Activity 8

Flexible learning strategies

 

During this project I have explored a number of different types of strategies & styles for teaching young adults. I am going to look at two strategies that could be developed in our program as they have shown to be good value in other areas or from other training facilities.

 

Blended Learning Strategies – Design 1

Guided repair procedures

In this program students are to work their way through a range of simulated workshop activities/procedures. Similar to the situations they face in the workshops. This can start at the point of the contact with the customer and go right the way through to the handover back to the  customer informing them of the work done and the methods used to carry out the repair.

During the steps of the procedure the student has a range of options to select and is guided by the built in technical support on making the correct decision. This can be down to tool selection or which part fits on next, with audible and visual indicators.

 

Overall Strategy and Dimensions	Content	Activities	*Communication Interactions	Assessment
Strategy: Computer Based Program (CD) Guided repair procedures	Workshop tasks with guided technician support or prompt if the wrong steps are taken	Tasks are used as direct preparation for actual activities in the workplace. Knowledge questions and answers as they progress.	Student’s activities are recorded and reports generated. Times taken and number of mistakes made. Tutor observations of patterns	Completion of an activity in required time and with limited no. of mistakes to equate to quality workmanship.
Dimensions:	Create an App that is a simulated workshop scenario where by the student is informed on each step if the move is correct or not, with audio or visual displays.	Different automotive tasks are set up as computer graphic displays. The student has to fix the problem, by disassembly and reassemble in the correct sequence, by clicking/pasting, dragging icons to complete the task.	Each computer task has a timer application. The students’ progress time is forwarded to the facilitators and each student is required to give feedback on how they felt the task went. Email/ message function to facilitator for help.	The timed aspect and mistake record gives and assessment of how quickly and efficiently the student completed each task. Students are informed on their result immediately. Progress is forwarded to the facilitator.

 

Delivery

 

This type of program can be done on and off campus, with tutor lessons to start the student’s off., which can be a pre-recorded instructional video or information sheets. Then each simulated task would be able to be completed individually or as part of a course plan followed by practical workshop activities, lessons or assessments.

Flexibility

The scope for this type of training is extending the parameters on three of the five dimensions of flexibility. With time as a major factor in today’s world this will give students the option to preform task anywhere at any time. Instructional approaches and delivery logistics would be improved with students being able to practice away from campus and still have the contact of the tutors.

Learning

By having time and quality monitoring, the students could also be able to challenge each other and teach each other better ways of preforming the tasks. Similar to the type of practice carried out in the workshop or computer gaming situations to enhance each other’s ability. Reflection would be encouraged in the feedback and the facilitator can discuss progress and ability with the students prior to entering the workshop classes.

Assessment

The records taken from the program data shows students ability and prior knowledge can be checked with pop up questions during the procedure. This collated data would then allow the student access onto the next activities or into the workshop to complete the task for real.

 

References;

A practical guide to providing flexible learning in further and higher education by Casey, J. & Wilson, P. (2005).

http://wikieducator.org/Flexible_Learning/Strategies_for_Flexible_Learning

http://toolboxes.flexiblelearning.net.au/preview/index.htm

U.S Army remote military repair training

 

 

 

Blended Learning Strategies – Design 2

E-Portfolio

The construction of an e-portfolio for the automotive students at Otago polytechnic would be of benefit to the students by recording the record of learning and giving them their own platform to continue throughout their careers to show lifelong learning and record tasks they carry out on a daily basis.

One of the aspects of the automotive repair industry is that “the car you are working on is not the only one with that very same fault in it.” So an e-portfolio can help a technician record a large range of repairs for future benefit, alongside of the benefits as a living CV document, a record of learning, quality control and proof of quality workmanship.

