Teaching approach

Open educational resources

Logo for Open Educational Resources (OER)

An important feature of this course is that it uses Open Educational Resources as the content basis for your studies. Open Educational Resources (OER) are digital materials that are freely available to educators, students and self/lifelong learners. OER are increasingly being integrated in open and distance education as they are not subjected to the same copyright constraints as other materials. Therefore, they are more accessible and freely available to most students. There are a number of ways to search for OER and the first e-learning activity (e-tivity) for this course will introduce you to OER and where to look for course content online.

Pedagogy of discovery

This brings us to another important feature of this course which is the course pedagogy. In AST1000, we use the ‘pedagogy of discovery’ (including self-discovery) to engender a free-range learning pedagogy. This pedagogy incorporates self-directed content gathering and analysis rather than content that is pre-selected by the examiner. This approach is deliberate in order to allow you to seek out information and areas of study of personal and direct interest or relevance to your own interests or career path.

For example - perhaps you want to visit Japan or you plan to teach English there after completing your university studies. The pedagogy of discovery used in this course will allow you to focus your studies on Japan so you can enhance your knowledge and understanding of Japanese history, society, culture and foreign relations.

Activity

The pedagogy of discovery provides greater flexibility to choose countries which are of interest to you, rather than these being prescribed by your lecturer. At this introductory point in the course, which countries in the Asia and Pacific do you think you will focus on? Share your thoughts with fellow students by posting on WEnotes. Remember to include the hash tag "#AST1000" in your post. For example:

• I want to focus on <insert country here> because ..... #AST1000 (add more posts for each country)
• Not sure which country because ..... #AST1000

The objectives for each Module, which are linked to and feed directly into the overall course objectives, will guide you as to what types of content you should be exploring each week. You will be required to locate appropriate educational sources online and then read them to derive course content relevant to that particular week’s learning objectives. Therefore, the pedagogy of the course involves active bottom-up learning within an explicit top-down learning framework/scaffolding. Ultimately however, you will be the one who decides which Open Educational Resources you will focus on in order to meet the objectives set for any given Module.

Learning Literacies in a Digital Age (LLiDA) “Framework of Frameworks”

The “Framework of Frameworks” is a cornerstone of the pedagogy in AST1000. The LLiDA framework is represented in the table below. The Framework demonstrates the component competences you will develop throughout your studies in AST1000, all of which are important skills required in the Digital Age. These competences include metacognition, academic practices and information literacy, communication and collaboration skills, media, ICT, digital and computer literacy, greater participation and engagement with citizenship, and finally, employability.

High-level terms, framing ideas	Component competences
Learning to learn, metacognition	Reflection, Strategic planning, Self-evaluation, Self-analysis, Organisation (time, etc.)
Academic practice, study skills	Comprehension, Reading/apprehension, Organisation (knowledge), Synthesis, Argumentation, Problem-solving, Research skills, Academic writing, Specific subject discipline skills as appropriate
Information literacy	Identification, accession, organisation, evaluation
Communication and collaboration skills	Teamwork, Networking, 'Speaking' and 'listening' skills (see below for different media)
Media literacy (also 'visual' and 'audio' and 'video' literacies)	Critical 'reading', Creative production
ICT/digital/computer literacy	Keyboard skills, Use of capture technologies, Use of analysis tools, Use of presentation tools, General navigation/UI skills, Adaptivity Agility Confidence/exploration
Employability	Self-regulation, Team working, Problem solving, Business and customer awareness, Innovation/enterprise
Citizenship	Participation and engagement, Ethicality/responsibility, Political, social, personal responsibility

(Source: Beetham, Helen, McGill, Lou & Littlejohn, Allison 2009, Thriving in the 21st Century: Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LliDA project), The Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University. Accessed 22 August 2011, http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/LLiDA/uploads/Main/LLiDAreportJune09.pdf.)

Peer learning support

Learning is sharing

While this all could seem a little daunting for some, please remember you will not be alone on your information seeking journey. You will have clear guidance through e-tivities (electronic/online activities) as to what types of information you are looking for each week. On the Regional Relations Database you will be able to share your findings with your fellow students and the course e-moderator.

This database is for all students to contribute web-links they have found to be useful and informative. Students can categorise the links according to the Topic and Country/Region the web-link is relevant to. You will need to write a brief note about the source as well. There is an example modelled on the Regional Relations Database. This database will be an interactive exercise to enable ideas sharing among all students. It will also be a useful source for web resources as you progress through the course, and beyond the course. Be sure to download a copy of the database at the end of the semester for future use.

Conclusion

Upon successful completion of this semester, not only will you know more about regional relations in Asia and the Pacific, but your online research skills will also have improved. You will be more adept at finding and evaluating digital information, thereby enhancing your digital literacy, but in the process, you will also be more skilled at evaluating the quality and reliability of that information.

References

Beetham, Helen, McGill, Lou & Littlejohn, Allison 2009, Thriving in the 21st Century: Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LliDA project), The Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University. Accessed 22 August 2011, www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/LLiDA/uploads/Main/LLiDAreportJune09.pdf.

Harris, Robert 1997, ‘Evaluating Internet Research Sources’. VirtualSalt. Accessed 17 October 2001, http://www.virtualsalt.com/evaluat8it.htm.

Salmon, Gilly 2002, E-learning activities: The Key to Active Online Learning, Kogan, London, Accessed 22 August 2011, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/nlebk_115618_AN?sid=58fd8e05-660d-44df-a1ca-935c5636a7f9@sessionmgr14&vid=1.