Pedagogic innovation for teaching excellence: a strategic approach to enhancing teaching quality in higher education

1. Professor Alejandro Armellini
@alejandroa
Ale.Armellini@northampton.ac.uk
Pedagogic innovation for teaching excellence:
a strategic approach to enhancing teaching quality
in higher education

2. Plan
1. Principles
2. Quality enhancement
3. Raising the VLE bar
4. Pedagogic innovation (or absence of it)
a. Flipping right!
b. MOOCs
5. Conclusions
@alejandroa 2

3. Principles
• Quality of teaching central to the quality of the
student experience
• Transformational learning experiences can be
achieved through inspirational teaching
• Knowledge and learning are open, mobile,
connected and scalable
3@alejandroa

4. Quality enhancement
Deliberate steps at provider level to improve the
quality of students' learning opportunities.
Quality assurance generates information for quality
enhancement to take place. Enhancement is a
routine part of the way that higher education is
managed.
(QAA, 2014)
4
@alejandroa

5. Gathering of
robust
information for
systematic QA
Systematic
analysis at
strategic level
Identification of
good practice
and areas for
improvement
Deployment of
enhancement
initiatives
Initiatives result
in actions that
impact on the
quality of
learning
opportunities
Enhancement
process
monitored
5
(Adapted from QAA, 2014)

6. 6
@alejandroa

7. 7
@alejandroa

8. 8
@alejandroa

9. 9
@alejandroa

10. 10
@alejandroa

11. 11
@alejandroa

12. Level Focus Key features
12
@alejandroa
VLE design benchmarks

13. VLE design benchmarks
Level Focus Key features
Foundation Delivery  Absolute minimum expected
 Course information, handbook and guides
 Learning materials
13
@alejandroa

14. Level Focus Key features
Foundation Delivery  Absolute minimum expected
 Course information, handbook and guides
 Learning materials
Intermediate
Essential in all
‘blended’ courses
Participation In addition to ‘Delivery’:
 Online participation designed into the course.
 Tasks provide meaningful formative scaffold.
 Online participation encouraged and moderated, but not
assessed.
14
@alejandroa
VLE design benchmarks

15. Level Focus Key features
Foundation Delivery  Absolute minimum expected
 Course information, handbook and guides
 Learning materials
Intermediate
Essential in all
‘blended’ courses
Participation In addition to ‘Delivery’:
 Online participation designed into the course.
 Tasks provide meaningful formative scaffold.
 Online participation encouraged and moderated, but not
assessed.
Advanced
Essential in all fully
online courses
Collaboration In addition to ‘Delivery’:
 Regular learner input designed into course & essential
throughout.
 Online tasks provide meaningful scaffold to formative and
summative assessment.
 Collaborative knowledge construction central to a productive
learning environment & part of assessment.
15
@alejandroa
VLE design benchmarks

16. Level Focus Objective
Foundation Delivery
COMPLIANCE (or REPOSITORY!)
Intermediate Participation ENGAGEMENT
Advanced Collaboration ACTIVE LEARNING
16
@alejandroa
VLE design benchmarks

17. 17
@alejandroa

18. The resource is not the course
18
@alejandroa

19. Content dump vs learning pathway
Trawl through stuff vs use a scaffold
Hidden learning outcomes
vs explicit alignment
Push content vs engage
Upload vs design
Resource vs course
Deliver vs teach
19@alejandroa

20. Task 1
What do these four concepts
have in common?
1. Over-promises and
under-delivery
2. Relentless optimism
3. Innovation
4. Potential

21. Innovation
“A new idea or a further development of an
existing product, process or method that is
applied in a specific context with the
intention to create a value added”.
(Kirkland and Sutch, 2009)
21
@alejandroa

22. What exactly is pedagogic innovation?
Definitions in the literature are:
– Lacking: people write about innovation without ever
stating what it is
– Vague or recursive
– Mistaken. For example, using technologies in
learning and teaching activities is not per se a
pedagogic innovation
22
@alejandroa

23. Task 2
With a friendly
neighbour, define
“pedagogic innovation”.
Note: avoid using the
terms you’re defining in
the definition itself.

