Author: Dr Ian G Anderson, i.anderson@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk

JISC e-Learning Activity Area: Technology-enhanced Learning Environments

Higher Education Academy Subject Centre: History, Classics and Archaeology and Philosophical and Religious Studies

This case study illustrates...an effect on learning, an effect on exam results, staff satisfaction with e-learning, an influence on policy, modifications to learning spaces, management of learning assets, an effect on social equality

Tangible Benefits

What tangible benefits did this e-learning approach produce?

Tangible benefits for me are the ease with which I can manage online course content and communication with students and the speed and flexibility I have in adopting new features. This year course evaluation was moved within Moodle using the questionnaire builder. Hopefully this will mean I do more with course feedback than previously and can track trends more effectively.

From the students' perspective I haven't noticed any significant improvement in grades. My courses tend to be quite different from those experienced by students elsewhere in the Faculty and in general I have a high level of engagement and commitment. I suspect this is due to the novelty of the content rather than inspiring teaching on my part, but I'm conscious to maintain and encourage this as far as I can. The overall grade distribution is the typical bell curve with the mean and mode sitting in the 2:1 range, but perhaps slightly higher up the band than the norm. I also detect a slightly shorter tail than courses in other departments as I rarely have a third class student. Overall I would say the use of Moodle has helped students maintain their grades over the years, rather than outperform, in the face of ever more demanding external circumstances. It may be that the use of Moodle helps weaker students perform better but I suspect this is fairly marginal. I believe really able students will do well whatever, or sometimes in spite of, the way they are taught, so I'm not sure how much impact Moodle has had on them. There is usually a correlation between attendance, commitment, engagement and grades and students' use of Moodle is no different in this respect.

As for the use of forums, occasionally exchanges between students break out, but on the whole debate and questions are still directed through me. There is certainly more interaction online than it would have been possible to conduct in face-to-face sessions but overall the effect is marginal if welcome. I may consider reconfiguring some of the lab exercises to encourage more debate and direct interaction between students online.

The most noticeable benefit came when teaching a blind student for the first time this year. Having the entire course content online was certainly beneficial although it also exposed weaknesses in my composition of PowerPoint slides and the way I explained material in lectures. However, without Moodle the quality of support we were able to offer this student would have been greatly diminished and I doubt that they would have been able to perform to the best of their ability.

Did implementation of this e-learning approach have any disadvantages or drawbacks?

One aspect that has held me back from encouraging more debate online is that I'm acutely aware that to do this effectively requires far greater input from me, particularly as the best results seem to come when this activity is linked to assessment. As this would require a wider reflection on the course structure and assessment it is something that I am hesitant to experiment with.

How did this e-learning approach accord with or differ from any relevant departmental and/or institutional strategies?

As mentioned in point 2 above, our Institute has a longstanding interest in using new technology for our teaching. All of our courses from first year through to masters level have their own Moodle site with staff using the system in similar ways. Therefore, there is a strong alignment between what I have done and the Institute's strategies.

The University's decision to adopt Moodle as its centrally supported VLE gives us technical stability and a greater pool of support and advice. The University's Department of Adult and Continuing Education has been particularly active in providing support and training. As they use our labs for some of this I can detect a growing acceptance of VLEs as an integral component of teaching delivery in the Faculty. However, I'm also aware that a number of participants on these training events are departmental administrators and suspect that pedagogical buy in remains patchy amongst academic staff.