Http://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk Simon Cotterill Dynamic Learning Maps – fusing curriculum maps with personal learning

http://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk

Simon Cotterill

Dynamic Learning Maps – fusing curriculum maps with personal learning

IntroductionDynamic Learning Maps – JISC Curriculum Delivery Programme•2 year project•Newcastle University

• Medicine• Psychology• Speech Therapy

Embedding Benefits – DLM Project•12 month project•Partners:

• Bangor University• Bradford University• University of Cumbria

Aims:•Evaluate in other contexts•Enhance wider uptake

• Improve training materials• Enhance documentation• Implementation lessons• Wider dissemination

XCRI project – incl. embed course information feeds in DLM

Innovations project – Geography DLMDentistry

OER Rapid Innovation projects - with DLM integration

Workshop Overview


Structure

Presentation: What are curriculum maps? 15 minGroup work: What do you want from curriculum

maps ? 25 minPresentation: Dynamic Learning Maps / Demos 50 min

Tea/Coffee

Group work: Your views – feedback 15 minPresentation: Mapping with DLM

and future directions 30 min

Intended Outcomes

• Develop a common understanding of curriculum maps in the School• Understand the role of curriculum maps for different stakeholders• Be able to identify key challenges for developing curriculum maps

• Understand Dynamic Learning Maps and how these could be applied to your curricula• Become familiar with ways in which technology can enhance curriculum maps• Understand conceptual and practical approaches for constructing online curriculum

maps• Understand key challenges and opportunities in using technology to enhance curric.

maps


What are Curriculum Maps?

Who are they for?

What do they do?


What are Curriculum Maps?

“a diagrammatic representation of the curriculum”Different ‘windows’ ontothe curriculum e.g.

• Intended outcomes• Curriculum content /subject areas• Learning opportunities• Assessment• Learning resources• People (students / staff)

“a diagrammatic representation of the curriculum”Different ‘windows’ ontothe curriculum e.g.

• Intended outcomes• Curriculum content /subject areas• Learning opportunities• Assessment• Learning resources• People (students / staff)

Curriculum maps elsewhere

• Design– questionnaire-based survey Canadian & UK Medical Schools

• Results– 31 responses– 20% completed maps

• on-going upgrading– majority in progress

• Outcomes– significant variation

• software used in construction• elements included

– challenges • complexity• human resource demands• medical ontologies, • faculty development• interface design

Willett TG, 2008. Current status of curriculum mapping in Canada and the UK. Medical Education 42: 786-93

Maps: levels of detail

Curriculum strands Module maps Session maps

Maps as a MetaphorWhere have I been?

Where am I now?

Where am I going?

Stakeholders• Learners• Teachers (incl. occasional teachers)• Curriculum Managers• External Regulators• Administrators

ReflectionReflectionRevisionRevision

ContextualisationContextualisation

PreparationPreparation

What should the students already know?

What should the students already know?

Where is topic X taught in the curriculum ?

Where is topic X taught in the curriculum ?

Career choicesCareer choices

Curriculum choicesCurriculum choices

Where is my specialty covered in the curriculum ?

Where is my specialty covered in the curriculum ?


Synthesis / MetacognitionSynthesis / Metacognition

PlanningPlanning

Does the curriculum cover all the professional standards?

Does the curriculum cover all the professional standards?

Curriculum Maps: Potential role in Monitoring & QA

Declaredcurriculum

Taughtcurriculum

Learning &development As

sess

edCu

rricu

lum

‘Constructive Alignment’(curriculum – T&L – assessment)

Better insight into learning outside the curriculum

External resources Prior learning ‘Life-wide’ learning

Identify popularexternal resources(QA + peer review)

Map to otherCurricula(widens learningopportunities)

Identify ‘gaps’in teaching

Identifyduplication

Monitor access & equality of learning opportunities

What should be on a curriculum map?Example of different interpretations / implementations

Delgaty L.. Curriculum Mapping: are you thinking what I’m Thinking? A VISUAL

COMPARISON OF STANDARDIZED, PRESCRIPTIVE PROGRAMMES. ARECLS, 2009, Vol.6, 35-58.

5 clinical teachers mapped the ALS (Advanced Life Support) course. Short duration, highly specified courses - Yet great diversity in mapping

Group Work 1Who are the main stakeholders and what are

their needs in relation to curriculum maps ?

What elements should be included in

curriculum maps? How are/could curriculum maps

be useful in your programme?

How detailed should

curriculum maps be?


