Okay, thank you very much for the invitation. I was very pleased when I got it and I hope
you will believe what I say. But from a constructivist point of view, you always can say something
against what I am now presenting. And so, at first it was not so clear with this mix
of methods, but then I tried to design it in a way as I think about. So, I will look
on it on a kind of de-tactical point of view, as a de-tactical design as a basis for a mix
of methods in digital learning environments. And now you already see, I cannot go away
from constructivism. So, I will talk a little about constructivistic view on de-tactical
design. And here you will see already a mistake, de-tactical design, principles for a mix of
methods. I think that's a major point of my presentation. And then I will give, it depends
on the time I need or I have, I can give you some examples where I use this design principles
for a mix of methods concerning virtual seminar on knowledge management and other educating
e-tutor. That's also a seminar which we run with the Virtual University of Bavaria. And
then at least an example on virtual classrooms. So, I will try to apply the principles on
these seminars which I first will present. And so, digital learning comprehends more
than the use of new information and communication technology. I think that is what you know.
But many studies have shown that simply embedding a new technology to traditional teaching and
learning often provides few benefits for education. And at least learning is not an appendix on
technology and you see this kind of picture. The background is that technology was never
developed for education. But we got it and then we think perhaps technology can help
us to bring on education. And you see that is often the way. And there's a quote of
Rich Mayer. The focus was on giving people access to the latest technology rather than
helping people to learn through the aid of technology. That is often the case. And that
is now my position which I want to explain and elaborate. Applying digital learning in
schools, universities and companies and in further education is beneficial only if it is
a learner-centered instead of technology-driven. And it should be based on a moderate constructivist
learning philosophy. So, I cannot go away from this and show you a little ideas. But that is a
position which I need further on to evaluate also our examples. So, that is a basic idea.
Knowledge is constructed by the learner on the basis of his own experience. And I have a knowledge
on the way to you, its information. And you combine it with your prior knowledge, with your
motivation and so on. And that is not always the same knowledge which I wanted to bring over. You
construct it on your background. And that's our major problem, I think, in education or also in
intercultural aspects. But that shows a little this constructivist point of view. And that is,
I think, the more abstract approach. So, when we think of learning on constructivist point of view,
you have these constructive processes, active processes. There is also what is sometimes forgotten,
the emotional and motivational process. And on the one side, for the learner, a self-regulated
process. And on the other side, a social process. And learning is always in a situation. Also here,
we have a situation of learning, if it is the best we can discuss about. So, that is, I think,
the background. And we have developed with Gabby Reimann ten years ago and more, this kind of
moderate constructivist point of view, said the major point is construction. And you have to give
learners the opportunity in a learning environment to be active and self-guided and social and so on.
But the learner must be supported by instruction or by teaching. So, the extreme constructivist
approaches was in this way, said we gave students 20 books and looked after two months if they have
learned something. So, what we learned, they did not learn very much. And so, we come to this more
idea, practical idea, said you have to develop environments where a learner can be active and
constructive, but you must support him in this way. And that is our classical model construction
and instruction on the basis of problem-based learning environments. So, gives them a problem
where they can be active and construct knowledge and do it in a self-guided or cooperative and
social way. And they must be at least get some kind of support and that depends on the prerequisite of
the students and so on. So, that is a little overview. And so, that is the base for design
of learning environments, problem-based learning environments. And the background is, that is the
basis and how to design. That is more for the teacher or for the tutor and so on to develop
a kind of authentic context, problem-based, authentic problems. A multiple context means
to look on the problem on several kind of perspectives, have a social context that means
more cooperative learning environments, and at least you need some kind of instruction.
That is, I think, what the designer has to take into account when he looks on a learning environment
and that our students should be able to do, to be self-guided or have abilities for self-regulated
learning, for cooperative learning and also learning with new media. So, that is the background and
we applied this research in several projects and with a virtual seminar and we run projects
with Siemens and also with the Deutsche Bahn again and also with medicine. So, that is what we have
done for a long time. So, I come now to this detective design principles for digital learning
environment and I will take this as a basis for a mix of methods and that means
that is an extreme list, but that is what you get when you look on the tactical design
principles or aspects. So, I will go a little in detail, but I'll give you just the overview.
You have to think about the target group, the learning goals, the content, the resources you
have. Micro didactics means it's kind of more problem-based or constructive point of view.
Meso didactics means how you sequence a course and micro didactics is all this feedback and
learning rules and so on. This kind of more teaching and learning methods on a micro level
and besides this, there's a digital media aspect, what you take and text pictures and animations
and so on, asynchronous aspects and at least you have to think also about technology.
For digital learning environments, for instance, and I will go a little detail quite soon,
that means learning management systems and at least you have to think about evaluation. So,
at first before I apply this kind of principles to the examples here, I give a little more detail.
