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Instructional design methodologies for teaching university through the Web
Begins: 2008-01-01
Ends: 2009-12-31
ITD reference office: Genoa

Logo WEL - Web Enhanced Learning
Instructional design methodologies for teaching university through the Web 

Framework

University teachers are per se subject-oriented and rarely come into contact with instructional design. Hence their “spontaneous” pedagogy derives from direct experience both as students and as teachers, that, in time, refine a personal style in the management of the teaching/learning process.
However, such spontaneousness could work in classroom teaching but is not advisable in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) which depends on instructional design no matter which is the chosen TEL approach - content driver learning, collaborative learning, blended learning. In fact, TEL requires designing the most effective instructional strategy for each formative objective to be attained with the support of technology.
Of course this does not mean that the teacher should become an instructional designer - they should play the main role of subject matter experts and educators. Nevertheless, the more they are involved in the design, development and management of TEL activities, the higher the quality of the teaching/learning process will be.

Objectives

The specific objectives of WEL are the following:

- devising and experimenting a model for the transfer of instructional design knowledge and skills to subject-oriented university teachers;

- investigating correlations between subject matter and types of TEL activities, i.e. to what extent disciplinary aspects affect design choices as to TEL approaches.

Workplan

It will take place within "UniRete" Project of the University of Genoa in collaboration with the "AulaWeb" initiative of the same university. Consistently with the above objectives the project provides for two key phases:

- devising a project-based formative model on instructional design methodologies (ID) for TEL and its testing on a sample of fifty teachers out of seven-hundred that participate in AulaWeb;

- analysing teachers’ attitudes in TEL strategies selection within their teaching area; such analysis is carried out via periodical conversations between each teacher involved in the project and his/her coach-designer (an ITD researcher).

Expected results

WEL expected results pertain two different yet complementary plans:

- the first one concerns the “codification” of a possible project-based itinerary to approach TEL-oriented ID - a flexible and pragmatic one with a few technicalities;

- the second one should stress the relation between content aspects of a given subject and the corresponding selections of applicable TEL approaches. In particular, the research activity should explain whether the adopted approach is affected by the strategy considered as the most suitable one to attain a given formative goal, or, it is due to a technology not fit for processing/managing specific disciplinary contents and/or specific educational strategies. In the latter case, the project could suggest positive actions to enhance the effectiveness of current TEL technologies.

 
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