Overall Strategy and Dimensions	Content	Activities	*Communication Interactions	Assessment
Strategy: E-portfolio	Assessment criteria covered and highlighted, standards and expectations	Task records with details retaining to each specific task that requires knowledge/skill to be demonstrated. Uploaded job cards / photos/ videos of tasks.	Access to E-portfolio -workplace employers -workshop team/group -Potential employers Scheduled tutor feedback to check progress	Final submission for marking and checking that criteria is meet. Feedback required
Dimensions:	Record of learning to demonstrate levels of ability and knowledge.	Reflection of tasks Students to comment on their learning by giving feedback on their learning	Students able to view each other’s e-portfolio and leave constructive comments.	E-portfolio is used as a record of work the student has attempted and completed. Matrix for marking

 

Delivery

This type of learning would be taught with an instructional lesson(s) to get them started and buy into the concept. The criteria would be clearly set out so the students knew exactly what expected. There would be scope to allow the students to create any design or style that worked for them for their own e-portfolio. Initially this would take place on campus and would develop to a fully off campus task.

Flexibility

Taking this type of approach to gathering information around a students’ learning would be a very flexible model, working in and around all of life’s other challenges. Working to a course program would put some end of course time restrictions onto it but it would fit very nicely with the automotive apprentice where the students’ needs are controlled more by the jobs coming into the workshop that day than following a particular schedule.

Learning

The learning comes in from the reflection and the process of running through each part of a task mentally after the event allowing for thought on improvement of practices and procedures.

Assessment

A matrix template would be needed to allow the assessor to check off the tasks against the criteria of the course or unit standard as they went through each e-portfolio.

Reference;

http://wikieducator.org/Flexible_Learning/Strategies_for_Flexible_Learning

A practical guide to providing flexible learning in further and higher education by Casey, J. & Wilson, P. (2005).

Otago Polytechnic - Carpentry Department – Matt Thompson.

Flexible learning 6

Open Education Resources (OER/OEP)

Activity 7

Definition of Open Educational Resources

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

Definition of Open Educational Practices

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are defined as practices which support the production, use and reuse of high quality open educational resources (OER) through institutional policies, which promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path. OEP address the whole OER governance community: policy makers, managers and administrators of organizations, educational professionals and learners.

OER & OEP in my context

The theory behind the movement to an open education society does have very good to the effect that we are getting into the mind-set of sharing all knowledge to help others learn and enjoy learning.

All learning becomes a task and then moved away from if it becomes too hard and seems out of reach. In an open educational resources movement all information can be accessed by any one and the learning is unlimited, then the training institutes are in the business of assessing capability.

In this modern world students expect to find the information they need at their fingertips but the drawback is that one cannot always take what they find on the internet as gospel. We are encouraged to listen to their findings and have an open discussion around the topics and compare to our own situations and current working practices. One of the great things about the internet is that it is bringing the world closer together and the ability to have two people thinking alike on different sides of the world is quite common. Then they can share information and develop new ideas better that they would on their own.

The difference from pre-internet days would be the training provider would supply all the necessary content for the students to know without going out of the box to far so the students didn’t get to overwhelmed. Today we have to teach the students skills to manage the information so they can sift through and only take the bits they need, sort of a personal content filter.

In our course we have a selection of approved resources that we encourage the students to use but we also have some activities that challenge the students to find and research new and emerging technology and write a report about it identifying the benefits and legislation requirements.

In these activities we allow the students to explore the industry and get excited of the scope the will have opportunities to go into either during training or after obtaining the qualification, and also give relevance to the material we are teaching.

 

Reference;

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Open_Education_Practices:_A_User_Guide_for_Organisations/OER_Literature_Review#cite_note-PawlowskiBick-4

http://www.icde.org/en/resources/open_educational_quality_inititiative/definition_of_open_educational_practices/

Flexible Learning 5

Sustainability in Education

Activity 6

To Sustain - In music, sustain is the length of time a sound continues after the input energy stops. The toll of a bell happens with the strikes of the clapper, and the sustain is what we hear as the sound decays.

So taking what we do in our education field (our Impact) and seeing it continue(the momentum).

If we are teaching a philosophy of a way of learning and working it should be able to continue long after we have delivered it.

In our automotive programs we continue to develop our educational material resources so they can sustain future students learning and be measured against the requirements of the industry.

