Activity 3 : Gossiping with friends as form of flexible learning... I LIKE IT!

The Owheo creates a divide here... hard to find the time to walk for coffee, let alone walk and talk for flexible learning. Pathetic excuse, I hear you say...
Though this form of learning does appeal - and is actually one I use quite often with my HOS. We walk and work on the way to get coffee - discuss the current issues that need addressing, verbally, then action at a later point. Multi-tasking, for flexible management/learning from her to me (well, maybe sometimes from me to her... maybe...)

Our students are a mixed bunch - we have 17 year olds and we have 45 year old. Lots of differnet backgrounds, and life experience. Lots of different ideas, from vegan to farmers. Lots of different levels of skill in reading/writing/maths, computer literacy, to name a few.

I feel like I've already covered some aspects of the five dimensions in last week's post but to re-cap:

1) Time - we are somewhat flexible with some aspects (ie when students chose to engage in assessments, but there is an end date to this flexibility). As mentioned earlier, OP have an 80% attendance requirement... so not so sure that this is embracing the FL model. I love the slideshare that Ron linked us too... and I really think this is the reality - if we aren't engaging AND providing MORE than what's just contained in the resources, WHY would our learners come to listen to us? This leads to the problem of learners who are NOT self-helpers (LCL)... we always have a few, and how these guys and gals fall off the wagon.

Their problem, you may say... but have you also heard of success and retention??? Herein lies a conflict of some magnitude.

2) Delivery and Logistics - sort of flexible.
We do provide FTF facilitating, but our resources are all on line. We provide practicals and theory. There are media files and written word - but not every aspect of the course is covered by every delivery mode (as Ron points out - what does flexible learning mean to us... WORKLOAD (not his exact words...)). Ideally, we'd have all these options covered - but time and money prevail.

3) Entry Requirements - there is some flexibility in our programmes, from no requirements to prerequisites. This is set by our school and institution, though individual PMs can make judgment calls on entry as well. So it's not rigid.

4) Content 
I guess there is some flexibility around content - we can teach to more than is required, but we can only assess to the unit standard. This is maybe where the value of FTF for the over and above aspects of the course, or the extra for experts, comes in. If you want to be average, learn from the note. If you want extension, come to class... just thought.


5)Instructional Approaches  and Resources
Relative freedom and autonomy here - see above. I can see that the same can apply. However, we'd have to remember also that some learners come to listen and DO, not read at home. We could provide audio "lectures" for the course material, and still choose to be the "inspiring extenders" that slide share powerpoint talks about. If only there was enough time to actually DO this, AND our learners were so engaged that this would really work. I have probably 6/30 that would! Something I am doing wrong in engaging the rest... ???? Could be that FL is where it is at. I get the sense that there'd be a teething period first, to get this to work. To change the style, and delivery, and get the engagement. There is an element, even for these young kids, of this being a new idea, and the difficulty of teaching old dogs new tricks, is not new.

Regarding the three-step reflective framework - I guess this is what I've been working on this year around changes made to the fulltime programme. We have tried to incoorporate more flexibilty around learning - more practical skills, more fun, less stressy stuff (closed book assessments, surgery being off limits until term 2) - and have also changed some assessment processes that did not work well last year.
I don't really think about this in detail each time (and I should maybe formalise it more, even if just so there's a more robust "history" of what has gone on), but everytime a change is made, it's via thinking about how it was, how that worked, or didn't work, and how we can make learning better and more accessible, less frightening, and produce better work-ready graduates, that have had flexibility in their learning pathways, whilst still be robust graduates at the end.

Just a few things to thnk about.... and maintain success and retention and work within a budget. LOL.

Activity 2 : My perspective on FL.

What does the term Flexible Learning mean to you?

Following my week's reading flexible learning means a lot more structure, in the development, implementation and delivery of a flexible course than it did before.

Specifically I had not considered than institutional implementation aspects that are required in order to have follow through at a teacher level - ie if the institution isn't behind the idea, and doesn't support the principles and the resources required to teach flexibly, it would be very hard to achieve. I can see the FTI (failure to implement) would be a stumbling block for many along this path without backing from "above.". It is, in some ways, easy to have the ideas, but would be hard to follow through, without support from the outer layers of the ring (refer Figure 1.1 Chapter 1, Collis, B et al.)

