow. Put another way, the technology in the classroom is almost always an innovation on a pre-existing task, rather than an entirely new task with entirely new ways of learning and doing. TALKING POINT – based on your experience, what issues do institutions face when implementing substantial change in practice and technology?
- Animate these as they become relevant (notes in the hidden slides)
- Firstly, during training we made sure everyone wrote a ‘burning question’, which you can see on the left, which allowed us to quickly guage what people’s primary concerns were. Some of those we could address on the spot and some we could address through further correspondence (such as emails or weekly meetings) or in training. The key to honest feedback is anonymity, so just as the burning questions were anonymous, we made sure there were regular course evaluations (every 5 weeks) and required teachers to do an online questionnaire where we could get a sense of what was working and what teachers needed more support in.
- We provided support in multiple ways – as well as creating screencasts for students we created specific screencasts that walked teachers through what they needed to do for each classroom task that was scheduled, as well as guiding them through the different features of the LMS. We had done this initially in the large training sessions but this allowed teachers to digest the information in their own time and when it was relevant to them. We were very fortunate to have a full-time LMS facilitator, Aaron Jolly, who put a tremendous amount of effort into making these screencasts, both for students and teachers, as well as being on call for any teacher to approach if they wanted someone to walk them through the processes. We were also proactive and sought out which teachers were not engaging with the LMS and Aaron was able to sit down discreetly with them and address any difficulties they may have had. As well as screencasts we created screenshots which would accompany email reminders and instructions for teachers if they felt more comfortable reading rather than watching videos. We also set up a forum for teachers to share ideas and ask us questions on Blackboard and would also talk through these points as they arose in the weekly staff meetings, that way training staff incrementally as needed.
- As we went on we saw that all of these channels were providing us substantial feedback in terms of quantity but we realised we wanted more in-depth understanding of what teachers were experiencing, so we made a point of reaching out to teachers for informal, 1-on-1 interviews. We put out a call to all teachers who wanted to meet with us, but we also contacted individual teachers who were not ‘the loudest voices’. In any workplace there are some people who are far more confident to speak up and now we wanted to hear from those more modest teachers who would still have just as valuable contributions. We saw about 20 teachers between us, and had some guiding questions. We took notes so that we could consolidate the data. The brilliant part about these 1-on-1s was not only did it give us a better understanding of the LMS, but we saw some teachers were doing really interesting things in class, things we didn’t necessarily expect. We saw innovation and creativity and we saw people who could show their colleagues the potential of this new change in practice. In essence, we found early advocates and so we wanted to open up the ‘training’ so to speak, to the teachers.
- To do that we held ‘lightning talks’, a presentation format that our centre regularly holds to highlight the research teachers are doing at the centre. Based on the 1-to-1 interviews, we asked several teachers who were innovative use of the tool to give 10 minute presentations to their colleagues to demonstrate to their colleagues what they had been doing in the classroom with Bb. A lot of the teachers were quite modest, saying ‘what I do isn’t really special’, but it was so important to us because they offered up possibilities to those teachers who were maybe still apprehensive with using tech in the classroom and it demystified the process. It helped motivate staff as it showed that all teachers were capable of using the technology to augment what they already did well. This session was fantastic and opened up the ownership of the program to teachers. We found this process of peer-learning to be a rewarding experience for teachers and a particular motivating session.
- Of course, having gone to such effort to collect all this data, the most important thing is to use it, and use it wisely. If we were getting positive results for something, fantastic. If there were areas that weren’t scoring highly we needed to understand why and address it quickly. In our case, the constant evaluation allowed us to not only re-examine what we do in the course but also our rationale for doing so. In the early stages this was incredibly valuable because it allowed us to adjust and strengthen the learning objectives and goals and provide clearer rationales that we were confident in. Which meant the value of the course could be clear to teachers and to students. Finally, I want to touch on Tony Bryk’s research on how to facilitate growth and change in learning organisations. Bryk state we need to engage in rapid cycles of plan, do, study act. Which means frequent evaluation, learning quickly and revising quickly when need be. We are fortunate in the fact that our courses run in 5 week blocks, which allows for such frequent evaluation and the ability to act on that data for the next block. TALKING POINT – HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET A CHANCE TO REVISE YOUR COURSES/OR SYSTEMS? HOW EASY OR DIFFICULT IS IT FOR YOUR ORGANISATION TO IMPLEMENT CHANGE? Draw upon double loop learning research Talk about the need to design purposefully and learn quickly