3.2 Online learning and the Virtual Learning Community (VLC)

Transcription

1 3.2 Online learning and the Virtual Learning Community (VLC) You will spend a large part of your study time abroad. All communication and learning interaction will take place on the Virtual Learning Community (VLC) to which you have been given access. In VLC you collaborate with your fellow students by, amongst others, asking and answering questions and commenting on each other s products through peer feedback. Your HAN supervisors will also be online on a regular basis. They will post important announcements and communications on VLC and will use VLC to monitor your progress. Also they will be there to answer urgent questions if necessary. Moreover they will add new assignments from time to time and will validate the feedback you have added to the products of your peers. Below we will give you more information about how the online learning is organized, specifically about online assignments, online lectures and peer feedback. Virtual Learning Community (VLC) Logging in for the first time Surf to Your loginname is the characters of your HANaccount (vb. thfsb) Your password is xxxx After logging in, click on Minor International Sustainable Development Cooperation and you re in. You can change your password at Members. Below we will describe how the online learning is organized and what is expected of you. Figure 1 gives you an overview of the different (learning) activities that constitute online learning. 1

2 Figure 1. online learning organization for both fast track and regular track students. Fast track students go abroad two weeks after the start of the minor and rely fully on online learning. Regular track students go abroad 6 weeks after the start and combine online learning with meetings at HAN university. We describe the activities for online learning (Figure 1) in more detail below. 1. Working on assignments During the minor program (and when you are abroad) you will work on a number of assignments. Assignments will be posted on VLC and will be clear about its goal, what product you are expected to produce, how to go about it and what is expected of you once you ve finished your product. The latter concerns online interactions on VLC such as peer feedback. Also the assignment will be clear about what books/articles to study or online lectures you have to watch. Your HAN supervisors will keep posting new assignments on VLC during the course of the minor. They will give a clear indication as to when you are supposed to complete a product, how much time you are expected to invest completing it and what is expected of you concerning peer feedback. HAN supervisors will put the assignments on the VLC on Fridays. You will put your products on the VLC on Sunday evening at the latest; that means that for each assignment you have at least 10 days. Please check your assignment schedule in chapter 5 to see how many time you have per assignment. 2

3 2. Online lectures and other self-study activities As part of the assignments, you are often expected to watch video lectures online and to read different materials such as articles and books. Also you can use VLC to consult or help your fellow students or HAN supervisors if you have questions concerning an assignment. Our video lectures will be posted on Other lectures can be found on You Tube or Particularly the component Qualitative Research in Developing Countries contains many video lectures, all posted on In VLC you will find a direct link to the video lectures. The lectures are mostly short, lasting up to 15 minutes. All video lectures and other video clips will be offered in a video format most media players can play. Although you can also watch them on a tablet device or mobile phone, we advise you to use a regular PC or laptop. Watching a video lecture will result in a data transfer of about 4 MB per minute. We advise you to use a WIFI connection, but a good 3G connection (Dutch quality) will also do. In case of technical problems, if you are not able to go online, you can also watch the video material offline. We will provide you with a USB key or DVD that contains all necessary video lectures. 3. Creating a product and posting it on VLC Each assignment and forthcoming self-study activities will result in a concrete product made individually or together with the fellow student you are abroad with. All products you produce you will add to your portfolio on VLC. The products you produce through the different assignments will at the end of the minor program constitute some of the end products that will be used to assess you, i.e. the integrated report and intercultural communication report. By working on the assignments you are actually working towards your end products. 4. Online peer feedback Often you are asked as part of an assignment to comment on the products of your fellow students by adding feedback statements (peer feedback). This is done on VLC in the VLC portfolio of your peers. If peer feedback is expected of you, the assignment will state so clearly. By adding peer feedback to other students products, you not only help them to improve their products, but also you have the opportunity to demonstrate your own understanding of specific course content i.e. research, intercultural communication, et cetera. This minor program focuses especially on the latter goal. Your HAN supervisors will validate (grade) the peer feedback statements you have added to the products of fellow students on a regular basis. Validation means that every statement of feedback you have added to a product of a fellow student will be graded on a quality scale. The goal of validation is to help you to improve the quality of your peer feedback in the future. Your peer feedback and your supervisor s validation of that feedback will also be discussed during the guidance meetings via Skype. The quality scale (model) for validating peer feedback we use during this minor program is based on the work of Esther van Popta. She is working within HAN University on a PHD thesis on peer feedback. You will find the model/scale below. Every feedback statement you add will be graded by your HAN supervisors according to the scale in figure 2. 3

