Month: February 2016

So what’s wrong with online learning?

Online learning has been with us for a long time and has obviously led to major changes in the way that distance learning courses have operated. However there has always been the conundrum of how best to integrate online learning into the activities of universities that are campus based and teach primarily in physical classrooms. The reality of blended learning at most universities has in the main been little more than online Word and Powerpoint files made available as a supplement to lectures.

Sadly such exploitation of such powerful technology has inevitably not moved universities forward much in terms of changing the predominant learning and teaching paradigm of lecture, seminar, assessment.

In SMART teaching, online learning is central and something that feeds into and can actually take place within the physical classroom, so as to enhance the student learning experience and the teacher’s teaching experience.

What is SMART Teaching?

‘Smart teaching’ is a phrase we use to represent changes to teaching practices and processes underpinned by technology, new, different physical spaces and an interest to use more flexible, adaptable approaches to curriculum delivery.

The use of technology is often key in ‘freeing’ teaching from the constraints of place, time and paper and when combined with innovative use of physical space can help teachers to work with students in more flexible and mutually beneficial ways.

‘Flexible or adaptable teaching in an organisation encompasses:

  • a range of ways to deliver classes face-to-face
  • changes to the way teachers interact with students in class
  • changes to the furniture and other tools within a classroom
  • integration of online learning with what happens in the classroom

We start here

Hallo and Welcome,

If you reach this blog then you will hopefully be a teacher in a University or College and like us you have a desire or interest in how to exploit some of the wonderful new ideas for teaching that are linked to new technologies.

This blog will not just be about technology however. It will be as much about the interaction of people, students and teachers’ inside and outside of a classroom.

It will be about how to make sense of technology in teaching at a time when most of us still want that hard to replicate face to face classroom experience.

Looking forward to your views and comments.