Concrete examples of learning activities and digital facilitation of flexible teaching
Evaluation and further development of the study programme
Quality work is a cycle of constant evaluation and new improvements and is mandatory for many educational institutions. The greater the changes in teaching, the more extensive the evaluation is required. Improvement may also consist of an ongoing series of small changes. Involving the students directly in the development of the teaching is useful. Such involvement can help them better understand the purpose of the learning activities and the choice of tools. This may also increase learning. The institutions’ evaluation responsibilities are also covered in the quality standards for flexible education and training: https://fleksibelutdanning.no/ressurs/om-kvalitetsnormer-for-fleksibel-opplaering-og-utdanning. Below you will find tips and advice for developing your own teaching.
Advice and tips for developing your own teaching:
- Critically assess how and why the new activity you are planning can improve learning outcomes.
- Change the teaching for one activity or content component at a time. Find out whether or how it changes the students’ experience and/or outcomes.
- Feel free to use formative assessment to find out what the students have understood, and how they think and work.
- Make it a habit to summarise all learning sessions with the students’ assessment of it (for example: ‘Two things I learned, and one thing I found difficult’). This also applies to asynchronous learning sessions. It can be a good idea to let the students be anonymous.
- Ask the students what kind of learning outcomes and/or motivation they derive from the different learning activities.
- Ask students to come up with suggestions for improvements and suitable learning activities and to help evaluate them. This can be done by the whole group or through reference groups.
- Digital teaching aids generate data about, when and, in part, how students interact with them, such as how many people have opened a video and how long they have watched it. Use these data for examination and improvement.
- Document the development processes, for example in the form of your own learning or development log.
This type of incremental improvement may lead to significant development. Some changes require approval at a higher level or broad support among the team; this applies particularly to major changes or changes in formal requirements, such as the final assessment. Documentation of the stepwise processes can serve as a basis for such major changes.
Translated by EPALE Norge and HK-dir