Using the Virtual Training Suite in taught courses and building in group work activities

Institutional setting

The LeTTOL (Learning to Teach Online) course was developed in 1996 by a collaboration of the eight further education colleges in South Yorkshire. This entity is known as SYFEC (South Yorkshire Further Education Consortium) and the Sheffield College is a partner. The course was developed in response to the perceived need to provide further education lecturers in South Yorkshire with the pedagogical skills and knowledge to develop, deliver and manage online courses. At that time European funding was enabling an improving technological infrastructure in South Yorkshire and it was thought necessary to provide opportunities to develop the expertise necessary to exploit these technologies.

Since the pilot in 1996 the course has been continuously improved and updated, and its initially narrow target group has expanded. The course has been delivered now to more than 1500 learners, from all over the world. In addition a "sister" course targeted at corporate trainers, COL (Certificate in Online Learning) has been developed in partnership with the CIPD, (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), as well as progression courses ITOL (Implementing Teaching Online) and ACOL (Advanced Certificate in Online Learning).

The focus of this case study is on a single assignment within the LeTTOL course, and it is helpful to this case study to give an overview of what the LeTTOL course is about in order to contextualised the assignment. LeTTOL is delivered entirely online, and its main learning objectives are to teach participants to:

1. be competent in the use of technology necessary for successful online teaching
2. understand the necessity of, and demonstrate, good organisational skills in using ICTs
3. understand the issues of, and be able to demonstrate the skills needed to facilitate, collaborative working/groupwork online
4. recognise how generic tutoring skills translate to an online environment
5. identify and apply the skills needed to assist individual learners
6. understand the principles of designing activities and courses for online delivery
7. deploy available technology creatively and appropriately
8. identify the impact that society may have on online learning

The course runs four times a year, with starts in February, June, September and November. The course duration is approximately twenty-three weeks, and learners are expected to study for six to seven hours per week for the whole of this time. Learners go through the course in groups of fifteen to twenty, with each group allocated to a single tutor. There is not complete flexibility in the pace of the course, in that learners are expected to meet deadlines, in order that they work through the course at more or less the same rate. This is because of the extreme importance that is placed upon the learners working in collaborative learning sets throughout the course. A learning set is a subset of a group, consisting typically of five to seven people. During the course learners are expected to complete approximately thirty assessed activities, about half of which are individual activities, and about half are collaborative. In addition learners are expected to circulate almost every individual activity to their learning set colleagues.

The course is divided into four Units, as follows:

Unit 1:Orientation	Preparation for LeTTOL to ensure maximum benefit is gained from online study Skills of locating and sharing web-based information Introduction to conferencing tool and collaborative work within learning sets
Unit 2:Learning Online	Educational and training impact of the Internet, and comparison between online delivery and other delivery media Skills of evaluating web resources and how to deploy them for learning
Unit 3:Learning Management Issues	Role of the online tutor in the guidance and support of on-line learners· Management of online groups Potential and challenges of assessment in an online course
Unit 4:Online Design and Delivery	Online learning in a wider context and in a changing world Designing learning for the web. Integrating the skills and understanding acquired throughout the course, and applying them in the design of an on-line course outline

This case study focuses on one particular assignment in the LeTTOL course, which appears in Unit 4, as part of a section addressing the core principles of designing learning for the web. The activity was introduced for the first time in September 2002:

Purpose of the case study

This case study should be of interest to anyone designing courses and who plans to incorporate some sort of group work. Though the LeTTOL assignment addresses online courses, the examples that are examined could be adapted for face-to-face delivery. The case study will therefore provide ideas for anyone who wishes to use the Virtual Training Suite tutorials as a basis for some sort of group learning activity, either a cooperative activity or a collaborative activity. It is a central philosophy of the LeTTOL way of working that there are major benefits in encouraging learners to work in groups in online courses, and in incorporating learning activities that require group work. Such interactions increase a sense of belonging and learners are more likely to stay motivated and committed, and to complete the course. Online group work also allows learners from different backgrounds, geographical locations and cultures to interact and to share their knowledge, experience and perceptions. In addition learners who are unable to attend face-to-face classes, perhaps because they have restricted mobility or caring responsibilities, can have access to collaborative and interactive learning that isn't easily available to them via traditional distance education.

Categories of online group interactions:

It may be useful to identify how I use the terms to describe different categories of learning group interactions.

Social/Group Building:

In most face-to-face situations when individuals come together to form a task group it is normal for some social interactions to take place. At the very minimum there will be an exchange of names, perhaps some exchange of personal information and some general remarks. There will also be an exchange of social non-verbal signals (such as smiles and nods). However online this process almost certainly needs to be built in explicitly, perhaps with the use of icebreakers and an active encouragement to give one another support and advice, and to continue interacting socially. This process is needed to build group coherence and identity in order to facilitate online learning activities.

Cooperative:

At a simple level learners can be encouraged to exchange ideas and experiences relevant to the learning, and to discuss topics which enlarge and develop the core course materials. However, integrated online communications can do much more than that. Learners may work together cooperatively. They may produce individual work and pass this work round for others to read and learn from, perhaps even receive feedback about. They could each produce a piece of work that contributes to some sort of shared outcome. Each individual's learning is increased because s/he has had access to the ideas, knowledge and experience of others.

