Strategies for a new teaching-learning experience

Strategies offered by the traditional F2F approach were limited and had become
ineffective in meeting the demands of the new pedagogies of CLT (learner-centred,
task/activity based), Process-product (PBL/EBL, skills based), Socio-cultural
(collaborative, interactional, mediated, scaffolding). New learning technologies
offered a way out and in our case the Web 2.0 Wiki, but requiring: knowledge of
ICT pedagogy, ICT skills of use and integration, and infrastructure, finance and/or
technical support. We therefore decided on Blended Learning that enabled us keep
the F2F facilities/pedagogy (our comfort zone) while we gained more time and
experience in our learning curve of ICT-supported teaching-learning; and decided
on the Wiki (open source platform requiring small amount of financial outlay) to
take advantage of its unique capabilities that afford collaborative work for L2
socio-cultural pedagogy. At this point no institutional support was sought as none
might come, except of course for the limited ICT infrastructure that was available
in the university, for students’ access.

The combined approaches opened new vistas for both teachers and students. Right
from the teachers’ professional development stage to the end-of-course evaluation,
the processes detailed in Table 1 sought to employ strategies that could accomplish
the following: regard learners as humans with needs, wants and providing a
humanising learning environment that enabled them express their individual
learning styles, background knowledge, skills, creativity and experiences; create
challenges, interest and motivation through enquiry of a problem/situation,
searching for meaning; create through small group/team work additional learning
spaces outside of scheduled classroom meeting hours, off- and on-line; provide
through online links and experts enhanced engagement with more and diverse
materials; provide avenues for greater and deeper interaction in L2 between
teachers-students, students-students and students-experts; enable students take own
decisions on a number of issues by teachers ceding space and authority, allowing
students to leverage on one another’s strong points/scaffolding each other; and
enable students exercise autonomy over content (choice of topic and focus, choice
of location for investigations and experts to consult/interview, materials to use,
who to team up with in groups, where and when groups meet) and their processes
(who does what and when, how research is carried out, what and how to share,
media to use in enquiry and write-up); expose students to learning to learn skills
and opportunities online, enabling them to reflect on their learning processes in
comments posted on forums as they progressed.

Table 1: Framework for Implementation

Stage Action Description

Planning a. Professional • Problem analysis and
development meetings strategic plan; decisions
b. Selection & + actions on ICT skills
Configuration of • WetPaint or PBWiki?
Wiki How to configure +
what do we need?
c. Syllabus detailing +
methodology • F2F module + Online
module- integration

Preparation a. Students orientation • New learning modes,

b. Team building new approaches,
autonomy, interaction,
c. Scheduling inquiry in groups of 5,
activities and tasks group decides each
+ feedback member role out of
mechanisms class + online
d. Uploading of team • Feedback in class +
lists online in stages

• Teacher uploads team

lists + tasks

Execution Teachers: • Teachers monitor

students’ activities in
a. Monitor team work class, in groups, online
in/out of class + online
• They post assignments,
b. Give/post comments comment on
on tasks/activities activities/tasks,
c. Give feedback in encourage students to
F2F class post comments
• More opportunity for
Students: feedback in F2F
sessions, live questions
a. Determine member & answers
roles in groups
• Students ensure each
b. Add/correct group member is
personal details on assigned tasks /plays a
online group lists & role + determine rules
edit/add tasks of engagement
c. Put up aspects of • As learning process,
term paper (topic, each student
 outline, resources, adds/corrects some
bibliography + personal details on
assignments) on group page (log in +
group page activity is tracked)
• They do most of the
d. Post comments on
writing/editing online,
FrontPage + other groups’
after investigating and
pages
researching their topic,
reading up &
interviewing experts

• They post comments on

work of 1 or 2 other
groups’ pages & are
encouraged to post
whatever comments
about their experience
on Wiki FrontPage

Assessment/Evaluation Students: • Hits & logs of activities

on group page count
a. Individual group towards formative
page activity feedback and final
b. Portfolio of group assessment
c. Reflective • Portfolio of set tasks &
FrontPage activities go towards
comments assessment
d. End-of-course • Comments help towards
evaluation formative adjustments
on course & final
Teachers: evaluation of course
• Online survey,
a. Monitor team- electronic tracking of
building/working + footprints, students’
feedback questions & comments
b. Monitor online used for summative
group activities + evaluation
feedback • Out of class group
c. Keep reflective bonding/working also
diaries monitored + feedback
provided
d. End-of-course
• They monitor online
evaluation + staff meeting
 activities for feedback
from stage to stage

• They keep diaries of

major developments
and observations of the
processes. These are
discussed & informed
following semester’s
decisions

