Blended Learning for Music and Business Services
TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project, Part C of Phase 1
BLENDED LEARNING CASE STUDY | Jennifer Harding, Head Teacher Business Studies, TAFE NSW – Southern Sydney Institute
Questioning is one of my favourite things, but is often coupled with games, simulations, small group discussions, case studies. I also favour using creative learning approaches – a Web Quest for a face to face class, a discovery tour (audit of the College) for occupational health and safety, activities using movement around a room, having online learners try out summarising a forum, running a chat.
Jennifer Harding
Training Packages
Music (CUS01)
Business Services (BSB01)
Learning Environment
Blended workplace, online and face-to-face teaching and assessment of International Economics within the Music Business Diploma and other business courses.
Teaching Approach
Jennifer says that for most of her teaching she has been guided by the learners – group dynamics, learning needs and preparedness for self-direction.
She feels that assessment events are often more innovative than teaching, with adaptation to learner needs sometimes possible around the core assessment criteria. She cites an example of this with International Economics for Music Diploma students in 2002. The assessment event related to financial, economic, political and social policies and conditions in Asian countries. Learners were asked to decide whether they wanted to work alone, or with one or more other learners; the country and its facets they wished to research, and to present this in any way they wanted so that other learners gained from their learning as well.
'Most of the time I like it when learners discover their own learning path, although I have to say honestly that when you have an external exam at the end of a module this is not always possible. An example of the latter is with Manage Remuneration and Benefits (module) this semester, where there were lots of learner activities, but the group dynamics, my own unfamiliarity with a new syllabus, and the external exam, meant that learners felt pressured when they needed to construct their own knowledge.'
Jennifer also offers the example of the Develop Work Priorities module, about management functions and process, and says that the nature of the assessment event set at the beginning of the course changed to accommodate different factors. Ultimately one learner recited a poem about the process of change during the module and other groups presented in different ways about the difficulties they’d had with the more open-ended approach to this module, compared to others. They also discussed their learning from a project that many didn’t have time to finish. One group put up a web page with their assignment. Another had a series of posters. In all these cases, they documented their learning.
'The other most innovative part of my teaching relates to trying whatever is available at the time, and changing something that’s not working very well. An example of this is with online learners, where often a phone call rather than emails, announcements, messages and forum postings will enable them to get back into the course. A few people have said later that it was like magic, the human interaction is all important for e-learning!'
Evaluation Methods
Reflective teaching practice coupled with ongoing personal research.
'We have a lot of part-time teachers in our section, who we all speak with regularly. Learning activities are usually based around workplace experiences and a lot of examples of different human resources management and training practices are gathered this way.'
Positive Difference to Learning
Jennifer suggests that the keys to being more positive towards learning are:
- learning how to learn, particularly in relation to self direction,
- applying theory to practice, and
- asking, how does this work in your workplace?
Jennifer also says:
'One of the greatest things I see each year is school-leavers who grow personally and educationally. This is a difficult thing to explain, you can see that they take responsibility for themselves, their learning and work.'
Courses in areas such as International Economics often bring with them an 'expectation that it would be deadly dull, however through application of creative approaches to teaching and learning students now comment that they never knew that it could be interesting.'
See Also
Case
Studies Innovative and Excellent Practices in VET Teaching and Learning
2003 (426 Kb) are also available as
one downloadable file.