Collaborative:

Learners can also be expected to work together collaboratively. They could be given a project or assignment and decide for themselves how the project is to be tackled, negotiating and allocating tasks and agreeing a timetable for achievement. They plan and work together to achieve an outcome. At an advanced level they could reflect not only on the outcome, but also on the group processes.

Why did we use the VTS?

In September 2002 the LeTTOL course, which is accredited by the Open College Network had its credit value increased from four to six level three credits, and additional learning outcomes and assessment criteria were developed. To ensure that these new learning outcomes were met some additional content and assignments needed to be added to the course. More web-based content was included about the pedagogy of online course design as well as the assignment that is the focus of this case study. The new assignment provided an opportunity for our learners to evidence several of LeTTOL's learning objectives, in particular:

• understand the issues of, and be able to demonstrate the skills needed to facilitate, collaborative working/groupwork online
• understand the principles of designing activities and courses for online delivery
• deploy available technology creatively and appropriately

We chose to base the activity on the VTS suite because it would allow learners to use an existing resource to develop activities that were specific to their own subject field, but at the same time there would be a large degree of similarity about the resource they were using. One reason for this was because we felt that this was fairer to the learners. Another reason was that if we allowed learners free choice of web-based resource on which to base activities, LeTTOL tutor workload would be greatly increased since it would be necessary for tutors to gain some familiarity with too many different websites in order to give constructive feedback on the designed activities. The VTS suite therefore gave flexibility and relevance to our learners, without overburdening the tutors with background reviewing of many websites. A further reason for choosing the VTS was that we regard it as a very good resource and we wanted to introduce our learners to it as a model of good practice, and one which they could use with their own learners online or face-to-face.

How did we use VTS?

We introduced the following assignment:

In fact this is an assignment that I would categorise as an individual/cooperative activity. The assignment itself requires the learner to work on his/her own, but there is the opportunity to learn from the ideas of others since the assignment is shared with the rest of the group.

Now this case study will describe some of the activities that just one cohort of LeTTOL learners suggested could enhance the VTS by adding cooperation and/or collaboration. There are two interrelated and overlapping perspectives which could be used to describe the activities. One perspective is to look at what learning outcomes the activities were designed to achieve. The other is to consider how the VTS's structure and content inspired the activity design.

Looking at learning outcomes:

The activities produced by LeTTOL learners seemed to fall into two main categories of learning outcomes

Process oriented, for example:

• to develop general IT skills
• to develop group communication skills
• to develop information retrieval skills
• to develop resource evaluation skills
• to develop other study skills

Content oriented, for example:

• to increase knowledge about the subject
• to collect a set of useful resources

Many of the activities combined several of the above, for example this activity, which is based on the Tour section of the Nursing, Midwifery And Health Visiting tutorial:

Had these learning outcomes:

Thus the first learning outcome is process oriented, and the later two content oriented. In fact the activity descriptor itself shows that yet more skills are being developed, for example report writing and resource evaluation.

Another learner looked at how the Mathematician tutorial could be used by teachers of mathematics. Here is an activity that has a content-oriented learning outcome:

It was suggested that the lesson plans could form part of a teaching resource pack available to all the mathematics teachers in this LeTTOL learner's college.

Another LeTTOL learner's starting point was an essay title "To what extent does Caryl Churchill's Top Girls reflect the economic, social and political tensions of England in the 1980s?" and the group activity, in several parts, required learners to work together to identify web resources, evaluate search tools, and improve searching skills:

This activity is designed to build online groupworking skills, using computer conferencing:

Looking at structure and content:

Most of the LeTTOL learners were new to the Virtual Training Suite, and clearly liked the content and structure. Thus often they would produce an activity based specifically on one tutorial of the VTS, or produce a sequence of activities that reflected the sequencing of VTS tutorials. For example this activity is based on the Women's Studies Tour tutorial:

This activity is based on the Social Worker Review tutorial:

And this activity moves from the Instructor Tour tutorial to the Discover tutorial:

The Internet Mathematician Glossary inspired one activity:

And the Internet Instructor scenarios inspired another:

Conclusion and Recommendations

Most of the LeTTOL learners regarded the VTS and the assignment based on it as useful. A few were already using the VTS with learners, and several said they intended to use it in future. A minority were somewhat critical of the tutorials, regarding them as being too reliant on text. Others suggested that since the VTS was designed for the individual user, the LeTTOL assignment was difficult for them as it was a struggle to add meaningful cooperative/collaborative activities.

As part of the LeTTOL course we ask learners to evaluate each assignment, and here are some of the comments made:

In addition the LeTTOL tutors continuously review all the content and assignments of the course, and often discuss in some detail the success of a new assignment. On the whole tutors felt that this assignment generally served the needs of the learners in meeting LeTTOL's learning outcomes, though some tutors expressed concern about the way some learners tackled the assignment, feeling that sometimes the activities produced were too vague. We discussed rewording the activity or basing the activity on a different website. However we concluded that it was probably wise to leave the assignment as it was for a couple of runs of the LeTTOL course and review it in the light of experience and in the context of the whole course.

The response of LeTTOL tutors and learners was generally positive to the potential of the VTS for cooperative and collaborative learning.

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Acknowledgments

Extracts were taken from activities designed by the following LeTTOL learners, and are quoted with their permission: Elizabeth Adebayo, Gerard Clough, Theresa Daly, Asher Mupasi, CC Stuart, Stella Page, Mary Watkins.