Bases of the teaching-learning strategies

Although we did not make reference to and were not explicitly aware of them at
the time, the bases for our strategies agree with and are aligned to some of the ten
Learning Principles and Collaborative Action of the joint report by the American
Association of Higher Education, the American College Personnel Association,
and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (APA, 2005).
These principles are a distillation of extant knowledge about learning in the
approaches already enunciated above. We make specific reference to six of the
principles as underpinning the processes of our module and the affordances of a
technology supported learning experience: 1. Learning is fundamentally about
‘making and maintaining connections’ mentally and experientially; 2. Learning is
an ‘active search for meaning’ by the learner constructing rather than passively
receiving it; 3. Learning is done by ‘individuals’ intrinsically ‘tied to others as
social beings, interacting as competitors or collaborators’, acting as scaffolds for
one another; 4. Learning is strongly ‘affected by the educational climate’ in which
it takes place, settings and surroundings, influences of others, and values accorded
it; 5. Learning requires ‘frequent feedback’ to be sustained, ‘practice’ to be
nourished, and ‘opportunities to use’ what has been learned; 6. Learning involves
the ‘ability of individuals to monitor their own learning’, to understand their
learning processes and develop strategies for learning.

The module was blended with technology support to get learners engage more with
materials, interact with other learners and teachers in the L2 in the following ways:

• Engage more with materials and collaborate out of class in small groups on a
project work
• To support and stimulate learning using media that students use for social
activities
• Encourage students to make effective use of ICT in academic work
• Provide meaningful activities that foster autonomy and collaboration
Affordances of the new teaching-learning strategies can be grouped into two: 1.
Creating new learning environments; 2. Enhancing and deepening interactions and
collaboration through processes of team building and enquiry.

New learning environments

Learning technologies offered some means of vitiating the challenges around large
classes. In our case at FUTA, the Web 2.0 Wiki authoring tool offered such an
opportunity to create some innovative learning spaces in our English as a Second
Language (ESL) module with a focus on academic writing. The new learning
spaces that complement rather than replace the traditional physical classrooms
come with the introduction of team building and team work outside the classroom
and fixed lecture hours. The autonomy engendered allowed students to fix their
own venues and times for meetings which take place at least once a week and
reports of assigned activities are given weekly. New learning environments now
include spaces in the Student Union buildings, parks, free lecture rooms, experts’
offices, and of course cybercafés including the University’s Computer Resource
Centre. Activities that go on at each stage are as indicated in Table 1.

Team building and enquiry

There are two levels of activities in the module: in-class language activities and
group project work. Classroom activities dovetail and feed into those of group
work; language and structure of writing are transferable skills employed in
problem solving and term paper writing. Out of class, students exercise greater
autonomy in the use of language and adopting appropriate routes to solve the
problems associated with their project work.

Team building is itself a cumbersome process because students are fresh in the
system and many are reluctant to take leadership positions, a first step in the
process.

• To build the teams we seek to find volunteers who have self-confidence to

take on team leader positions. Usually only few students would indicate
preparedness
• Students nominate others they believe are responsible among them to make
up the required numbers. The role of group leader is determined in class to
ensure acceptability, but assignment of other roles is left for students to
determine in their groups.
• We then ask other students to sign up to whichever of the groups they
wanted; a group should be no more than five (5).
• A period of ‘probation’ is allowed for the team to bond after which the lists
are finalised and read out in open class.
 • Every member of the group takes up a role: researcher, interviewer, browser,
reporter, etc.
• The teams decide meeting times and venues; they also agree ground rules to
guide their interactions.

Project work with the final aim of writing a term paper sets the students on a path
of enquiry. The teaching team engaged students in looking at topical issues around
them in the country and asked them to research such issues, everyone investigates
only one issue but from different perspectives, they take their positions and
provide their solutions to the problem. They were free to take whatever point of
view the group agreed. Teams meet to brainstorm on choice of focus area and the
locale, and raise questions that guide their investigation. They interact, seek and
share information and carry out activities and tasks set in class by the teacher. In
tandem with the practical building of teams and sorting out of project activities are
language activities that go on in the classroom and outside in the small group
meetings. Reading materials give students practice in analysing and synthesising
issues, and use of appropriate language forms.

Investigating impact

The project was not set up as a major research investigation, rather it was intended
as an assessment to inform practice and a measure to convince authorities of the
possibility of introducing technology to support teaching and learning without
heavy financial investment at the initial stage. Only a section of the students were
surveyed (students of the School of Agriculture and Agricultural Technology
numbering about five hundred and ten tutored by the investigator). The
questionnaire was adapted from the University of Manchester CEEBL website as
an end-of-course survey. Responding to the questionnaire was voluntary and was
sent to students online using their email addresses during vacation.

Many did not receive the mail because once they had moved to their small towns
and villages they had no access to the Internet. Of the number of two hundred and
thirty five (235) respondents only one hundred and sixty (160) answered all
questions that could be validly analysed. Two sections were analysed for this
report. The first section contained thirty two questions to investigate students’
understanding, difficulties, group work experiences, taking leadership positions,
enquiry, course methods, etc. The other section sought to confirm in a more
definitive way students’ confidence in the use of computer and Internet in learning,
and taking leadership roles, issues also earlier enquired about in the earlier section.