Traditional paedagogy and didactic teaching methods are becoming less common in education, as more schools and institutions begin to see the relevance of other learning theories like Constructivism and Humanism. However, issues arise in vocational education in training, as parts of the system, legislation and institutional policies reflect a a Behaviourist perspective (Zinn, 1998). For example, group work and collaboration can be very difficult to assess in Competency Based Training, as each individual student must be able to demonstrate all parts of the specified Training Package. To contrast these constraints, many tasks on Blackboard are collaborative, including solving problems in groups, designing posters in teams, and working on documents together. This is facilitated with the wikis, blogs and using Blackboard’s “groups” feature, which allows assigning any task to a preselected group. Additionally, learning for the sake of learning and deep learning may not be assessable, but may be key to the adult learners motivation to complete a course or qualification (Herod, 2012). To reflect this we also provide extra readings and resources Blackboard, for those who are interested in further learning, as well as an optional reflective online journal that lecturers can post feedback to.
Constructivism as a theory proposes that learning is an active process of constructing knowledge, rather than a mere communication of information. It encourages learner-centred, rather than teacher-centred activities, and includes group work and social interaction (Laurillard, 2002). While this acknowledges a student’s past experience, it also places a greater burden on them to be responsible to construct and monitor their own learning (Knud, 2003). While there are collaborative tools in Blackboard, more authentic social interactions, “on the ground” learning and networking can occur on social media, like Facebook and Twitter. This is one of the reasons why we also run a Facebook...