Abstract:

How to guide the learning process of a group of students who are different, who have different formation needs since they are in different acting contexts, who learn different codes, practices, and values? Expanding the learning surroundings: generating ICTs mediated spaces, which are set up based on each student’s particular needs.

Homogeneous knowledge problem:
In its educational model, the Universidad Autonoma de Occidente (UAO) has emphasized Learning, understood as the process by which people construct new knowledge for themselves incorporating their mental structures, consequently acquiring new forms of action. In this process, different components can be distinguished: the learner (student as the main actor), where he learns (the learning environment as a setting for interaction) and who learns (teachers, students, and community).

The student is a person with physical, emotional and unique cultural features that has individual training needs and different abilities to perceive, understand and solve problems.

Learning environments are areas of interaction where learning paths are developed such as the classroom, laboratory, library, computer rooms, conference halls, the city, organizations, sports and wellness scenarios.

The teacher, who is also a person with a particular mental structure, has among others the following roles: planning and designing learning paths, support and motivate learning practices and problematize knowledge of students through the inquiry, challenge and questioning.

The problem arises in the classroom when there is a heterogeneous group of people who learn heterogeneous concepts, practices, and values, in a heterogeneous form, with a teacher who prepares a class in a homogeneous form, with homogeneous content, expecting homogeneous students, to be evaluated in a homogeneous way. The problem becomes more complex when the number of students increases.

How to guide the learning process of a group of students who are different, who have different formation needs since they are in different acting contexts, who learn different codes, practices, and values, and who have different ways and times to learn?

One of the strategies defined by the University to face this problem is to expand the learning surroundings. Such strategy consists on generating ICTs mediated spaces, which are set up based on each student’s particular needs. This is the proposal of Blended learning at the Universidad Autonoma de Occidente.

Video about the experience is available on: https://youtu.be/eDTT1yI5PEk

Keywords:

Blended learning, social technology, adaptive learning.