Common themes Field specific Bilingual Support

Key curriculum drivers for the project:

1: Modular courses - promoting cross-modular learning- mapping to transferable graduate skills / careers

2: Medicine: Communicating Complex Curricula

Dynamic Learning Maps

Understanding linkageswithin the spiral curriculum(students & teachers)

Occasional Teachers-some unintended duplication in teaching

Part of the CurriculumDelivery Programme

Overview of Dynamic Learning maps

Interactive ‘Web 2.0Sharing , rating and reviewsHarvesting multiple sources (‘Mashups’ )Facilitating communities of interest

Curriculum MapsOverview , Prior learning, Current & Future learning

Personal LearningPersonalised, sharing , reflective notes and evidencing outcomes

Linking Learning ResourcesCurriculum & External Resources

Aims to be an interactive & participative environment•changing experience & expectations of learners•students and staff can add and connect topics•reflection / portfolio learning directly embedded in curriculum•add and rate external learning resources

Personal and Social Learning

Share, rate, discuss

Extend maps & connect topics

Integrates withportfolio (Leap2A)

Clear differentiation between‘core curriculum’ and community+ability to filter

Choice of views

Text-based interface

Mind-map style interface

n=193 (student response system)

I Prefer:

Diversity and strong polarisation ofpersonal preferences for visual, text or other views

Further evaluation results:https://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk/

‘List view’(focus groups saw relevance for revision)

Choice of other views

Tag Cloud

A demonstration

https://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk

e-Learning

Technical approach: breaking boundaries

Curricula databases

Library databases

ePortfolio/ blog

Repositories

ExternalFeeds

LearningResources

Life-longLearningRecord

ID-MAPsproject

Student Information

Systems

reflection

evidencing

discussion

adding resources,rating & reviewing

Learning Maps

(topic-specific)

Curriculum map

Personal learning

Community


Network structure• Topic Types (extensible)

e.g.–Learning Outcomes–Modules–Session–Assessment–Skill–Specialty

• Connections between topics(curriculum, community or personal)

–Parent / child–General connection–Pre-requisite / Post-requisite–Co-requisite–Equivalence

• Meta data (optional)Maps provide a mix formal and common

‘folksonony’

– Formal taxonomies e.g. MeSH– Module / session codes

These provide ‘hooks’ into external data sources. E.g. Library reading lists

+automated updating with data sources e.g. timetable & module catalogue

Adding a new topic:

May include curriculum structures, syllabus, careers, skills…Scope and level of detail vary according to programme requirements

Simplified ‘neural network’ of connected nodes (aka ‘topics’)

utilises ‘semantic’ connections madebetween topics and with resources

Search over the curriculum

Plant your trees, watch the forest grow!

Start simple - hierarchical taxonomies

Add formal ‘meta data’-draw in relevant content from your existing data sources

Taxonomy Ontology

Experts / Community - extend the map - make linkages between the topics

Resources / Tagging-links informal terms to taxonomy-learns the strength of relationships between topics

The map would benefit my learning


80% of students agreed

“Excellent way of linking learning and thought processes”.

“Hopefully minimises learning occurring in isolated chunks.”

“Potential for more joined-up thinking for patient care”

“If assessment is not linked to it how much will it be used?”

Clinical teachers (focus group)

Knowing how a teaching session relates to the rest of the curriculum is important to me


“Will increase relevance of Phase I lectures to clinical presentations/experience”

From a students point of view, one could be much clearer on ‘the big picture’, as you have a curriculum map laid out in front of you...”

77% Agreed

Stage 4 Medical Students - Focus groups

Having the map will be useful for revision


? “Any way of ticking off lectures revised?”

“Excellent revision tool”

“Helpful revision tool”

Stage 4 Medical Students

Clinical Teacher

91% Agreed

It would be useful to add notes and reflections to teaching sessions and other parts of the map

“[liked] linking the portfolio (which may appear otherwise abstract) with the rest of a student’s education”.

“link to portfolio may increase its usage!”

“link to portfolio may increase its usage!”

Stage 4 Medical Students(Focus Group)

73% of students agree

But clinical teaching staff skeptical:


“Can this really be used for portfolio (if voluntary) ?“

“How to engage student with e-portfolios – won’t work without their engagement”

I frequently supplement my learning with external resources on the web


I only want information and resources provided by teaching staff


72% agreed 26% agreed

Using Dynamic Learning Maps

“Learning maps are an excellent tool for reminding students where they’ve studied curricula content. I found the mapping function especially useful …. learning maps allowed me to quickly and easily search for content and collate links to previous sessions into one ‘toolkit’ of relevant SSC resources for our students.”

“Learning maps are an excellent tool for reminding students where they’ve studied curricula content. I found the mapping function especially useful …. learning maps allowed me to quickly and easily search for content and collate links to previous sessions into one ‘toolkit’ of relevant SSC resources for our students.”