4 Figure 2. The model for grading peer feedback (Popta, 2012). Adding peer feedback to your fellow student s products is not without obligations. At the end of the minor program your feedback statements have to have a certain quantity and quality in order for you to be allowed to submit your end products for examination. The requirements concerning quantity and quality of peer feedback are as follows: In total there are 13 assignments which include peer feedback. Per assignment, you will pick at least 2 fellow students whose products you are going to comment by means of peer feedback. One of those students is a feedback buddy that you follow ow throughout the whole process; you provide all his or her products with your feedback. The other student you can choose at random, preferably someone who has not received feedback yet. At the end of the minor program your peer feedback history (all your feedback statements combined) counts up to at least 26 statements (quantity requirement). Your peer feedback history must show improvement in quality. At the end of the minor program, at least 50% of all you feedback statements have to be validated/graded with level 4 or higher on Van Popta s quality scale for peer feedback (quality requirement). If your peer feedback history does not meet these requirements, you will have to do an additional assignment when you are back in The Netherlands before you can submit your end products for assessment. That means that it will take you longer to complete the minor program. We have designed a number of guidelines that can help you to formulate feedback statements with sufficient quality, see box 1. 4

5 Guidelines peer feedback By adding peer feedback to other students products, you demonstrate your understanding of specific course content i.e. research, intercultural communication, et cetera. Below there are some guidelines that help you to formulate feedback statements with sufficient quality. Formulate feedback statements that add value to the product of your peer, for instance by: o evaluating the product using the product criteria that are specified in the assignment o evaluating the product from an alternative perspective other than your peer has chosen o to formulate clearly what can be improved and why Make sure your statements are founded on evidence from research or literature and refer to that evidence Of course you may formulate more than 1 feedback statement for a specific product. A feedback statement is restricted to 450 characters. Every statement has to contain a complete line of reasoning, which means that when you want to comment on the product concerning a specific product criterion or product component, make sure you do so in 1 statement. Don t spread a line of reasoning over more than 1 statement. Box 1. Guidelines for providing peer feedback. 5. Guidance meetings via Skype and Consultation During your stay abroad guidance meetings will be organized via Skype. A Skype meeting lasts approximately 0.5 hours. Fast track students participate in 3 obligatory Skype meetings and 1 Skype meeting on demand (optional). For regular track students there s is only 1 Skype meeting during their stay. In principle, you participate in a Skype meeting together with the fellow student you are abroad with. The meetings will take place at fixed moments which will be communicated via the Virtual Learning Community (VLC). Below we will give you more information about the goal of the Skype meetings and how you are expected to prepare yourselves. Also, we will tell you about how to act if technical problems occur. Through the guidance meetings via Skype we aim to achieve the following goals: stimulate you to successfully manage your learning process and local placement activities by evaluating your progress and determining actions for the future; help you to enhance the quality of the feedback you have given on the products of your peers by discussing your feedback including your HAN supervisor s validation of that feedback; discuss any questions concerning assignments or products that have not been answered on VLC; discuss practical matters or personal issues, if any. discuss the STARR reports. Preparation We expect you to prepare individually for a Skype meeting as follows: a) You determine whether your progress is still according to your initial plan and what is still to be done. It concerns both your progress working on assignments as well as local placement activities. You are prepared to tell your HAN supervisor what steps/actions you are going to take the next weeks in order to get your work done. 5

