OER1016 Oral Presentation ppt

Repurposing with a purpose – a story with a happy ending.

Lyn Greaves, Thames Valley University Clare Bradley, London Metropolitan University, RLO-CETL Professor Sibel Roller, Thames Valley University

Conference Theme: OER designs

Abstract: This case-study presents findings and continued outputs resulting from work undertaken as part of a JISC funded project. Project BL4ACE (Greaves, L 2009) working with RLO-CETL colleagues, set out to develop further the impact and reach of Re-usable Learning Objects across the Thames Valley University curriculum. The project successfully redesigned an existing academic skills module by creating and embedding learning objects to scaffold independent learner activities. It strengthened a learning design that had already demonstrated improved retention, progression and learning gain over two successive years (Greaves et al, 2007). The team successfully represented and communicated the learning design for the Business subject area and effectively increased real and widespread use through demonstrating effective transferability across subject domains to the subject areas of Health and Law. The student progression statistics for both the Health and the Law students show a significant progression and learning gain between the previous cohort and the current cohort who had the revised scaffolded curriculum. Although we can’t say for certain that the embedding of the LO’s are causal drivers for learning gains, comparative cohort performance and evaluation of learners’ experiences certainly indicate that they play a significant role. We learnt a great deal from the project particularly in the use of the Generative Learning Object Maker Tool for repurposing existing learning objects and curriculum materials to fit the local subject pedagogy and course and module needs. The presentation will outline the extent our development work led to improved student learning and describe the tangible/measurable institutional benefits that have been realised through the work of the project. We describe the barriers and enablers in using learning objects from other institutions for reuse and adaptation (using the GLO Maker tool), and incorporating them into the module designs, in particular resource implications. Student results and feedback from student evaluations will be presented that highlight the success of the approach, and our experiences and lessons learned in terms of impact of innovations on learners, on teachers and on the institution will be shared.

Keywords: Learning designs, learning objects, GLO Maker, student retention and progression improvement

References:
Greaves, L. 'Blended Learning 4 Academic Competence and Critical Enquiry (BL4ACE)' JISC RePurpose Project, March 2008-2009
Greaves, L., Bradley, C., Cook, J. (2008). A Blended Learning Design to Support Student Learning. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 4643-4651). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.