A1: DESIGN AND PLAN LEARNING ACTIVITIES WITH INDICATORS OF OTHER DIMENSIONS

After started teaching at the University of Bolton, I feel the background/diversity of students appear to be one of the most important influencing factors for an educator to make decision concerning the curriculum/programme design. As such, I providing students personalised learning environment can be one of the focus to be discussed as the main for this dimension. The number of students per module/programme is much smaller in UoB, comparing to my previous institution. When students are captured from a smaller scale, the heterogeneous characteristics became more prominent. Every student may represent a typical type of student within a class of 4-15.

I have tried to make my course more personalised according to students’ needs, and looking for “personalisation” of learning material through monitoring students Moodle activities of each learning material, “interactivity” between lecturer and students, “media-rich content” for different types of learners, “just-in-time delivery” to provide problem-centred real-time assistance via social media, and “user-centric environments” with tea/coffee and biscuits, according to the framework proposed by Sampson and Karagiannidis (2010). [K2: Methods for teaching/learning] [K3: How students learn] [K4: The use and value of appropriate learning technologies] [K6: Quality assurance and quality enhancement]

Moreover, I found the frequency of interaction between lecturer and students is the most important factor for students’ satisfaction, especially for the “always-on generation” (Sun et al., 2017b, 2017d). I have mobile phone especially for communication with students, and multiple social media apps (WhatsApp, WeChat, and Viber) are installed on this phone. Students can communicate with me by using any of these social media apps. Students told me that they felt I am like their “friends” and they indicated that they prefer to learn within “more effective in a relaxed environment” because they felt it was more effective. All the students appear to enjoy the moment of 1-1 communication via social media when they needed help. They suggested that timely responses from lecturer have helped them to progress, otherwise, the might give up or forget about it. As such, I established an online learning environment for students via Moodle, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Viber to meet their individual needs and preferences. [A4: Effective learning environments and approaches] [A5: Engage in CPD and pedagogical research] [K2: Methods for teaching/learning] [K3: How students learn] [K4: The use and value of appropriate learning technologies] [K6: Quality assurance and quality enhancement]

In general, I have tried to evaluate and monitor students’ expectation throughout their learning cycle (before the semester, during the semester and after the semester). Following the quality requirement and regulations from the university (institutional factors) as well as module specification and programme handbook (programme factors), I have tried to ensure the knowledge and skills that are required by the other stakeholders (such as QAA, ACCA accrediting body, potential employers from the industry or further education provider) can be met. All of these expectations are considered and used to facilitate my teaching plan for the whole curriculum design and weekly activities. Moreover, I have looked to ensure “accessibility” and “usability” for students, and adopted “transformative pedagogy” and “personalised learning” with “ethic of care”. These are the elements should be considered for an inclusive framework when the enhanced technology is adopted for the learning environment (Wood, 2015) [hyper link of the original source is provided for this image, you can just click on the image]. [K2: Methods for teaching/learning]. [K3: How students learn] [K4: The use and value of appropriate learning technologies] [K6: Quality assurance and quality enhancement]