Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
Successful e-Learning Applications: PRS Funded Projects Report
Author: Danielle Lamb
Journal Title: Discourse
ISSN: 2040-3674
ISSN-L: 1741-4164
Volume: 6
Number: 1
Start page: 63
End page: 69
Return to vol. 6 no. 1 index page
The Subject Centre for PRS is currently funding several projects on e-learning. The projects are designed to:
- encourage a culture in which innovative developments in learning, teaching and assessment are valued and acknowledged at a national level;
- promote good practice in the development and evaluation of innovative methods of learning, teaching and assessment;
- disseminate within the wider community innovative methods or materials originally developed for use within a single institution.
The abstracts listed here will hopefully give you an idea as to the content and scope of some of the individual projects we are currently funding.
Subject to debate: an inter-departmental VLE for religious studies students
Brian Bocking, SOAS
The project uses developments within VLE technology to enable students pursuing introductory courses in three departments of religion in the UK to debate topical and methodological issues in the study of religions. The project will assess the extent to which local student learning is enhanced by mentored participation in an on-line inter-institutional forum. The universities involved are deliberately widespread: in central London, the North-West, and rural Wales. The project embodies a pilot scheme that, if successful, will provide a viable model of good practice for implementation by other institutions and at other levels, both in the UK and internationally.
Mind mapping project
Victoria Harrison, University of Glasgow
The mind mapping project seeks to provide an interactive online elearning environment that will become a permanent resource for teachers and students of philosophy of religion and related subjects. The seed of the project will be a series of mind maps charting the material covered within the Senior Honours philosophy of religion course taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Collaborators will be sought who wish to link their own mind maps, representing courses within related subject areas, with the philosophy of religion mind map to form a network of interrelated maps.
Pushing the boundaries: using and reusing electronic learning objects in TRS
Alison Le Cornu, Oxford Brookes University
Building on initial work in the creation of Reusable Electronic Learning Objects (RELOs), this project seeks to push the boundaries by: a) exploring new pedagogic techniques in the presentation of electronic material; b) incorporating these into further and new types of RELO; and c) constructing a module-based infrastructure in which RELOs can be used. The project also engages with the challenges of the presentation of content in the primarily content-focused disciplines of TRS when adopting a highly student-centred pedagogic approach. A particular emphasis is placed on the reusability of electronic learning objects within each of these three areas.
Interactive mapping for teaching world Christianity
Sara Parvis, University of Edinburgh
The project team will design and create an original set of interactive animated scholarly maps and timelines illustrating Christian history from c. 1500 to the present in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North and South America. The maps will be tailored to demonstrate the key diachronic and synchronic themes of a first-year religion course, History of Christianity as a World Religion 1B. The maps will be integrated with other digital elements of the course and will be designed to be reusable with different technology platforms.
Automated assessment and out-of-class small group discussions: taking WebCT forward in philosophy
Julia Tanney, University of Kent
This proposal uses special features of WebCT for an in-depth study of two aspects related to e-learning and philosophy. First, the project will assess the suitability for automated, or semi-automated assessment; taking into account, for example, its capacity partly to replace assessments that are ripe for internet plagiarism and weighing this against the reluctance within the profession to move away from essay-style assignments. Second, the project will assess whether student learning is enhanced by mentored participation in small-group out-of-class on-line discussions. The project is intended to address specific concerns and to flag up valuable features associated with WebCT. If successful, it will provide a viable model of good practice for implementation by other HE and non HE institutions, both in the UK and internationally.
Development and implementation of St Andrews philosophy online distance-learning programme
Lisa Jones and Peter Clarke, University of St Andrews
The project is to research, develop and ultimately implement a brand new online distance-learning programme in philosophy. The distancelearning programme is envisaged to deliver philosophy modules via an e-learning vehicle (most likely WebCT), leading to an award of Diploma in HE in Philosophy from St Andrews University (120 credits at SCQF levels 7-8). The development of this online programme is proposed in response to a perceived need for such an e-learning opportunity in philosophy amongst secondary school teachers (particularly due to the new requirement for secondary school teachers of philosophy in Scotland to have achieved a certain level of credits in philosophy). By offering an online distance-learning Diploma, we would be enabling secondary school teachers of philosophy to amass the philosophy credits they need and, more importantly, build their confidence in teaching the subject at Higher level.
