at 27 March 1995

Conclusions from TILT

This page lists, and briefly summarises, the main conclusions drawn from the TILT project: Details are printed in the report Using Learning Technologies: Interim Conclusions from the TILT Project"

Contents of this Page

Benefits of the new technologies
How to Use IT in teaching
How to develop IT material for teaching
for more widespread adoption of IT

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Benefits of the new technologies

• Why IT is worth the investment of staff time
  • IT enables an institution to support learning as much as to deliver learning. This brings many benefits to both students and staff. Where such use can provide resources for learning which are more effective, richer, available for extended hours, and open to a wider range of entrants to Higher Education, computers will replace some lectures, laboratories and tutorials. Students will have greater control over timing and pace, and there will be more likelihood of resources suiting the style and stage of each student's learning. Of equal importance, teachers can expect to gain time for more individual attention to students and also to devote more effort to some other aspect of the teaching and learning process, or to make space for research or administration.

    There is a growing recognition of the importance of teaching within Higher Education and many IT providers will benefit when Quality Assessors treat courseware as publications, and their institution counts teaching for promotion equally with research and administration.

• Potential benefits to academics:
  • enabling their students access to rich resources
  • save time teaching, marking and administering
  • more time for individual attention to students
  • more flexible timetabling
  • more time for research
  • better Quality Assessment ratings
  • career advantages eventually

   

• Potential benefits to institution:
  • more cost-effective teaching
  • better Quality Assessment ratings
  • progressive image with students and funders

   

• How IT works well in particular subjects
  • Properly integrated into the curriculum, IT can help with specific learning problems. In certain situations it can probably be more effective than any other media, for example in dynamic graph drawing, models which are under student control, simulations to save equipment and to further ethical practice, drill and practice to replace material often covered poorly in crowded tutorials, or an illustrated lecture to improve visual communication, This certainly has been the experience of several teachers in TILT, particularly in the fields of dentistry, engineering maths, statistics, zoology, languages, music and history.

   

• Impact of IT compared with other resources
  • The use of IT is not a universal panacea in Higher Education and the areas where it is of most benefit must be investigated rigorously. The TILT project is identifying what kinds of IT work well in the curricula of a wide variety of subjects, and in what areas of these subjects it is most beneficial. The impact of IT compared with other aspects of teaching and learning is being measured and particular attention is being paid to discovering the benefits which CAL can offer over traditional learning.

   

• Potential benefits to students:
  • better understanding
  • extra learning resources
  • access to information
  • more choice of learning styles
  • more control
  • better communications
  • better feedback
  • more individual attention
  • mistakes in private
  • more patient non-judgemental testing
  • more flexible and sensitive
  • more drill and practice
  • more enjoyable
  • able to work at own pace
  • faster

• Working in student learning groups
• Productivity improvements from students' training in IT skills
• Using computer mediated communication for teaching and assessment eg, in Music
• Frequent Computer Based Assessment
  • We proposed that more consideration should be made of the value of working in student learning groups. The benefits are not confined to students who have had prior computing experience. This experience may predict students' expectations of difficulty, but it does not seem to predict either their success or their degree of satisfaction with the CAL. It may be, therefore, that another kind of experience, the students' prior experience of using the computer as a tool for learning, is more relevant.

    Evidence of more effective learning began to emerge from the use of CAL in cooperative learning and in a team teaching environment. Productivity improvements flowing from the students' training in IT skills and from the use of computer mediated communication for teaching and assessment also became apparent.

• Dealing with large classes, wider access and a more varied range of skills intake
  • In the modern institution with large classes, wider access and a more varied range of skills intake, the use of IT has been found to convey significant advantages.