So, that's clear. I think you know everybody knows it, but so the target group is important,
what kind of students you have. That is because what kind of motivation, experience,
cultural background and so on. More important is already this learning goals that is often not
very well defined. So, we have a lot of courses or all lectures also at university. They never
make very clear the goals and I think that's one of the very important point also when we make
training in Munich with professors for e-learning is that it is a problem how to define cognitive
goals, social goals, personal goals and so on. And then you have to look what kind of content you
have, facts or concepts or procedures or strategies or theories that I think is in and what kind of
resources do you have, for instance, what kind of budget you have or what kind of time you can
invest or what kind of technical perspective you have and so on. That is, but now that is
comes now in the deductive area. So, we always have to think what kind of micro-deductics do
I have in a course that is I already explained about. And second point is the meso-deductics,
which goes in the direction how you sequence something and here you can see, you can do it
step by step here or you can take a CM-A and CM-B in a more parallel way or in a sequencing way.
That is sometimes what you see and also that is another kind which is nearby. How meso-deductics
look like, for instance, this is you have at the beginning a CBT, it can be a VBT or can
online test and so on. You have face-to-face, you have self-learning phase and tele-tutoring,
face-to-face situation again, learning community. So, that is already a kind of
mixture of methods, a mix of methods concerning more these meso-deductics on this kind of
sequencing of courses with different kind of meso-deductics aspects. And that is, I think,
that we also know what kind of macro-deductics you can have in a course. So, you can have problems,
you can have work out examples, you have individual tasks or cooperative tasks in it
or group rules. That is always when we make a course, we give at the beginning group rules
and we say, for instance, to the students, think about what are you doing when one in your group
will not bring into his task or his part of work he has to do. And that goes in the direction of
self-guided function. So, what we are doing is that what the students are doing, they have to write
down at the beginning of the course the rules. What will we do if one does not bring his part
into the group and they can make the rules at the beginning and then if a thing happens, then
they have clear rules and they say, okay, if he twice does not bring into his part, he must go
out of the group. For instance, can others say, okay, let us do it several times, we have a lot
of empathy and so on. But that is, I think, which helps us a lot because we have not too much
intervene if there's a group problem because they have the rules and after the rules they have to
decide. So, that is, I think, what is great. And then we have in the groups also rotating
moderator because when we have in our course several courses, several cases, then one case
which is elaborated, one is the moderator and the next one another one is the moderator and so on.
So, that is a kind of rotating moderators and feedback by tutors is clear and we should react
very quick questions answering and we have discussion forums. We have the reflection aspect
and the self-assessment also in these courses and the digital media are text, pictures and audio
and we have on the communication level synchronous or asynchronous aspects or
methods and interactivity with the system or with a person or collaboration, Wiki and CSCL.
So, and here in some way on a learning management system, there are a lot of them but one has to
think about what kind of technology is in it. So, for instance, what we need in our courses,
we need a distributive technology where you have a database where you can get the information or
interactive technologies where you can work with the CBT and VBT and collaborative technology
where you can make these chats and also the communication aspects that I skipped. At least
there must be also kind of evaluation but also this I will not take too much into account. Okay,
so now I give the example. That was just my frame here which I analyze now examples here
on the first example is virtual seminar, an introduction to knowledge management and
we run it with a virtual university for very about 10 years I think and it's for students in
education, psychology and business economies and the learning goals are students should acquire
factual, conceptual and applicable knowledge concerning knowledge management and skills in
self-directed and cooperative learning in digital learning environments. We have not only this
content area goal but we have also the goal that they learn something in a self to learn self-directed
and cooperative because we get feedback especially in these fields and that is a
content area. I will not go into it but so we have in this way as a content and in combination with
cases how knowledge is communicated in a company, how knowledge is represented in a company or
how knowledge is used in a company or how knowledge new knowledge is generated for instance.
