ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE ELEARNING STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION
AT WALTER SISULU UNIVERSITY
Presenter: T. Mayisela
E-learning Specialist Mthatha Campus;
Acting Manager, Education Technology and
Innovation Unit
Centre for Learning and Teaching Development
• Background
•E-learning strategy
•E-learning targets
•Towards blended learning
•Success factors
•Current successes
•Frequently used tools
•Monitoring
•Evaluation
•Conclusion and Recommendations
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Background
• WSU, a developing university situated in the Eastern Cape in South
Africa, commits itself to providing technological learner-centred
education, innovative learning and teaching, and opportunities for
life-long learning.
• Challenges:
– less prepared students,
– low pass rates
• Most of these students come from a poor educational background
and often find it difficult to cope with the teaching styles such as
formal lectures and with study skills such as private reading, note
taking, time management, asking questions in large groups,
team/project work and IT competence (Lowe & Cook 2003).
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E-learning strategy
The four focus areas are:
• Setting up and maintaining the electronic learning
environment;
• Promoting awareness of the University stakeholders
about the electronic learning environment and
possibilities this offers them;
• Capacitating academic staff on e-learning; and
• Ensuring student participation in e-learning
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E-learning Targets
• Each year there will be 20 lecturers rewarded for
their best e-learning practices at the grassroot
events
• By 2012, 25% of the lecturers use WiSeUp as a
learning management tool (at least: put their PPT’s
on WiSeUp)
• By 2012, 100% of the lecturers put their course
outlines on WiSeUp
• By 2012, all first year students are introduced to
e-learning techniques
• By 2012, 25% of classrooms to have data projectors
and also smartboards in all e-learning centres
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Towards Blended Learning
Web Enhanced
• Passive learners,
behaviourist
• Course Documents
• Power Point Notes
• Lecturer = Subject
Expert
• Lecturer Centered
• Lecturer provides content
• Group Work
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Hybrid (Blended)
• Active learner, constructivist
• Interactive Web learning
tools
• Online discussions
• Student Centered
• Lecturer Presence
• Student is responsible for
content gathering
• Community Building
Success Factors
Institutional Factors
• Organizational Readiness with managerial support
• Resources are available and supportive, including technical support
with informed and supported faculty,
• Introduced as a scholarly and transformative redesign process (not
just an add-on technology)
Lecturers
• Continued Professional development
• Ongoing Pedagogical Support
Students
• Recognize student need for time management and responsibility for
their learning
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Success Factors (Cont…)
Pedagogic
• Lecturer’s knowledge of the technical tools and their
fit to the content delivery and students
• Build an integrated model of activities so that
expectations can be reinforced as ‘before, during and
after’ F2F activities
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Current Successes
 Setting up and maintaining the electronic learning
environment
• 411 PCs in 10 computer labs; (48 +80 in progress) across WSU
campuses
• Staff development labs (3 campuses; 4th one in progress)
• Since 2009, WSU has made tremendous progress in the use of
blended learning; adopted Blackboard (overview) (renamed
WiSeUp)
• Since 2010, all courses, including all students are loaded on
WiSeUp
• All students registered for support courses (academic advising
and WRC)
• WiSeUp Helpdesk
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Current Successes (cont…)
Promoting awareness
•
The CLTD webpage was revamped in 2009, ongoing updates
•
Newsletter, Issue 6; Brochures
•
Grassroots events, conferences
 Capacitating academic staff on e-learning
• Trained at Basic and Intermediate level, Grassroots & Conference
presenters
• WiSeUp Helpdesk
 Ensuring student participation in e-learning
• 2378 students trained on WiSeUp (2010), 2359 students (2011)
• e-Learning assistants (all campuses) trained on WiSeUp; 75 in
2010, 77 in 2011
• Active courses; 328 (2010) and 586 (2011)

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Frequently used tools
•
•
•
•
•
Powerpoint, Ms Word, PDF files, Web resources
E-mail, Blogs, Journals, Discussion forums
Assessment tools (built-in, Respondus)
Survey (Evaluation of teaching)
Safe Assign
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Monitoring
• Bbat: http://bbat.cle.intra.wsu.ac.za
– Active courses (updated)
– Access patterns
– Number of clicks per item
• Course tools
– Reports
– Performance dashboards
– Early warning system
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Evaluation
• Staff and students’ perceptions and experiences
• Impact of e-learning per course (trained
lecturer, students)
– pass rates pre and post e-learning implementation
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Methodology
• Case study approach (Nuffic pilot
departments)
• Questionnaires (mixed method)
• 15 of 44 (34%) responded
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Design for Blended Learning
Consider
– Teaching Styles
– Learning Styles
• Auditory
• Visual
• Kinaesthetic
(BenZion, 1999; Gadner, 1983)
– Active learning: Engaging students in the
learning process
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Findings
• Basic – 27%
• Intermediate -73 %
• As a result of training
– Loaded materials - 80%
– Announcement – 13%
– Not responded – 7%
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Findings: Advantages
• Easy, flexible, work on the course at your own
pace and time – 73%
• Provide ease of communication and access to
online material – 60%
• Can be used in the office and at home – 53%
• Will offer cost effective measures for my
department – 33%
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Finding: Challenges
• Reduction of face-to-face contact with students –
13%
• Materials development is time consuming -53%
• Lack of IT, technical skills among staff – 40%
• Insufficient e-learning training and support
provided -0%
• Lack of support from top management – 13%
• The current state of computers in our offices is not
good -20%
• Technical problems and challenges in accessing
online materials – 60%
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Findings
• Promoted collaborative learning - 53 %
• Access rich information from various sources –
47%
• Allowed my students to evaluate one another’s
responses – 40%
• Created a platform for lecturer and students to
communicate about the subject matter - 60%
• Created the possibility for students to work on
their own even when it is impossible to hold
classes -60%
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Findings (cont…)
•
•
•
•
•
To interact with learning materials – 67%
To construct knowledge more effectively – 27%
Students’ retention of knowledge – 33%
To engage in group work – 40%
Improved my students’ pass rate – 13%
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Conclusion and Recommendation
• E-learning adoption rate is increasing
satisfactorily at WSU
• Learning, teaching techniques, e-pedagogy
• Use of Open courseware e.g. MIT
• Make optimal use of the limited resources
• Explore potential use of electronic
resources/integrated systems for learning,
teaching, support services.
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Thank you
[email protected]
Questions
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