FET8601 Online Teaching: Strategies and Tactics (FOEDU)

Units 1.0 (Education Studies) Band 5

State law in Queensland (Australia) requires that all adults working/undertaking professional experience/researching with children under the age of 18, in the state of Queensland are required to possess a current suitability card (Blue Card). (See "Other Requirements" for further information.) Also see: http://www.childcomm.qld.gov.au/employment/bluecard/informationSheets.html

Synopsis

This course will focus on principles, procedures and practices that constitute the strategies and tactics that are emerging as defining features of online teaching and learning. While it will introduce students to a range of strategies and tactics, it will present these in a way that will assist students to formulate and challenge ideas about personal online pedagogies in relation to pedagogical frameworks that exist in particular educational settings. In the first instance, a pedagogical framework is provided to focus the initial discussion on the nature of online strategies and tactics and to examine the emerging changes in roles and responsibilities for both teachers and learners working in online settings. The second phase of the course draws upon an established pedagogical framework to analyse how different levels of abstraction and conceptualisation within the learning process require quite different perspectives on the selection of courseware for online teaching and learning. The pedagogical frameworks will be used to argue that where learning technology is interpreted solely as 'computer-based delivery' of learning materials, then such an interpretation obscures the need to generate different strategies and tactics for different content areas, different target groups and different contexts. The final phase of the course focuses on the development and analysis of an emerging set of principles and procedures that captures the essence of online teaching and learning. These are embedded in a constructivist position that acknowledges the potential contribution of both 'individual constructivism' and 'social constructivism' in online teaching and learning.