24. Pedagogic innovation
“Adapting to characteristics of students and
responding to their development is an inherent
aspect of pedagogy. […] These adaptations
can be considered innovations if are based
[sic] on a new idea and when they have the
potential to improve student learning, or when
they are linked with other outcomes […]”
(Vieluf, Kaplan, Klieeme & Bayer, 2012)
24
@alejandroa

25. Pedagogic innovation
“What is an innovation in one education system
may be well-established practice in another;
what is appreciated as an improvement may be
rejected elsewhere.”
(Vieluf et al., 2012)
@alejandroa 25

26. Task 3
With your friendly
neighbour (or with a
different one!) consider
whether or not “the flipped
classroom” constitutes
“pedagogic innovation”.
If it does, indicate one
pedagogic innovation
criterion the flipped
classroom meets.
If it does not, indicate
your reasons.

27. To flip or not to flip?

28. Pre-session
cognitive
exposure –
multimedia
resources
F2F session:
analysis,
discussion,
reflection & goal
setting
Post-session
online work:
consolidation &
evaluation
28
@alejandroa

29. Pre-session
cognitive
exposure –
multimedia
resources
?
F2F session:
analysis,
discussion,
reflection &
goal setting
Post-session
online work:
consolidation
& evaluation
@alejandroa 29

30. Digital
resources
Tasks for
sense-
making
Analysis,
discussion,
reflection &
goal setting
Consolidation
& action
planning
ONLINE & F2F ONLINE
& F2F
FACE TO FACE
@alejandroa

31. Task 4
Now consider whether or
not MOOCs are
“pedagogically
innovative”.
If they are, indicate what
pedagogic innovation
criteria MOOCs meet.
If they are not, indicate
your reasons.

32. 32
@alejandroa

33. Are MOOCs pedagogically innovative?
Survey of 106
education
professionals
involved in MOOCs:
Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)

34. Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)

35. Key features of MOOCs
Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)

36. MOOCs are pedagogically innovative (15.1%)
• Failed to justify, define pedagogic
innovation or identify criteria
• Confused innovation with novelty or
enthusiasm
• Identified other forms of innovation in
MOOCs (e.g. scope, scale) but couldn’t
make claims of a pedagogic nature
• “Potential”
Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)

37. MOOCs are not pedagogically innovative (84.9%)
- part 1
• Traditional
• Content-centric: “shovelware”
• Glorified resources: MOORs
• Technologically flamboyant (when things work)
• “MOOCs in themselves are not pedagogically
innovative, but with some imagination they
could be helpful”
Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)

38. • An innovation in marketing, not in pedagogy
• Regressive, anachronistic, chaotic
• Cost-cutting devices, masqueraded as
‘democratic’, ‘open’ and ‘free’ courses
• Over-hyped, low completion, low value,
disposable, no recognition, quality
assurance or rigour
• cMOOCs seen more positively than
xMOOCs
Armellini & Padilla (JIOL, forthcoming)
MOOCs are not pedagogically innovative (84.9%)
- part 2

39. Task 5
Find your friendly neighbour again
and consider these two questions:
a. Think of your autobiography as a
student. Share an example of
pedagogic innovation, which you
experienced as a learner.
b. Share one criterion that, in your
view, innovative pedagogic practice
in HE should meet or exceed.
@alejandroa 39

40. Old wine in new bottles?
Task 6
Old wine
Learners generate content as
homework, which is used creatively in
the following seminar
Course in a (digital) box
Talk to your classmates
New bottles
Flipped classroom
xMOOC
Social learning
Learners bring their books and pencil
cases (among many other
technologies)
Loops of personalised assessment for
learning & feedback
Study on the bus or train, on campus
or at home
Teaching methods
Bring your own device (BYOD)
Dynamic assessment
Mobile learning
Pedagogies
@alejandroa 40

41. Task 7: next steps
What will your next
pedagogic innovation
be?
(be very specific!)
@alejandroa 41

42. “Now please redesign your course _____”:
…For employability
…For WBL
…To include more technology-enhanced learning
…For Team-based learning
…For blended learning
…So we have an online version of it
…To meet the new institutional challenges and priorities
@alejandroa 42
Redesign as a habit

43. • Pedagogic innovation is the exception, not
the rule.
• There’s far less innovation than meets the
eye.
• Pedagogic innovation keeps us refreshed,
motivated and engaged with what we do.
BUT…
@alejandroa 43
Conclusions: innovation and
excellence

44. Pedagogic innovation is important in excellent
teaching, but not a prerequisite for it.
Conclusions: innovation and
excellence

45. Thank
you
Professor Alejandro Armellini
University of Northampton
@alejandroa | Ale.Armellini@northampton.ac.uk