VCSE Guidebook/Conclusions/Bibliography: Difference between revisions

===Short Description of VCSE e-Courses===

VCSE-partner: GRAZ

VCSE e-Course: Sustainable Spatial and Regional Development

Challenge / obstacle

to be faced:

 

 

 

Thinking of the course design, we faced five major challenges:  

1.) How to combine theoretical knowledge input with suitable and useful activities to enhance learning output.  

2.) How to design the e-course in a way that would benefit both the learners and the teachers (e.g. not too much time and effort for the final result).  

3.) How to attract and keep students motivated despite the lack of personal contact.  

4.) How to design a course for students that come from a variety of academic backgrounds and levels.  

5.) How to produce learning material that is itself sustainable and can be re-used?  

Approach/ methodology / medium used:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The e-course “Sustainable Spatial and Regional Development” was offered by the Institute of Geography at the University of Graz.  

The e-course is based on a combination of three learning theories in order to enhance the learning process, namely behaviourism (“know that”), cognitivism (“know how”) and constructivism (“know-in-action”).  

With these learning theories in the background, we decided to focus on a methodological approach that combines problem-oriented as well as task-based learning. Learning outcomes are higher when students get actively involved right from the start by putting the knowledge acquired through the modules into practice by means of selected activities.  

Taking into account that the participants have a varying level of previously acquired knowledge in the field and have different academic backgrounds, the selection of the contents, structure, learning technology and activities had to be made in a a careful and thorough manner.  

Content: The course aimed at helping students to acquire knowledge on sustainability issues in regional development and planning, with a focal interest on the European perspective. Apart from a general introduction to sustainability, an insight into the history of planning as well as current developments in the field were given. The main didactical tool in this respect was that of case studies, giving examples of new developments and various sustainability approaches. The overall content of the course gives a future outlook on sustainable planning.  

Course structure: The course is divided into ten modules, each including the following parts:  

• Information part (“know-that”): Presentation of theory and practical case study examples through a PowerPoint presentation (pdf download, visual only) and a PowerPoint video (wmf file download, audio-visual, spoken by Prof. Zimmermann). Students could also view the module objectives presented by Prof. Zimmermann in a short Introduction video and finally self-assess their knowledge.   

• Task-based part (“know-how”): Practical, task-based assignments, mainly worked on individually by students and related to the contents of the module

• Communicative part (“know-in-action”): Support and exchange of ideas through communicative activities, e.g. forum, chat.  

Learning technology: We worked with the VCSE learning platform Moodle. This offers a variety of features and educational tools useful for virtual courses as well as appropriate for the objective of this particular e-course (e.g., resources, forum, glossary, grading function, administration block, etc.)  

Apart form the online tools, we decided to use the medium of videos to make the contents more accessible to different learning types.  

Task-based assignments: There were 9 activities in the context of which students had to do research and thus develop selective research skills (e.g., Case Study Research), practice their critical thinking and problem-solving skills (e.g. waterfront design) as well as enhance self-directed learning skills.  

Communicative activities: These were achieved through a forum discussion in which students were encouraged to post and reply to comments.  

Assessment: This was based on the assignments within each, module as well as on two exams (middle and end of term) which consisted of 25 multiple-choice questions each, testing the students’ basic knowledge of the module’s content. Thus, both theoretical and practical issues were assessed.

Achieved outcome / results:

 

 

 

The achieved results were exceptionally satisfying for both students and e-tutors. 7 out of the 9 students who participated actually completed the course, with two students dropping out in the first half of the term. The overall performance of the students who completed the course was good and they got very good grades. Most of the submitted tasks showed a high level of critical thinking and corresponded to the requirements that were set in the task descriptions. The students in general showed a good level of self-directed learning, handing in the assignments within set deadlines and participating well.

Lessons learned / Recommendations for other virtual campuses:

 

 

Despite the fact that the course concept worked well for our first run, we still have to intensify our focus on using more collaborative activities and integrating the previously acquired knowledge and inter-cultural background of the participants into the course. We have also learnt that the production of videos and other material is a very time-intensive task and requires a lot of skill on the part of the teacher; as it is hardly possible to do all that as an individual, the teacher needs the support of a team. However, the “recycling effect” of the course is very important in our opinion. The opportunity to re-use at least parts of the material produced as well as the methodological concept makes a virtual setting like this worth the effort that is put into it.  

Food for thought / Challenges still to be met:

 

In overall, we are satisfied with the course outcomes as we were able to see that the original concept worked out well for our course objectives. However, we still have to face some challenges for the future running of the course, such as:  

• building in more collaborative and communicative activities  

• considering more systematically the cultural and academic backgrounds of the participants for the purpose of enhancing learning  

• upgrading the quality of the videos (e.g., refining the quality of sound, adding tables of contents, improving the file type for download, using iPod format)  

 

Short Description of VCSE e-Courses