With his colleagues, Siemens, executive director of The University of Texas at Arlington’s Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge Lab, analyzed 339 secondary studies involving distance education, online learning, and blended learning.
“The move to digital education mirrors what has happened in much of society, where control shifts to the end user and reflects their needs and interests, not only those of the institution providing a service,” Siemens said. “To meet this challenge directly, universities need to start evaluating and changing existing policies, strategies and practices to benefit from digital learning.”
The study could help college and university leaders and instructors pinpoint how technologies and technology-supported teaching might help students learn better.
“This study provides critical insights into the types of practices and approaches that have a reported demonstrated impact on the quality of student learning,” said Shane Dawson, acting director of the Learning and Teaching Unit at the University of South Australia and a co-principal investigator on the study.
He added that university leaders and educators are increasingly challenged with implementing new technologies to better supplement teaching and learning in order to meet the demands of the contemporary student cohort.
Overall, said Dragan Gašević, professor and chair in Learning Analytics and Informatics Schools of Education and Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, and also a co-principal investigator, the study should be useful for educators and policy makers alike.
“While there has been a vested amount of research available about the most effective learning and teaching approaches, there have not been reports that systematize that work in a single document,” Gašević said. “This study specifically aimed to fill this gap and offers practical sources of information for policy makers, university leaders, academics, and researchers.”
The study appears on the LINK Research Lab and is part of the MOOC Research Initiative, a project funded by a $835,000 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant.
Material from a press release was used in this report.
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