Using blackboard to support work based learners on the Executive Diploma in Management

1. Using blackboard to support work based learners on the Executive Diploma in Management Case study from Kingston College Phil George Head of e-learning

2. Why the EDM? • Executive Diploma is a blended learning programme. http://blackboard6.kingston-college.ac.uk • All Learners are employed as middle-high level managers in a mix of Public and Private Sector organisations. • Attendance is one class based session at two weekly/three weekly intervals. • All learners work long hours and can spend very little time away from the workplace.

3. How did we get here? • These programmes have been delivered with great success for the past six years at Kingston with increasing emphasis on Blended Learning • Chris Warren, the programme tutor has, during the past 5 years honed and refined the on-line environment to best serve the needs of the learners.

4. Key elements • LESS is MORE! Keep the site simple and appropriate at all times. • The success of this site is due to the fact that it is carefully managed and maintained. • That it works on the quality over quantity rules, most importantly that the learners seem to like to use it.

5. How does it support learners? • The learners pattern of attendance is one college based session at two weekly sometimes three weekly intervals, therefore Blackboard needs to provide a solid link between workshops. • It does this in a number of ways.

6. Balancing the workload using tasks: • To keep the learners on track this programme uses preset tasks for the learners. These tasks can be managed and prioritised by the learner • As you can see there are a fair number of tasks to be carried out during the programme to support the learning and it becomes the responsibility of the learner to manage this (after all they are all managers).

7. Module slides • contains the session presentations and support materials. On this level of programme it is vital for learners to revisit the course materials after the session. We are currently working on better ways of presenting information for on-line viewing. Of which more later…

8. Discussion Board • Probably one of the greatest strengths of this programme is the highly effective use of discussion board as a learning, questioning, collaborative and now assessment tool. If you have a browse through these threads it becomes apparent very quickly the level of peer to peer support and the sharing of knowledge and resources.

9. Discussion as assessment • The use of discussion has been developed during the past five years from a simple mechanism for student introductions or booking tutorials via a framework for social interaction on the ‘Year in Industry’ programme, until finally Chris and the EDM Course team have embedded discussion into the EDM with such skill it is now emerging as a powerful assessment tool. If you look at the Human Resource module you will see how this works.

10. Where next…..? ?

11. KASTANETKingston Access to Science Teaching Across New and Emerging Technologies

12. Science Degree Foundation 250+ learners 15+ teaching staff 4 major variants 2 institutions Enormous demographic diversity Project foundation Support from JISC JISC Capital Programme • e-Learning (£11m) - HE in FE • e-Infrastructure • Virtual Research Environments • Repositories and Preservation • Users and Innovation 2year project / £100k Programme Manager: Lisa Gray

13. … develop and evaluate models of good practice in the implementation of new and emerging technologies for personalised learning of students on the Science Degree Foundation course To support three key areas: Learning Support Learning Assessment Objective Distinctive elements: 1. Scale 2. Science 3. Social learning

14. Content delivery Progression Learning support Learning Course information Participation Collaboration Induction ? Testing Feedback Monitoring Assessment New and emerging technologies?