Such as;

Ø  Use of Moodle and on-line resources for material delivery and learning

Ø  Very little printing

Ø  Reusing of workshop parts and equipment

Ø  Morale responsibilities ( Volunteering Days)

Ø  Environmental Impact ( waste products recycled)

To go to another level on this last item would be to develop an article or documentary on the way that the big car companies have policy to take back their end of life vehicles and recycle the materials into parts for the new models. 

When I am teaching, the strategies I use to highlight sustainability are” Best Practise Demonstrations” showing the effect of quality workmanship and using open discussion around the effects of not living up to this expectation. In industry this equals returning customers that are happy with the service and have peace of mind in the fact that the business they support takes their social, environment impact seriously.

 

Key Learning Areas

1. Self understanding- developing sustainability values and ethics; developing an ecological identity and sense of place; developing a personal educational and leadership philosophy
2. View of the world- understanding sustainability issues as interconnected, holistic, and relational; developing systems thinking; understanding and valuing the importance of multiple perspectives
3. Relationships- developing strategies for working with diverse groups to affect change; understanding how power, privilege and justice impact relationships; developing sustainability networks and partnerships
4. Tools for change- developing a toolkit for enacting sustainable change; gaining tools for educating for sustainability; developing leadership skills.                                              

While working through this module I have thought about how we incorporate the four actions promoting student learning. And I feel we are strong in all of these areas, but giving the time to reflect on our course and we would find some room for improvement.

· Cooperative Learning - An interactive model for teaching and learning. More than working in groups, it is a process requiring guided facilitation.

- Workshop tasks and demonstrations

· Inquiry Learning  - An holistic, integrated approach to teaching and learning, raising questions to investigate and taking action for a sustainable future.

- Research projects

· Experiential Learning - Developed through personal experience, guided reflection and learning conversations.

- Work experience

· Reflection - Fundamental to supporting student action competence.

- During class time and before assessments

 

References

 

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/sustainability/index.asp

http://sustainability.daimler.com/reports/daimler/annual/2012/nb/English/4545/recycling.html

http://www.pdx.edu/elp/lse-program-overview
 

http://efs.tki.org.nz/EfS-in-the-curriculum/Effective-pedagogy

http://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/

Flexible Learning 4

Module 3 Trends

Activity 5 Technologies for learning

An idea for using technology in Learning

Computer simulation Programmes

In the automotive industry it is very hard to fully understand the workings that go on inside a component without pulling it apart and investigating the finer detail of the internal workings that complete the component. ( this may be due to the type of learners that are drawn to the automotive industry)

So taking this notion and developing a computer software program that will allow students to disassemble and reassemble a job or task that would normally need time in the workshop to do, they would be able to complete the task in a virtual workshop.

This could be developed in a way to give the user the ability to assemble components correctly as they would in real life, then if they didn’t the program would be able to make a noise or an action that would be similar to the action that would happen in the real world.

For example;  Assembling a gear box and one of the gears was put in the wrong way round, the gear box would make a horrible noise when completed.(If it went at all) And the student would have to go back to that point and start again.

This type of program could help the student go through the practical task step by step as many times as they needed to be able to feel confident enough to work on the real thing.

There would be a great amount of flexibility coming from a program like this as the students would have access to it at all times from any mobile devise, let’s say the student woke up in the middle of the night worried about a workshop assessment, they could log on by way of their smart phone and complete the task. Or on a tablet in the workshop while waiting for access to the equipment.

This type of training equipment could be available to all students from all parts of the world at the same time in any language. Making it a very flexible resource, from every angle.

 

When the Apple iPad was released in 2010, a new category of mobile device was born, distinct from smartphones, ultra-small laptops, e-readers, and other kinds of portable devices. Suddenly people had the ability to download and read books, watch videos, learn foreign languages, and much more — all through a large, high-resolution touchscreen that made the experience convenient, vibrant, and shareable. On these always-connected devices, several people could sit down together and easily watch the same movie and study the same images.