6 b) You generate a personal Learning Development Report (LDR) in VLC and write down any questions after studying this report. The LDR gives you an overview of feedback you have added to the products of your peers and how your HAN supervisor has validated (graded) this feedback. c) You write down any questions you have not been able to find an answer to through your peers via the Virtual Learning Community (VLC). Your HAN supervisor will prepare as follows: a) He or she will consult your portfolio to see whether you are on track and will generate a few progress reports in VLC to determine how active your community participation in VLC has been. b) She will validate a large number of feedback statements you have added to the products of your fellow students in VLC. Skype meeting itself You and your buddy make sure you are in a quiet room and go online on Skype at the time which was agreed on. Your HAN supervisor will take the initiative to contact you. It is important that you bring your mobile phone in case something goes wrong. A Skype meeting always takes place on a workday and lasts for approximately 0.5 hours for fast track students. For regular track students who only have 1 Skype meeting, the meeting lasts 1 hour. If there are personal issues or practical placement matters the meeting can last a little bit longer. The meeting agenda is fixed and we will stick to the following schedule tightly: I. STARR reports II. progress according to plan + future actions III. Discussion of given peer feedback and validations IV. Your questions How to act if there are technical problems If there are technical problems just before or during the start of the meeting, we will act as follows: - If the connection is slow we will turn our webcams off and use voice communication only; - If the internet or your hard- or software doesn t function at all, you text (SMS) your HAN supervisor that you experience problems. Your HAN supervisor will hereafter contact you by telephone. HAN supervisor Anne-Mieke Zaat Rachel Moolenaar Paul Beekers Madelon Eelderink Telephone number +XXXXX +XXXXX +XXXXX +XXXXX Recommended hardware, software and internet connection You can find information about hardware, software and internet connection that we recommend on the following website: Make sure you have a WIFI connection or plugged in an internet cable when Skypeing. For VLC you can do an online check to make sure your laptop is suited. Follow the following link: 6

7 Consultation Another form of guidance is Consultation. This form of guidance is optional and is specially set up for questions regarding your research and sustainable design. Madelon Eelderink (Skype name: madelon.eelderink) will then be online at Skype to answer your questions regarding your research process and the development of your sustainable design. As said: attending these consultation meetings is optional, that means that you can join and leave the Skype group whenever you want. There are Consultation meetings on the following dates: Tuesday the 24th of September 2013, from 2-5 pm; Thursday the 10th of October 2013, from 2-5 pm; Tuesday the 5th of November 2013, from 2-5 pm; Tuesday the 26th of November 2013, from 2-5 pm. Please note that these are Dutch hours. If you are not able to come online on Skype (e.g. for safety reasons), please contact Madelon so that she will call you on international telephone. These consultation meetings could be busy. If you have a question, you could first go on the VLC network to figure out if there s more students with the same or a similar question so that you can join the consultation meeting together. During these three hours, Madelon will try to answer as many questions as possible. If you come online shortly before o clock, it could happen that your question remains unanswered, so make sure you come online early. 6. Improving your product With the help of the feedback you have received from fellow students and discussions during the guidance meetings, you may improve your product. This is optional. 7. Composing final end products At the end of the minor program some final assignments will be posted that help you to constitute your Integrated Report and Intercultural Communication Report with the products you have produced during the minor program. Practical information concerning online learning When you are experiencing difficulties accessing VLC or the internet, please contact Anne-Mieke Zaat by text message (+XXXXXX) or (annemieke.zaat@han.nl) If you have questions about how VLC works, you can watch the instruction videos by clicking on the play button in the top bar or you can ask your question to your fellow students under Learning Questions. 7

8 Uit: Zaat, A., Eelderink, M., Moolenaar, R., Beekers, P., Maes, N. (2013). Study Guide Minor International Sustainable 8