Supporting Pedagogical Practices through the Interactive Learning Network (ILN)

This seminar is co-organised with the Faculty of Education Research Office

In this seminar, the speakers share with participants their experiences of implementing different online pedagogical practices using the ILN, the online learning support platform that CITE has developed. The speakers will draw on a collaborative action research project, the Innovative Pedagogical Practices Online (IPPO) project, funded by HKU SPACE Research Grant and launched early in 2003 within the Division of IT&S. Objectives of the study included investigating the learning styles of part-time students in the BEd ITE and LIS programs to enhance motivation and performance. Innovative practices were developed and trialed using the ILN platform to investigate how self-directed BEd students are in their learning.

The ILN is a purpose built Content and Learner Management System allowing online delivery and access to materials. It is also a community-building environment where teachers/students work as teams and engage in reflective, collegial patterns of work. It facilitates both cognitive and social scaffolding, enabling educators and students to become progressively more involved in the community to sustain their commitment and interests. This environment is designed to support academic programs that rely heavily on pedagogies that emphasize the emergence and growth of autonomous, collaborative learning, rather than teacher-directed delivery of learning materials.

This presentation will outline overall pedagogical design and showcase three examples of IPPO highlighting the ILN features used. The various approaches to integrating ILN to support pedagogy, peer and student-teacher interaction, and scaffolding will be demonstrated. Lecturers will provide an assessment of how well learning outcomes were achieved in their IPPO environments.