So just you say that is as a content background and we make it problem-based yeah that already
explained yeah and we have in this way this talk a technology which has the possibility
for information access for knowledge for interaction technologies and for collaboration
technologies so but that is now the interesting point how to sequence yeah so sequencing means
here that we have we have a face-to-face meeting at the beginning yeah and then they work first
on a task and a second task and then they have a first chat meeting and again they have these
cases and the background is here that when they have solved the case say each group is solving the
case and then the group solutions come together in a forum yeah where they all discuss their
solutions of the groups and so on so that is behind this it is a little short but that is a rough
structure it's also a kind of sequencing and a second chat and then comes the final discussion
and at least there's also a face-to-face meeting so that is a kind of very clear structured
sequencing which we used and the background was also said when we do not structure it very well
say so the results were not so well done because they only solve very late the cases and
so what we learned is to structure and sequence it that was also in learning management systems
which we worked with Siemens said you need a good structure at all in the case solution
they have a freedom and they work with the case as that are the cases that is from a formal time
we can very easily change cases in this because this technology system is just you can bring into
a case and bring into literature or a kind of theory and they have to analyze on the background
of the literature the cases and so we have always concerning knowledge management for
this knowledge representation communication generation and use of knowledge and that's a
very cheap system which we have because it's easy to exchange the knowledge and take new knowledge
or new cases into the system but that is on the micro-deductics and what we had in this kind of
course they have in the first step to work individually because they have to look on the
case and the literature and then they have to cooperate and to solve the cost and that
already told you we have the group rules and the self-guided functions in it and we have the
rotating moderator which always one of the group is a moderator and has to take the results together
and to bring it in the forum for all where all the other solutions are in it and then there's
feedback by the tutor and students feedback which give to each other and but we also try to answer
very quick the questions and have made also reflection phase and have sometimes of
self-assessment in it so that is a kind of mixed methods here on this level which we take into
account and which was always successful and concerning the digital media yeah we have text
and pictures we have synchronous chat and here we have also asynchronous when they work together
as a corona via email and so on and the collaboration was then working on a case
so that is what we have in this digital media aspect and i will not go in detail we had done
a lot of evaluation and it was quite well done but i think i go to the next example
um that was a second example about educating eTutors yeah that is also what we i think do
since 2005 also in connection with the virtual university of Bavaria and the background is
to qualify teachers to become an eTutor in in virtual learning environments and the background
is they have to learn theoretical foundations of relevant educational research as well as
practical and directly applicable contents yeah so that is this course and the course
has the goals that at first what are the functions and task of a eTutor knowledge about various media
in teaching and learning and promote self-regulated learning as how they were taught
how to promote self-regulated learning in when they are eTutors or support cooperative learning
and promote communication and coordination of the group yeah that is set of the goal
it's already the contents the goals are not very well defined very in detail but just to show you
what is the major idea and the macro-dedactic aspect is again construction and instruction
that i must not say again but that is the sequence yeah the sequence here and also this mix of
methods is at the beginning we have a face-to-face workshop then we have a kind of before they start
with the modules we have a kind of technical but that is already virtual here um that they have
to come into the technology we have now in this course Moodle former times we had another kind of
technology but um that is a kind of technology check and then we start with the model module
each model is for one week task of the eTutor instruction to media based didactics individual
learners learning group and the basic principle of technology and so that is this kind of sequence
and there's a quiz at the end okay some questions and there is a closing workshop
face-to-face and the background is feedback from the course eTutor so we have a eTutor
who always takes care what is going on in the groups because it's also a group design group
work here rotating moderation for group members that already talked about and submitting
moderation reports yeah that means after each week yeah they have to solve a car task or a case
and the moderator has sent the solution to the tutor and they get feedback for this
and sometimes they have also to say okay our group work event in this way or was good was not so
good so they had also to give a kind of report what was going on in the group so they reflected
also this group learning so um that was this design that i think that is a kind of sequencing
and that is i think already told so in each module was like this that first you have to
look on the task and so you get some content and then you have to work cooperatively on the task
and then there's a task solution report of the moderator about the task solution and they had
also yeah to we ask them also always to evaluate also this module already in the ongoing way
because we can take consequences coming out of this and what are the micro-deductics is group
work group chat rotating moderators and feedback by peers feedback by tutors yeah and we have a
48 quick feedback that is after 48 they must get feedback if they have questions and
yeah we have task and time structure that is very clear and in some way that didn't mention
was a project work a lot of them who participate have already get a project by the virtual
university of Bavaria and they can then also take into the task some questions or some aspects
concerning their own problem yeah so it is not just only for fun but they already
should reflect yeah but they have learned in connection with their own problem you know
so this service so that is much more motivating in learning also so how did we assess the assessment
of this and they get at the end as kind of certificate yeah was we look ongoing yeah
how they are working so it was very good you can always set this a good thing in this e-learning
approach you can always see who is working and how they do their task and so on as ongoing yeah
the second point is that they have to solve or to work out a task yeah the tasks and the
moderation reports and at least say we take into account participation of
evaluation so we force them also at the end yeah that we get some kind of evaluation of the course
