Investigating staff capabilities and needs for effective use of online technologies

Abstract

Common to all higher education institutions is the need to reform and change the curriculum to prepare students to become citizens in a world of knowledge-based economies (Bates, 2005). Students today need skills and abilities to work in teams, to cooperate, collaborate and learn with fellow students and staff in a community of learners. Within these communities learners need to be able to solve real world problems and be self-directed active learners constructing knowledge. This shift towards more active learning demands a more student-focused approach to the process of learning and teaching in higher education (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999) and that well-designed active learning is an effective way for student learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003; Healey & Roberts, 2004). There is also a growing body of evidence that technology applied to learning and teaching supports extended active learning in and out of class (Paulson, 2002; Williams, 2003). But ‘technology-enhanced learning demands that both technological and methodological abilities are put into play’ (Trentin, 2006, p. 182) and that it is difficult to find all these abilities in a single person. ‘However good a teacher might be in class, he/she may fail in a distance learning situation if lacking sufficient familiarity with technology-enhanced learning methods’ (Trentin, 2006, p. 184). This research suggests that faculties and universities as a whole need to pay close attention to staff capabilities and their use of technology and to offer staff development in ways that will best afford opportunities to improve on and re-think the way they teach and their students engage in learning through technology. Research undertaken in this paper investigates one faculty’s use of an online learning environment and a support structure that builds staff capabilities in using online technology to engage students in effective collaborative and meaningful real world activities.