Education Technology Strategy
The SMU education technology strategy is to implement technology:
- For personalised learning;
- To enable communal, interactive learning;
- To enable service learning and participatory research; and
- To support learning through research.
One of the university's roadmap for its Technology-enhanced Learning (TEL) strategy is to build faculty's digital competency. CTE collaborates with colleagues in the Li Ka Shing Library and the IITS, to assist faculty members in the following areas:
- Locate, curate and organise digital information for academic, personal and/or professional capacities.
- Leverage digital tools and online platforms following sound pedagogically principles to support student learning.
- Locate and implement open education resources to support student learning.
- Use digital tools, platforms and institution’s learning management system (LMS) to support efficient and effective teaching activities.
- Use LMS and other platform data to identify students requiring additional services and learning support (services provided by institution or faculty).
- Participate in professional development and lifelong learning using online platforms and digital applications.
- Create and participate in a personal learning network leveraging digital platforms.
- Create digital contents to solve instructional problems.
- Use technology to transform existing pedagogies.
CTE Support
There are many different forms of online learning, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) or flipped classroom. In MOOCs, students access digital resources (videos, simulations), collaborate with peers and interact with the instructor through online forums, and receive feedback on learning through auto-graded assessments. In flipped learning, students access digital resources before class, and use class time to discuss assignments and homework with their instructor and peers.
At CTE, we support flipped learning through consultations with faculty members. We assist faculty members to redesign their courses by blending the strength of SMU seminar-style lessons with online lessons, and to develop innovative digital content.
This site shares the approach to teach online lessons from the perspectives of:
- Identifying the desired impact of educational technology tools on course learning objectives using the Bloom's digital taxonomy and SAMR model;
- Designing online lesson learning activities that support a community of inquiry (COI); and
- Developing digital contents that enable personalised learning.
It is the university’s mandate that all instructors implement one online lesson during the teaching semester, as part of SMU's Emergency Preparedness for Teaching and Learning (EPTL) Programme. Do check out the EPTL site for more information, and the IITS' and Library's support for online learning.
Integrating Technology Into Pedagogy
See this table for examples of technology being integrated into pedagogy, and enabling students to learn in ways that would not have been possible without the technology.
| Learning: | The use and value of technology in learning: |
|---|---|
|
Students learn at their own place and pace. |
Technology that enables students to learn anywhere (in-class or online) and anytime. |
|
Students access and interact with variety of digital resources. |
Faculty members create digital content (videos, animations, games, simulations); the technology enables student to interact with the content and be active learners, instead of learning in a passive manner. Faculty members use Open Educational Resources OER to complement or supplement materials. Students can use these resources as learning aids. |
|
Students interact with peers and instructors. |
Technology that enables students to stay connected, via synchronous and asynchronous tools, and be active learners. |
|
Students receive timely and targeted feedback on activities. |
Technology that enables students to receive feedback through auto-grading, or through online peer assessments. |
|
Students get guidance / pathways to resources that can help reinforce areas of strength and improve areas of weakness. |
Technology that enables faculty to set pathways and guide students to reach learning goals, effectively and efficiently. Faculty members provide students access to publishers' smart text book with analytics platform. |
|
Students craft and differentiate their own learning pathways and self-monitor the learning. Students set their own goals of what they want or need to learn. |
Technology that enables students to build and manage their personalised learning experience (perhaps in community service projects, professional learning courses) |
|
Students learn through creating new knowledge from research. |
Technology that enables students to enhance research outcomes, e.g. the use of big data analytics and business intelligence tools that enable efficient and effective ways to derive answers to research questions that address a problem/business need/community or societal need. |
|
Students organise their knowledge and share them with the larger community. |
Technology that enables students to make connections to prior knowledge, build up new knowledge, and communicate their findings to the larger community. |
Bibliography
1. Teaching and Learning in Irish Higher Education: A Roadmap for Enhancement in a Digital World 2015 - 2017.