Abstract
The renewed B.Ed. Honours programme in a Faculty of Education is presented in a Blended Teaching and Learning model. This model allows for exploring ways of interfacing traditional pedagogies with digital technology. The evolving digital landscape is continuously transforming the sources that provide evidence of student engagement and learning and allow for learning and interaction beyond the physical classroom. With a blended model, students can be in various locations across the country or abroad. Subsequently teachers’ need to adapt learning activities to enhance social constructivist and deep learning where students can co-construct knowledge and understanding while not in the same room. Against this background, students were introduced to online engagement to promote understanding through online interactions. This was done through an online FORUM on the university’s Moodle platform. The ILD Framework of Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland (2005) and Anderson (2004) was used as an action research process to provide students with meaningful learning opportunities. The findings revealed some challenges in navigating the “new” way of engagement. However, the conversations on the online forum afforded students the opportunity to engage through constructive comments to enhance authentic learning. Digital technology has become an integral part of society and therefore also the teaching and learning environment. With blended teaching and learning model, were both students and lecturers have to communicate in online space for a large part of the programme, we have to find innovative ways to keep the conversation alive.
Presenters
Lorna DreyerAssociate Professor, Educational Psychology, Stellenbosch University, Department of Educational Psychology, Western Cape, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Pedagogy, Blended Learning, Online Engagement, IDL Framework, Digital Technology