Abstract:

A common phrase in learning and teaching is 'student centred interactive learning'. With funding from the University of Nottingham’s (UK) Centre for Integrative Learning I investigated how effective this approach is by focusing on reusable learning objects. RLOs are becoming popular within the Sciences and Medicine, but are hardly ever used within the Humanities. Even so, it seemed to me that philosophy students grappling with the core subject of philosophical logic would benefit from their use. What is a RLO? Well, essentially it is a reusable web-based resource with a single learning objective – in this case to learning about truth-tables. It is typically interactive and has visual and audio content.

The project's focus was not primarily on how to build an RLO but on the pedagogical underpinning and impact of supplementing traditional didactic lectures with this more interactive approach.

The project was run as a pilot and was evaluated on a number of levels. I ran two focus groups using a before/after skills audit to facilitate discussion. I also used quantitative research based on an anonymous questionnaire given out to the first year cohort doing logic. My hope was that both these feedback processes would give staff a greater insight into how students learn and the possible ways of harnessing innovations in e-learning to improve the learning environment for students in the future. It has. The results indicate that the students took well to driving their own learning, and appreciated the independence and the flexibility of the logic RLOs. 'Student centred interactive learning' is, as it turns out, a useful model for describing and developing best practice in the teaching of philosophical logic. One student wrote:

A much needed, I would say and excellent, idea - great for learning and revision, saves having to write out all of those tables and the resources section is super - have only just started logic - having a resource like this to play with prior to the first test would have been really helpful loads of exercises to get ones teeth into.

The project sets the pedagogical groundwork for future developments in e-learning, in particular, for the development of further RLOs to supplement the teaching of philosophy at the University of Nottingham (UK).

Keywords:

reusable learning object, rlo, student-centred learning, philosophy, humanities, e-learning.