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How to Use IT in teaching

• The Student and CAL
  • Different students have different learning styles. It has been shown that the perception that courseware is being deployed which caters for a range of learning styles can enhance course recruitment. Group B offers technology students a choice of two CAL packages with tutor support, a text book, or tutor written material for a section of their mathematics needs.
• Incorporating IT into the curriculum
• Working in course teaching teams
  • We propose that more consideration should be made of the value of working in course teaching teams.
• How to select, customise and recycle learning software packages

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How to develop IT material for teaching

• Working in courseware development teams
  • In learning how to incorporate IT into the curriculum in a wide variety of subject areas, TILT has gained valuable experience of working in courseware development teams where there has been close co-operation between teachers and developers. This has resulted in CAL which is specifically designed to meet the needs of particular classes, and, as a by-product, the experience in the formation and effective working of such teams is a skill to be passed on by TILT.
• Use TILT's approach to evaluation
• Help teachers with formative evaluation of their teaching
  • One of the most important outcomes of TILT has been in establishing how to help teachers with the formative evaluation of their teaching Our efforts suggest that even when studies were originally seen as summative evaluations of software, the main benefit is in helping teachers, as course managers, to adjust the situation in which the software is used in order to maximise the benefits to students. In other words, such evaluations take the role of formative evaluations of the wider teaching situation within which the software plays a part.
• The professional package versus the teachers' own productions
  • In addition to CAL produced at the University of Glasgow from original materials using authoring software, much of the project work has revolved around developing or modifying "professional" style packages in-house. As an institutional project, TILT is interested in the merit of using professional packages when compared with the teachers' own productions. The cost-effectiveness issue will be the subject of a future report, but we have identified valuable ways of saving time and expense in importing external professional packages, learning how to select, customise and recycle learning software packages developed in other institutions, and producing a low-cost package locally, using readily available and easily learned software.
• Low-cost production of new computer packages
• Avoid copyright problems

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for more widespread adoption of IT

• Position institution to grow fast
  • The decision to adopt new technologies on a large scale is not a trivial one for an organisation. It requires long term survival as the criteria, rather than short-term profitability. The adoption of new technology follows a pattern. Early research identifies something which may be of future benefit, but needs much investment in capital and training, and may even need different or fewer staff. Even before it is certain that the technology must eventually be adopted, some organisations begin to use it. All must decide the timing and size of their investment. Too soon and big - the costs cripplingly outweigh the short term benefit, and can cause collapse. Too late and slow - the competitors gain all the business, and again there is collapse. In between there is a difficult judgement. The best strategy is to develop a network of skilled staff aware of the potential of the technology. Decisions on adopting new technologies on a large scale require a commitment to use it initially in a small way, while being ready to move fast to adopt it in a big way. We believe that the University of Glasgow is doing this and that TILT is placing us in the position of being even more ready. We also believe that the "big way" is coming much closer as CAL resources appear rapidly from TLTP and elsewhere.
• Specifications emerging for facilities
  • The incorporation of computer based teaching, learning and assessment methods into an institution's curriculum has several practical implications related to facilitating the students' contact with the IT. The experience of TILT is clarifying the specifications required for the use of the new technologies. These findings encompass specific requirements for individual computers, the use of networks and file servers for software or communications, administrative and environmental concerns, human support and the reconciliation of conflicting sets of policies and standards - commercial, national, and local.
• Fit IT to teachers' perceptions of their teaching
• deal with HE staff difficulties in adopting IT
  • To be successful, IT must be tailored to suit the many different perceptions of what University teaching must provide. Different kinds of IT, or ways of using it will suit different needs and TILT is investigating these. Naturally, staff attitudes often contain objections, but they can be converted to be very positive. Difficulties in adopting IT have tended to centre on lack of time, lack of support staff, lack of information and lack of suitable materials. TILT recommendations below should help overcome these.
• Fit IT to institutions self-perceptions.
  
  • We are also concerned with the effect, on the adoption of IT into teaching, of the ways in which Universities are perceived to operate. Even within a single institution, such as the University of Glasgow, there are many different perceptions of the ways in which such a large complex organisation behaves.

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