Making the move to resource-based learning

SAIDE is regularly approached to assist education institutions who are contemplating moving from predominantly face-to-face provision to the use of more flexible methods of educational provision, including the use of resource-based learning (RBL) methods. In this article, Tessa Welch summarizes the major issues we at SAIDE raise in our work with such institutions.

Motivation for the desire to change is various, but the underlying reason has been the recognition that:"All institutions of higher education will adopt new approaches to the organization of teaching and learning on their campuses in the remaining years of the century, whether they do it consciously as an organization or not. This is not something about which an institution will be able to exercise choice. The die is already cast." (King, 1997)1

In his article, King's argument is that institutions need to plan for these kinds of changes consciously, rather than let them occur in an ad hoc way.

In a series of booklets on resource-based learning, the Oxford Centre for Staff Development provides further rationale for the use of resource-based learning methods in the British context.These include, amongst other, the following:
•    increasing numbers of students;
•    increasing diversity in the student population;
•    rising book costs resulting in students not being able to buy their own books; and,
•    inability of libraries to cope with the numbers of books required for study.

In South Africa, the kinds of arguments put forward tend to be phrased negatively - we have to do it because we have no other option. It is the only way to survive. The underlying assumption is that resource-based learning methods represent an inevitable decline in quality.

What we argue is that the shift to resource-based learning is an opportunity to increase quality in a number of ways. Neil Butcher, in a report for the Open Learning Network of the University of Natal during 1997, summarized the potential opportunities presented by RBL as follows:
•    breaking down the traditional notion that a teacher talking to mostly passive students is the most effective strategy for communicating curriculum;
•    implementing strategies to shift the role of the educator;
•    directing a significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision;
•    investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies into teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving, or enhancing those environments.

As can be seen from the above list, the shift to resource-based learning does not merely mean provision of learning materials. In order to result in increased quality of educational provision, rather than merely being a coping mechanism, institutions need to plan carefully and work with staff and students intensively.

ACADEMIC STAFF

Academic staff need to understand that the introduction of resource-based learning changes their role. The traditional role for academics tends to be narrowly focused on research and teaching where teaching is seen as conveying content, and "getting through" the syllabus. In resource-based learning programmes, academics may be called upon to expand their teaching responsibility in one or more of the following ways:
•    designing a range of learning experiences for students in which they themselves might not participate at all;
•    selecting and preparing materials and assessment;
•    selecting, training, supporting and monitoring less qualified and/or part-time tutors;
•    developing administrative skills, such as the management of information about students, part-time staff, materials and resources.

This change in the understanding of the educator's role - "decentring the teacher from the education act"2 - is sometimes difficult. Academic staff are often reluctant to trust other people's materials or to find their "job satisfaction" in ways other than face-to-face teaching of their "own"' students. In a resource-based learning programme SAIDE recently evaluated, one of the lecturers felt that the materials selected for student learning were inadequate and so abandoned them halfway through the year and spent her time lecturing to the students while they took notes. The money spent on purchasing the materials was therefore not used productively, and the lecturer had no time to think about adapting the teaching strategy around the materials, adapting the materials themselves for the following year, or selecting an alternative set of materials.

STUDENTS / LEARNERS

Students / learners, accustomed to dependency on their teachers, need to be helped to understand that resource-based learning requires much better management of your own learning. There will be guidance, but it will be provided in a range of ways - not only through direct oral instructions from the identified lecturer. Students, unused to working with written text, often find resource-based learning methods difficult to adjust to, because a much greater proportion of the work is done through engagement with resources, printed or otherwise. Educators need to be prepared to support students where they have difficulties, but at the same time not allow them to fall back on old dependencies.

The place of materials / resources in overall course design.

Sometimes academics are under the illusion that the shift to resource-based learning merely means finding or developing course materials. The point about resource-based learning is that it allows for more flexibility, because it does not rely on a talking teacher in front of a class. It allows for flexibility in teaching and learning processes, as well as assessment strategies that are appropriate for the particular learning outcomes required. Academics need to concentrate on all aspects of course design, instead of pouring all their energy into finding or developing the "right" materials.

COURSE MATERIALS SELECTION AMD DEVELOPMENT

When selecting materials, academics often find a course that matches their idea of what the content should be; in terms of developing materials, the response is often merely to write out lecture notes. Additional content can be provided in a variety of ways - but if students cannot use the materials to learn from independently and actively to achieve the learning outcomes, there is little point in having them. There needs to be a shift to developing and evaluating materials in terms of their potential for encouraging successful learning. Phil Race3 gives a useful set of questions to guide evaluation of learning materials:
•Do they make students want to learn (motivation)?
•Do they give plenty of opportunity for learning by doing (experiential learning, practice)?
•Do they provide students with helpful feedback (finding out how the learning's going)?
•Do they assist students in a variety of ways with digesting what has been learned (making sense of what has been learned - understanding)?

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING

One of the benefits of introducing more flexible methods of educational delivery, is that it forces institutions to plan their programmes much more thoroughly ahead of time. Purchasing and/or developing of materials is expensive and time-consuming, and therefore the pressure to plan carefully is greater than is the case with the more fluid face-to-face provision. However, it is not only materials procurement that needs planning, but all elements of course design, as well as the administrative systems that are required to support flexible provision. The administrative systems of most traditional institutions are not sufficiently flexible to cope with the variety of tasks required in resource-based learning programmes.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

There is often resistance to the introduction of processes of monitoring and evaluation when new programmes start. Staff feel they should have a chance to "get it right" first, and get over the stress of the change before they are evaluated. What we argue is that it is precisely at the beginning of a programme that monitoring systems need to be introduced and a process of evaluation planned. Otherwise there is no mechanism for learning from mistakes inevitably made in initial stages. We also argue that there is no such thing as ultimately "getting it right". Rather, "continuous improvement" should be the goal. Course design is an ongoing process of which evaluation is an indispensable part.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. King, Bruce, 1997, Distance Education or Resource-Based Learning,: Issues of Choice for Universities (talk given as an address to staff members at the University of the Western Cape on 20 June 1997)
2. Relf, Stephen, 1996, Resource based learning at CSU: changing roles in learning and teaching, from Occasional Papers in Open And Distance Learning, Number 20, Charles Sturt University
3. Race, Phil, 1996, 'Helping Students to Learn from Resources' in Brown, S & Smith, B, 1996, Resource-Based Learning, London: Kogan Page
4. Butcher, Neil, 1997. Open Learning at the University of Natal. OLI & SAIDE