In this study, the principles of transformative learning theory, a subset of constructivism within adult education, were applied to the design of professional development experiences for educators in online settings. This study of transformation focused on change existing in two forms: the transforming of perspective (how people view the world and their work); and the transforming of action (how this translates to their practice). Using an action research framework, I investigated how best to prepare tertiary educators to teach (and learn) in online environments. Located at an Australian regional university, I collaborated with teachers from a polytechnic in Singapore to build the professional capacity of the group in online learning and teaching. The challenge for a collaborative practitioner planning and conducting research that enabled informed decisions to be made about action and practice was balanced by the opportunity to trace transformative learning processes through the highly visible online environment. In this paper, I employ the notion of learning as a journey to describe, reflect upon and interrogate my doctoral research design.
This chapter provides a comparative study of two Australian regional universities with a similar student profile as they investigate the use of synchronous audiographic web conferencing as a learning and teaching tool. In both universities, the trials of the web conferencing tool, Elluminate Live! (Elluminate) were initially driven by individual academics with an interest in new technologies. While similar in some aspects at the beginning, the two universities then approached the software trials in different ways. As part of this comparison, issues and challenges relating to software trials in educational environments are highlighted, and recommendations provided for others who may be considering the adoption of similar technologies.
The present publication is the second APN Science Bulletin (2012) to be published in the APN's Third 5-year Strategic Phase, which runs until March 2015, and is a publication aimed to satisfy the keen minds of both the science and non-science communities with an interest in Global Environmental Change in the Asia-Pacific Region.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.