Knowledge and power in the Neo-Assyrian empire
Eleanor Robson and Karen Radner, University of Cambridge and UCL
In the seventh century BCE the Assyrian monarch was the most powerful human being in the whole Middle East. Hundreds of letters and reports show scholars advising the Assyrian royal family on matters ominous, astrological and medical, often with direct impact on political affairs. They give an extraordinarily vivid insight into the actual practice of scholarship in the context of the first well-documented courtly patronage of scientific activity in world history. This project will bring together on a single website translations and transliterations of all those letters and reports, and a wealth of material from our undergraduate lectures and seminars, as well as student work, to support our own teaching and to provide resources for colleagues in history of science and religion who do not have access to specialist libraries.
Development of an e-learning Master in Theology in Ecumenical Studies
Noel Davies, University of Wales, Trinity College
The Trinity College MTh in Ecumenical Studies is one of very few such courses worldwide. The project is aimed at developing an elearning version of the course, currently being taught by conventional teaching and learning methods, on a part-time or full-time basis. The project will develop the current modular resources and commission new resources (including teaching materials from international scholars in the field) for e-learning. The course attracts considerable interest from overseas but potential students find the costs and difficulties of attendance at Trinity College prohibitive. An e-learning version would enable UK and international students to follow the course from home or from other convenient locations where they would have access to e-learning learning, teaching and assessment.
Faiths in Creation
James Hanvey, University of London, Heythrop College
Climate change and depleted natural resources require drastic action. But how do we move beyond guilt and fear to sustainable motivation for change? This project will facilitate exploration by people from the major UK faiths of their traditions of stewardship of the environment and just distribution of the world's goods, and how these are lived by believers in the UK. In workshops and seminars it will model inter-religious dialogue and work towards increased inter-faith co-operation and a shared theological vision in these areas. With the aid of electronic media, its outcomes will include resources for study and debate among academics, students, schools, religious communities, inter-religious groups and other communities of interest.
Theology and religious studies: contributing to challenging the frontiers of electronic learning.
Angie Pears, Oxford Brookes University
This project will develop, pilot and analyze the contribution that Reusable Electronic Learning Objects (RELOs), developed specifically in the subject fields of religious studies and theology, can make to teaching and learning across traditional disciplinary boundaries and across traditional learning contexts and styles. It will design and develop 3 RELOs which will then be used in a variety of teaching and learning situations across disciplines. The effectiveness and relevance of the RELOs will be measured and analyzed according to the perceived effectiveness of these for both learners and teachers. The relevance of religious studies and theology for the contemporary HE curriculum will be a key concern, as will be the contribution of religious studies and theology to innovative pedagogic developments.
Only connect : a web-based approach to supporting student learning in the philosophy of social science
Stephen Timmons, University of Nottingham
'Philosophy of Social Science' is a compulsory module for postgraduate research study in the School of Nursing. As philosophy is very unfamiliar to most students, they have difficulty with making the connections between the various philosophical concepts discussed in the module, and then further connecting concepts to their programmes of research. I propose to develop a website that will use the hypertextual nature of the Internet to help students understand those connections. The website will be integrated with the existing programme of lectures and seminars. It will elucidate how various themes thread through the material covered in the module.
An interactive web-based model of philosophical argumentation
Jonardon Ganeri and David Moffat, University of Liverpool and Glasgow Caledonian University
Traditional 'manuals of debate' offer rich and highly structured analyses of philosophical argumentation. They recognise various species of two-party argumentation, with a variety of goals, means of execution, legitimate moves and counter-moves, objectives, and defeat situations. These manuals were used in training novices in the art of philosophical debate. The highly codified analyses lend themselves to formal implementation in a language such as HTML. This project will develop a web-based resource, implementing the structures of one or more of the traditional debate manuals, in order to provide students with a facility to practise their informal argumentation skills.
Return to vol. 6 no. 1 index page
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