So with this in mind the automotive workshops have moved very quickly in getting technology to the repair technicians and enabling them to use mobile devises to repair vehicles with greater speed and flexibility, by having large repair manuals in a tablet and wireless connection to on board computers connecting the car directly to the manufacturer. It makes sense to try and familiarise learners with this type of equipment so they are prepared for the workplace.

  DuraTec_HE.MPG

References;

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-report-HE.pdf

Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair video. This demonstrates how virtual reality goggles are used for teaching mechanics in the marines. You can see how 3D can be used to help students learn skills.

Ford Motor Company

Flexible Learning 3

Module two – Activity four

Diversity

In the automotive programme we have a module learning “Terminology in the automotive industry”

Whilst working through this module the students are introduced too, not only the diverse range of terms used in our industry, but also made aware of the large amount of terms used for exactly the same thing. For example one part of an engine is called a Valve cover   - A long metal lid located on the top of the cylinder head on vehicles with overhead camshafts. The valve cover is removed when the valves need adjusting. This can also be called rocker cover, tappet cover, top cover, rocker box and there may be many more.

Sometimes this would depend on what country you are working in or even the slang your co-workers used, these all can be major barriers in the industry ( And expensive for parts suppliers) and may cause misunderstanding and comprehension problems during assessments exams.

To overcome some of these issues we use direct our students to an on-line resource, an automotive dictionary. While working on this activity I have thought that we could also have hyperlinks to this dictionary in our own material and therefore giving the students better access to the terms they struggle to understand. We also use as many different terms and real experiences as possible to help the students understand the need to be aware that other peoples training and language might be different but while being the same as their own.

References;

http://www.motorera.com/dictionary/INDEX.HTM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shelby_Mustang_GT350_engine.jpg

http://wikieducator.org/Flexible_Learning/Access_and_Equity

Flexible Learning 2

Module One – Activity three

Certificate in Information technology Level 4

This is a 16 week programme with open entry with a selection on the ability to succeed.  In this programme students will receive an introduction to computing and software that can lead into further training in industry or education.  This is a practical course to gain skills with software applications such as word and excel and hardware, programming and operating systems and exploring on line tools.

The student’s majority demographic is young males 18-23 that fill most of the places. 

There are 4 courses (15 credits) that are run concurrently with classes sized around 20 students per class.

Each course will have 2-3 classes per week with a classroom discussion session and then computer lab activities.

The flexibility is built into this course by discussion groups made available on Moodle after the event and computer labs can be performed in a limited capacity from home.  For maximum gains, it would be beneficial to attend all lessons.  Each course has the full term to be completed and does not need to have one completed to progress to the next.

When reflecting on the degree of flexibility, this programme stands as a very flexible course from open entry with bridging options into the course and after course completion.  Also there is the ability to complete course material at their own pace, with a mainstay of excellent equipment and great staff.

A good task that may transfer to our Automotive Programmes would be a programme where the students build computers that have real life reactions if the computer is assembled incorrectly.

Reference;

Hamish Smith Programme Manager CIT / CITSS
Information Technology (ICT) Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin

Flexible Learning 1

Module one – Activity two

I see this as a two pronged topic,

·         Flexible learning to me in an automotive training environment is about developing and blending different styles to adapt to individual learners needs, being able to have a range of methods to allow the students to consistently use a method that engages them into learning.

Our learners mostly come from the “Kinesthetic” learning preference ( VARK ) and respond well to the practical type of delivery but also require varying ways of delivery to fully understand a topic.

 

·         Flexibility is also needed in the where and when the students can learn the given topic, the pressures of today are forever increasing and moreover students need to move their study around the lives, work and families. If a course is to be flexible then this would be one of the main aspects that would encourage people to engage in study in knowing of their own responsibilities

To surmise with regards to the automotive programs we need to look at having adequate access to learning resources and time frames that are flexible enough to give all the students time to get a good foundation of knowledge, and the ability to record the evidence of competence, in our case either by ourselves or a workplace assessor.

References;

http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/publications/a-practical-guide-to-providing-flexible-learning-in-further-and-higher-education.pdf

http://wikieducator.org/Flexible_Learning/What_is_Flexible_Learning%3F