Designing for emergency remote blended and online education: a response to Bennett et al. (2017)
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Designing for emergency remote blended and online education: a response to Bennett et al. (2017) Cornelia Connolly1 · Tony Hall1 Accepted: 9 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper is in response to the article entitled “The process of designing for learning: understanding university teachers’ design work” (Bennett et al. in Educ Technol Res Dev 65(1):125–145, 2017). Design constitutes a fundamental part of what teachers do (Goodyear in HERDSA Rev Higher Educ 2:27–50, 2015). However, it has received negligible attention in the research literature. Bennett et al. make a significant contribution to knowledge by identifying and illustrating how university teachers engage in educational design. In particular, the paper identifies key areas for further support and the professional development of university teachers, including in the use of systematic design models and tools. This will help university teachers significantly, especially during the current pandemic has increased the design workload of university teachers as they endeavour to migrate and transtion their teaching online. Our response discusses Bennett et al. (2017) in the context of emergency remote teaching and the wholesale shift to new modalities of blended and online education. We also offer future suggestions arising from our review, including the importance of further international research on the topic. Keywords Educational design · Tertiary education · Online learning
Introduction Based on evaluation of the design processes of 30 teachers from 16 universities in Australia,the paper by Bennett et al. (2017) makes a significant contribution to our understanding of educational innovation by identifying and illustrating how university teachers’ undertake educational design. In this time of a global pandemic, when there has been a large-scale pivot to online education internationally, the paper provides useful insights for teachers’ design work in a time of crisis and the shift to digital at the tertiary level. The paper and review of literature illustrate how design work is characterised indifferent countries and cultures, and how university teachers’ design work is generally focused in one of two ways: student-centred or teacher-centred. The authors report how, even within faculties where there is a strong collaborative approach, university teachers generally seem to have * Cornelia Connolly [email protected] 1
School of Education, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
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considerable autonomy in the decisions they make regarding educational design. Therefore, how can we better support university teachers as educational designers (a question that has gained renewed importance due to the current, global pandemic)? The paper provides important foundations for this conversation around how we can address this challenge.
Impact and value As outlined by the authors, teachers’ design work is a relatively new and emerging fieldof inquiry in educational research, and i
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