Here's an interesting e-learning initiative from Heriot-Watt University. The SCHOLAR programme was initially developed to help students progress between school, college and university but SCHOLAR now appears to be contributing to a number of Heriot-Watt's first year offerings. So despite being developed, initially, for use in schools it implements a pedagogical model that we could all learn from. If you want to know more read on. SCHOLAR takes a student-centred approach to learning. The delivery mechanism is mixed-mode and is very flexible in how it is used. Students can choose to study in classrooms, on-line or use printed materials. Support is available from a network of teachers lecturers and other students. The Web site mentions that SCHOLAR includes an extensive range of learning services including staff development, tutor support and the creation of learning communities.
The scheme was designed to help prepare students for Scottish national qualifications (now being piloted in England). The design, however, can be adapted to suit other groups and contexts, including higher education. Heriot-Watt University are revising their academic structures so that students will have more flexibility in their choice of subject and greater opportunities to transfer between a range of courses. I notice that Heriot-Watt are using SCHOLAR on a number of their first year courses.
The layout of SCHOLAR interface is uncluttered with the course content page as the default. Students can access a search area to look for pages within SCHOLAR, a threaded discussion forum, a FAQ which course moderators can add new questions and answers, a reports page for students to review their course progress. Finally the activities area which includes the formative assessments and the simulations associated with the course.
It seems from the evidence of the demonstration courses there is a lot of use of simulations to encourage students to actively experiment and not simply read a lot of text-based material. The simulations are embedded into the course content as are the formative assessments. Some of the simulations require a number of plugins including Java, Quicktime, Shockwave and Chime (for the chemistry models) but since these are freely available my accessibility concerns may be groundless in practice.
