Transcript Virtual Learning Environments – content or collaboration

FDTL Voices:
Drawing from learning and teaching projects
Christopher Stokes
Senior University Teacher
School of Clinical Dentistry
University of Sheffield
Publication Philosophy
• Collaborative publication
• Draw on practical insights from FDTL projects
• Present innovations in learning & teaching
• Organic template for future learning & teaching
projects
• Intended for all HE practitioners
Publication Aims
Focus on what we as a learning and teaching community
now know, understand, and can evidence about HE learning
and teaching that we didn’t know before
Focus on what has been learnt and can be drawn on for the
future; using the change initiated from the FDTL projects to
influence future direction
Maximise impact of the FDTL programme beyond the
audience for each individual project by capturing the lessons
learned that are of interest to as wide an audience as
possible – those that are involved in projects in any way
including practitioners and policy makers
Structure
Four central themes:

Sector / Organisational Change

Change through collaboration

Communities of Practice in FDTL

Investigating long-term impact
Conceptual Change
 Professional & Personal Development
 Partnership & Project Management

Contributing Projects

Change through collaboration

Health-related FDTL4 projects


Communities of Practice in FDTL


e.g. OLAAF, CaSTLe, STARS, SONIC, APPLET
FDTL 5 BioLab Project
Investigating long-term impact

FDTL Phase 1 to 4 projects
Chapter One:
Effecting educational change through
collaboration
Helen Bulpitt and Judy McKimm
• Draws from the findings of impact studies
• Highlights models of collaboration that have been
effective
• Authors share experience of effecting change,
capturing impact, raising awareness and embedding
change
Chapter One
Main points:
• Describes the concern by project leaders of having a
long-term impact
• Suggestion that practice has been changed by FDTL,
not just in HE but with other partners (e.g. NHS)
• Sharing of what had often been tacit knowledge and
skills seen as long-lasting legacy – ‘ripple effect’
Chapter Two:
Communities of Practice in FDTL
Lesley Lawrence and Christopher Stokes
• Explores the impact a CoP can have at effecting
change in an organisation
• Were CoPs evident in FDTL, how did they come
about and did FDTL help them grow?
• Examples of CoPs, including an account of an online
wiki-based CoP by the FDTL 5 BioLab project
Chapter Two
Main points:
• Definite evidence of CoPs
• Suggestion that practice has been changed by FDTL,
not just in HE but with other partners (e.g. NHS)
• Sharing of what had often been tacit knowledge and
skills seen as long-lasting legacy – ‘ripple effect’
• Many groups within FDTL community still going,
keeping the legacy of the projects going
Chapter Three:
Long-term impact: learning from the legacy of
FDTL
Giuseppe Cannavina, Christopher Stokes, Mary Dickinson
• Investigated institutional change effected after formal
project completion
• Used a process of data-mining and sleuthing to
contact members or FDTL 1 to 4 projects
• Responses sorted by theme and given in the chapter
Chapter Three
Main points:
• Clear that there is much affection and enthusiasm
remaining for FDTL projects
• Over 7000 words in replies alone
• Evidence of impact long after funding ended
• e.g. APPLET
• Examples of best practice given that apply to any
project aiming the effect change.
Conclusions
• Measuring impact takes tome: what to measure is not always known, and then
there is too little time to measure it
• It is very difficult to establish a cause and effect relationship between a project
and a perceived impact
• Change more likely to be sustainable when embedded, either in policy or practice
• Collaboration is very effective and promoting change
• Project websites very important to maintaining interest after the formal conclusion
of a project
• Projects that publish in books of journals remain visible and influential, but at
odds with a short project time-frame
• FDTL provided a test-bed for experimental teaching, and has led to much
enthusiasm and innovation