Making the most of e-learning: a business department's experience

Teaching Business & Economics, Spring 2006 by Saddington, Paul, Clarke, Paul

Business departments have been building programmes of work for their students using ICT for some time. The excellent support of dedicated websites like Bizled and Tutor2U have made the task easier, but the success in terms of improved student learning depends on the way teachers select and organise ICT resources, provide guidance for students and on the level to which ICT is integrated into teaching (Higgins 2003). This article reports on one department's approach to e-learning and describes how careful design of ICT-supported tasks for contact and non-contact time can improve students' learning.

THE SCHOOL'S SPECLAL CONTEXT

The business department at South Bromsgrove High School in Worcestershire has been actively promoting the use of e-learning to both students at the school and to visiting trainee teachers from the University of Worcester over the last five years. This is the latest stage in the development of a successful department in a flourishing school. The attention to detail and the emphasis on students' learning was reported in a previous article in this journal (1999). The results speak for themselves in that exam targets for this year are 40 per cent AB at A Level Business Studies, 30 per cent at A Level Economics and 78 per cent A*-C at GCSE for students from a truly comprehensive catchment area. The four core members of staff also play an important part in the local ITT partnership, hosting business and economics trainees throughout the year and providing a training base for day visits from the whole University of Worcester business cohort.

The school achieved specialist technology status in 1999 and within the sector plays a lead role as a high performing school. Professional development in the school has given learning and assessment for learning a high profile. A more recent innovation is a learning lab, where teachers can take classes to explore new ways of working in a classroom equipped with different kinds of furniture, visual aids and technology. Cameras allow colleagues to observe and learn from each other.

The school's emphasis on learning styles, on the importance of differentiated learning, and on the need for shared responsibility for learning between students and teacher is helpful for the development of e-learning. E-learning "is a complement to other forms of learning and not a replacement. It should form part of an articulated approach to learning" (Ashwin 2005).

APPROACH TO E-LEARNING

The school has supported e-learning through a leasing scheme which provides laptops for sixth form students, with wireless access bringing the intranet to every classroom. The 90 per cent uptake reflects not only a good financial deal but also the quality of the material provided by departments to support learning. The school-wide intranet provides students with password-protected access at home and school, while a new LEA-wide virtual learning environment is being developed to provide a variety of learning materials. Specialist IT suites also support timetabled lessons on a regular basis for research-style activities; typically every GCSE business studies group has such access for one lesson a week.

Long before the advent of both equipment and software, the business department encouraged students to prepare for lessons by reading ahead. The result was a bank of material linked to lesson content which transferred easily to the intranet. Students approach a new teaching topic knowing they can look up in advance the outline content, the kind of exam questions and the number of lessons devoted to the theme. They can find preparatory study materials on the department site, including tasks which help them to think about key concepts and their application to business contexts. There are interesting questions to prepare and to be ready to discuss in contact time. Materials are written with good learning principles in mind and try to engage all learners by judicious use of mind maps, diagrams, case studies, polemical website links and commercially produced study guides.

A basic principle of e-learning development has been to encourage students to become more autonomous learners and for sixthformers to make a different kind of use of both contact and non-contact time. Independent learning is a particular theme for sixth-formers but they are encouraged to exchange ideas with each, other and some group tasks require collaboration in and out of lessons.

The intranet facility is orchestrated by a school co-ordinator and has a number of distinctive features. There are learning tasks with a range of links to external sites which are accessible from school and from home. There are revision and study materials with on-line tests and assessments; again use is made of commercially available materials with hyperlinks from department pages. There are writing frames which students can draw on, at both pre- and post-16 levels, to help structure answers to short tasks and longer investigations. The best student work is included as resources for others to use, and this provides a strong motivation for current students to improve on the performance of others. There are evaluation forms which allow students to provide feedback to their teachers on the success of lessons and tasks. Students are increasingly providing responses on-line so that teachers can mark electronically and save diagnostic comments. This has made it easier for teachers to move between diagnostic comments made on a particular piece of work to overview commentaries provided as regular reports for parents and students.