Many learning providers have invested heavily in on-line learning but have found it difficult to evaluate the quality of the learning experience and the learning outcomes. The Learning Engagement Model will enable you to plot your on-line materials in a way that allows comparison with good educational practice.

A significant number of on-line materials fail to take advantage of the potential of the medium. If you take the time to evaluate your on-line provision against this model you can identify opportunities for improving the variety of learning styles used.

There have been examples of on-line learning that have been over ambitious in their conception and have proved to be unsustainable, or have been created with a distinct lack of imagination resulting in very dull, uninspiring resources. If you use the Learning Engagement Model to evaluate your current on-line learning provision you can recognise imbalances in provision and be in a position to work towards a holistic and sustainable resource base.

Maturing good practice

 

Learning engagement model: early practice

Practitioners just starting out in developing their ILT skills can be represented as early users of ILT as shown in the bottom left hand corner of the diagram. Typically this may mean simply putting written handouts on line. As their IT skills increase the resources created become more interactive, include more graphics and use multimedia.

However practitioners may have good IT skills but their teaching and learning repertoire is limited to passive, teacher-focused learning. Tasks may therefore be predictable and not very challenging although the resources themselves may be highly interactive and effectively engage learners in the subject.

As practitioners develop their skills and use of ILT the combination of good teaching skills AND proficiency in IT skills starts to become evident and good practice begins to emerge. One way of achieving this good practice is to work collaboratively as a team within the College - this may result in the creation of college created resources or by thoughtful adaptation of commercial products.

Learners are more likely to learn when presented with a variety of tasks with a balanced mix of presentation styles. As practitioners mature in their use of ILT so the range of learning tasks and resources increase, enabling learners with different learning styles to enjoy using the materials and successfully engage in the learning process.

Making the learning activity more engaging takes us back to some of the basics of teaching and learning - the type of activities that we set and the kind of responses we want our learner to make. The horizontal axis of the model demonstrates the spectrum from passive tasks, where the student responds within the boundaries of the activity, to active open-ended tasks where the student is fully involved and has ownership of actively creating their response.