so that is what we do a little in this assessment we did here also a large
evaluation about we evaluated six courses and i show you now picture you cannot read but that
is our success story because always what is green is a scale from one to five and all these courses
you have here but that is 70 80 we did run all these courses over the years and and you see that
we get a course acceptance acceptance of the group work subjective success practically of course
satisfaction of course design satisfaction of tutorial support satisfaction of platform and
so on so that this kind of project is a success story and also we can hear and see you must it
just goes each module was evaluated clarity of task course design motivation of participants
individual benefits of module and so on so each of these modules was always and here you see some
problems here and then later on we tried to overcome the problems the green are always
the positive aspects but just to say that was a success story with this kind of course and
coming up to a conclusion the tutorial support was the participants were supported by
structure design of the course and pacing of the tasks and we have this moderation guidelines
and self-defined group rules and feedback and support that was concerning these methods
with in connection with the tutorial support and the course design and structure was that we have
this authentic problems where the lecturers could bring into their ideas also and we had also
this kind of participating in groups that was very curious that a lot of the professors
did not like to work in groups i mean we said we have the seminar goes in the direction that
we have virtual groups so they said no i can work alone yeah that is what our what is philosophy but
at least we forced them that they have to work in group and at least we also evaluated this that
it was they said okay it makes sense to work in groups when they had this kind of experience
but because that is a basic in all this kind of uh in a lot of this virtual seminars and and
lecturing as to bring into more this group aspect a last example that is a more just
a mix of interaction methods and that is because it's an ongoing project which we make with the
european paid patent patent organization as the oropage's patent amtia which um they have a lot
of e-learning and but also go into the direction of virtual classroom and the background was and i
think i must not say what is a virtual classroom but um they had uh there are scenarios and the
most scenario which they had and what they did with the virtual classroom was just lecturing yeah
what they did the expert um talked one hour yeah on the virtual classroom and because it
was distributed say worldwide active and so they had virtual classrooms with morocco with poland
with spain italy and so on so people are participating from several countries yeah and
that was the only method yeah what they had and so what we said to them okay think about
made a mix of more methods yeah or more interaction scenarios and so what we um
okay that was this kind of this group but which are the major interaction options
in a virtual classroom that is what we worked out with them and the first one is one too many
interaction model yeah so there is the docent of the teacher who is talking yeah and each of them
gets information that was their model until we discussed with them and that was a very restricted
model and only few interaction between teachers and learners as well as between learners had been
there and so the background what we then ask is that there's another interaction model namely
one to one yeah so in some way what we said to them the teacher should also interact sometimes
also with one of the students here not only just talking talking and then it ends but that is one
model yeah one to one or also one to one between some of the students here or the of
these participants here yeah so to take also this kind of interaction into account yeah that was
a second way and the third wave was this way many too many yeah also said he opens the floor and
and the people and the participants could interact with each other and it is not only a teacher
centered here teacher can talk with them but there are he opens because in this technology
the possibility was there and yeah that is i think and a next point was break out groups yeah so
also what we recommended that also groups can work together into in the virtual classroom
and and not only must it be a learner centered yeah so that was this what we
kind of mix of methods in from an interaction point of view so that is i think what we at least
discussed with them was that is the aspect of sequencing um that there's a learning phase here
or there's a virtual classroom and a learning phase again so learning phase they had also some
kind of e-learning programs which are in some way also a little problem based not so as we like it
but they have cases and work let the people work on this and then they have the possibility to
when they are prepared which comes out of the learning phase here they can really discuss it
with the tutor yeah and not just the tutor must give always the information and we have
sometimes they have face-to-face e-learning virtual classroom e-learning on or they have
an opening session where they stimulate the participants and then it goes in the e-learning
phase and at least they can discuss about so that have been some model mix mixture which we have
discussed with them so coming to the end what i wanted to show was that we take for in to think
about this mix of methods we did it from a position of data technical design principles here
which you see here and the special versus the specialist is kind of macro deductic
meso deductic micro deductic and so on but you can take it also on a meso deductic level and
i think uh i would try to show it in this virtual seminar on knowledge management said
um a lot of this kind of methods have been um yeah have been realized and similar also in this
e-tutor approach which we tried and at least i tried just a little narrowed only the methods
on interaction for instance what kind of interaction methods you have in the virtual
classroom and but the conclusions are there are a lot of didactical methods which you can mix
in digital learning environments that is really shown didactical design can give you a rough
rationale for mixing methods so you can get a lot of what is going on in this field of didactical
design which you can take over but and that is a major problem which we have is that there is
no precise scientific rationale for mixing didactical methods yeah that is you take it
into account but in some way intuitively there is a rough idea about problem-based or didactical
major ideas and but you're not really can say exactly why you do this this and this and how
and this and this is interrelated so that is a problem concerning the sequencing also how do
you sequence here okay but that and the next step is especially this teaching and learning methods
how many you take into account and how you try to establish it or to bring it into a course
that is till now an unsolved problem in this mixing of methods so that is
a lot work for research to find out what is the best way of mixing methods yeah so in a way we
do it a lot intuitively in some kind of rough background knowledge but it is not very precisely
from a scientific point of view very precisely articulated okay so thank you very much