The other dimension that really resonated for me was that of flexible learning being tied to learner -centered learning. So the movement away from the instructor driving every piece of learning to one where the learner is choosing how and when to engage, And I can see that for some of my leaners, this approach would be very tricky - those for whom time management and self-directed study are not easily forth-coming.

I also thought the "supermarket' " model was potentially problematic for this cohort - too mach choice, and not enough by way of specifics. (I have quite a number of 17/18 year old, straight out of a school system...). I'm getting a gut feeling that if we were to make generalizations, flexible learning would really suit those of us who have a few grey hairs, and not so much the wrinkle-frees amongst us (there are of courses, always exceptions to these rules.)

I can also see that "when the learner is given more choices, the instructor is increasingly required to respond and individualize rather than plan and deliver" creates some issue with workload, and hours in the day. It is my perception that this would take more hours, than a less flexible course, and this would be problematic.

Why is it necessary to use a more flexible approach in your work?

A flexible approach is always going to benefit everyone - in that being flexible also includes traditional approaches as one of the options of flexibility. So if that suits, we've got it covered - if studying at midnight via Moodle is your ticket, we can do that too. 

Interestingly, as I understand it, there is an expectation, in fact a requirement for my course, which is a OP directive, that my students attend 80% of our teaching sessions (theory and practicals) and that some sessions are just plain compulsory. This is of course, on the continuum that is FL - and the compulsory stuff is largely based around the bits that we believe to have a large health and safety component for those involved.

Course content is NOT very flexible. And our assessment criteria are rigid. However, how the learners choose to go about getting assessed is flexible to some degree (they can choose when to engage in assessments in our surgery sessions, though this has to be done before the sessions are completed for the year.)

VARK springs to mind as a reason WHY we need to be flexible, and provide different modes of information transfer.

What do you need to explore to help this happen?

I liked Annette's scoring so have stolen it as scored my own programme... interestingly, I too would have said we were very flexible - and it is compared to what I experienced when studying myself. BUT, in the field of flexible learning, we are pretty rigid!! An interesting finding - and one that makes us a product of our time. My Dad, and grandmother would be AMAZED that the notes are online not in paper... but for me, this is SO last century. Funny.

Table 2.1: The five dimensions of flexibility
	More fixed <<------------------------->> More flexible
Time	X
Content of the course	X
Entry requirements	X
Instructional approaches and resources	X
Delivery and logistics	X

I'm a bit stumped as to how to make these rigid bits more flexible... course content is largely scaffolded, entry requirements are at a minimum already. There is a lot of practical component (through our surgery and rotations) that our learners can't access anywhere else - and I firmly believe that seeing a cat spey via You Tube is NOT going to simulate anything near the real deal... (nor sort the fainters form the non-fainters...LOL).

So I look forward to exploring options around these issues.

What goals do you have for using Flexible Learning in your work?

I'd like to think that we could support the learners that ARE self-motivated and engaged by being a lot more flexible for the parts of my course for which this would work (thinking face-to-face delivery stuff here). 

I guess one of my beliefs about tertiary education is that if I can send kids (and I have some big kids too) out to the big wide world, with a bit of knowledge, an enquiring mind that can solve problems (albeit, they may have one brain cell jogged by something and think "Oooo, I've heard that before... NOW, where to find the answer? ...") then my job is done.

I believe that  a lot of what we are about is producing a cohort that has basic recognition, or process of enquiry, and THEN can think about where to go to find the answers, AND include in this, thinking critically about what they are reading when they do find this "answer."  (ie there's a lot of crap on the intenet too...). THEN I think I'm part way to doing a good job...

So this is VERY flexible - but based on hard facts of course content... isn't there always a catch...  ??? :-)

I also think there are a number of learners for whom this approach is just never (yup, that's a long time) going to work.

SIGH... oh, gotta love the grey-ness (vs black and white-ness) that is life. 

Activity 1 : Introduction of me!

Kia ora. Finally got here... the blog spot is running. Kind of. I'm in my fourth year of employment at OP, having started as a lecturer at the School of Veterinary Nursing and now managing the full time programme. We have about 40 students on site, fulltime. I also have two kids, partner, cat and a dog, I am  veterinarian by training, with a passion for psychology and psychotherapy, bike riding, running and coffee. And an unhealthy interest in the concept of peak oil... unhealthy, because it's so depressing...
I look forward to gaining knowledge around flexible learning, and implementing these ideas for my fulltimers. I am pleased to see some familiar names - HI ANNETTE!!!