Introducing the 2minuteMoodle: A framework for providing additional instructional scaffolding

Posted by: nonamuldoon on: August 1, 2009

• In: instructional design
• 1 Comment

My University has recently adopted the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS)  to replace Blackboard. The Curriculum Design Team in which I am a member is actively assisting in the implementation, one of our tasks is to help academics enhance learning and teaching practice with the use of LMS. I have finally put into paper an idea that has been in my head for sometime about helping academics develop capacity to provide scaffolding in the learning process, which incidentally supports at least four of the 7 Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). I spoke to an academic about this idea and he is very keen to take it up, one of the reasons is the ease with which he can produce a two-minute voice recording once a week in his iPhone. 

The central idea is to record a two minute audio in MP3 format which will then be made available in the Moodle course site and/or provide RSS to the two-minute weekly podcast. The academic will use the questions in the 2minuteMoodle framework (see illustration below) to provide an advanced organiser for his/her students, focused on the idea of scaffolding. Academics who prefer a more visual approach (also useful for hearing impaired students) may be shown how to use Voicethread, which can also be embedded on the Moodle course site. But it must be no more than two minutes duration – the rationale for this I have now documented but will be discussed in a separate post.

 

The 2minuteMoodle instructional scaffolding approach

 

Another purpose for introducing the 2minuteMoodle approach is that I believe it supports the “Learning by Design” framework for academic development that I have been pursuing to embed in my instructional design practice. By providing academic staff a situated context for why, how and when a particular technology might be used in learning and teaching, an academic is empowered to develop knowledge of both technology and pedagogy to complement their content knowledge (Mishra & Kohler, 2006).

My next post will describe the 2minuteMoodle approach in more detail.

References

Chickering, A. W. & Gamson, Z. F. 1987, ‘Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education’, AAHE Bulletin, vol. 39, no. 7, pp. 3-7. 

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record 108 (6), 1017-1054.

Tags: 2minuteMoodle, advanced organiser, instructional design, learning by design, learning management system, LMS, moodle, podcast, scaffolding, TPACK, TPCK