(Senior Lecturer, Anatomy and Clinical Skills)

Clarity of purpose:StaffStudents

Think of the bigger picturenot just my moduletopics should indicate context

e.g. in paediatrics: ‘perscribing for children’rather than just ‘perscribing’

Getting the right balance

Automation Specificity & Granularity

Initially reliant on manually makingconnections (curriculum & community)

Maintenance cost as curriculum changes

Search – High volumeof resultsmixed relevance

Saturation (too manyConnections – ‘hairball’)

e.g. MBBS: 60+ learning outcomesper module. High-level outcomespresent in virtually every module.

Refine relevancescoring

Data on connected topics used to improve future automation/specificity(related keywords / strength of connections)

Challenges for Curriculum Mapping ♯1

Stage 5

Stage 4

Stage 3

Stage 2

Stage 1 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15

Student journeythrough thecurriculum

‘here and now’teaching focus

Between major restructuring of the MBBS curriculum (aprox. every 5-7yrs): stable: units (modules), programme outcomes minor adjustments: sessions, cases, unit outcomes (responsive to evaluation / QA) more variation in assessment & differences in delivery by 4 ‘Base Units’ (stages 3 & 5)

The curriculum changes over time


Stepped availability of study guides, cases and timetable data

Semester 2Available

Semester 1Available

Sept 2010 Jan 2011 Sept 2011 Jan 2012

i.e. a fully detailed / data-driven curriculum map for the current academic year would not be available until Semester 2.

A partial map would be no good at all! (Needs to be a semi-persistent map but drawing on latest information as it becomes available).

Resources (presentations etc) are uploaded into the VLE on a ‘just in time’ basis.


MBBS study guide databases (baseline) designed to support complex curricula with large number of contributors using familiar Word documents (well formatted ‘portal documents’) these populate databases and structure the VLE when they are uploaded supports changing curriculum with views by multiple academic years

Module Database (baseline)• outcomes are blocks of free text: variable formats and amount of detail

Fit for purpose, but raise challenges for online curriculum maps:

Key data is in the form of non-standardised text e.g. learning outcomes, core presentations / conditions etc. language is inconsistent between study guides (modified for context) hard to differentiate between unit-specific and programme outcomes & content

Codes used in VLE and timetable are not persistent e.g. ‘PPD2.15’ may referrer to completely different teaching sessions from one academic year to the next Problematic as resources are linked to these non-persistent codes

Existing data may not be in a readily usable

Recap: Summary of DLM

Interactive ‘Web 2.0Sharing , rating and reviewsHarvesting multiple sources (‘Mashups’ )Facilitating communities of interest

Curriculum MapsOverview , Prior learning, Current & Future learning

Personal LearningPersonalised, sharing , reflective notes and evidencing outcomes

Linking Learning ResourcesCurriculum & External Resources

Next Steps• Setting up a DLM site for you

• Mapping the high level curriculum– Pathways– Modules

• ‘Hands-on’ training session?

• Mapping the modules

• Evaluation / refinements: feeding back into the DLM roadmap

• Longer-term plan re: integration with University data

What we can offerHosting•Setting up a DLM site for you•Option to host locally later

Consultancy•Advice / help with mapping your curriculum•How to implement / integrate with your curriculum (paedegogy)•How to integrate with your other systems (technology)

Training / Orientation•Tailored training - theoretical & ‘Hands-on’

Collaboration•Evaluation / refinements: feeding back into the DLM roadmap•Building/updating shared taxonomies (e.g. MeSH, NHS Evidence/BNF)•Longer-term plan re: integration with University data

Curriculum Managers Analytical Tool (under development)

Cross-reference with: Display as:

We need a generic tool to answer questions such as: -Are all of the GMC/GDC outcomes covered in the curriculum? -What forms of assessment are used for module X outcomes? -How do session outcomes for provider-1 map to outcomes for provider-2?

For the current topic (and all topics below it in the hierarchy) cross-ref with a TYPE:

GMC Outcome 1 -Session Outcome 2 -Session Outcome 3GMC Outcome 2GMC Outcome 3 -Session Outcome 1

List view (ordered):

> GMC Outcomes

1 2 3 4 50 0 1 2 5

1 0 2 4 2

2 4 6 1 0

0 0 0 0 1

STAGE-GMC Outcome 1GMC Outcome 2GMC Outcome 3GMC Outcome 4

Heat Map by Stage:

(Based on Meta data for Stage + Details on mouse-over number)

Project funded by

Further information & Public Demonstrator:


Thank You

Documents

Http://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk Simon Cotterill Dynamic Learning Maps – fusing curriculum maps with personal learning