Jenni Parker | Murdoch University (original) (raw)

Papers by Jenni Parker

This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate... more This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate unit for pre-service teachers. In this unit students learn to use information technologies as part of their future teaching practice. The unit aims to foster graduates who become life-long reflective educators by providing opportunities to explore and reflect on how they might use technology in authentic learning situations. Whilst peer review is an appropriate activity for supporting critical thinking and reflective practice in this kind of unit, it requires a number of decisions to be made in relation to student preparation and support, implementation strategy, and technological infrastructure to make it work in specific contexts. Much research has been conducted in recent years to inform educators in making these decisions. However, there are still gaps in the research, particularly in how to improve the quality and consistency of feedback that students give to each other in their fe...

Issues in Educational Research, 2017

Welcome to IIER's first issue for 2017! With publication date 15 January, IIER 27(1) marks ou... more Welcome to IIER's first issue for 2017! With publication date 15 January, IIER 27(1) marks our earliest ever start to a new year. Previously our earliest starts were for 20(1) on 15 February 2010 and 22(1) on 27 February 2012. The early start to 2017 reflects the expansion in 2016, when IIER received 195 submissions, compared with 124 in 2015. In 2016 IIER published 40 articles, compared with 31 in 2015. For 2017 we do not have a precise target, though depending on review process outcomes and the recent expansion of our editorial team it may turn out to be larger then 40. After some brief impressions about the 11 articles in 27(1), this Editorial introduces our expanded editorial team...

Issues in Educational Research, 2017

Over the past few years there has been a rapid growth in online learning in higher education inst... more Over the past few years there has been a rapid growth in online learning in higher education institutions in most developed countries around the world. However, many developing countries have not yet embraced this educational approach. In this paper, we discuss some of the benefits and challenges for implementing online learning in developing countries, and some of the issues students from developing countries face when studying abroad. We then describe how an online course, based on authentic learning principles (Herrington, Reeves & Oliver, 2010), was designed and implemented using a design - based research approach to provide Cambodian university students with the opportunity to experience online learning for the first time. The data findings and facilitator reflections for the initial implementation of the course are then presented and discussed. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the course design for future implementations.

Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners... more Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. Nevertheless, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. A key challenge for educators is linking learner needs, pedagogy and technology in order to construct more interactive, engaging and student-centred environments that promote 21st century skills and encourage self-directed learning. Existing research suggests that the use of real-life tasks supported by new technologies, together with access to the vast array of open educational resources on the Internet, have the potential to improve the quality of online learning. This article describes how an authentic online professional development course for higher education practitioners was designed and implemented using a learning management system (LMS) and an open companion website. It then discusses how the in...

Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practiti... more Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. However, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This article looks at how online learning is currently being delivered within the higher education sector and identifies the elements of more constructivist approaches that are being employed and how technology is being used to support student learning. It discusses some of the challenges educators face for designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and proposes a framework for investigating more authentic and engaging learning environments.

Australian Journal of Education, 2014

As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative fo... more As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative for universities to address a number of challenges in order to provide quality learning experiences. One of the key challenges is identifying how to construct interactive and engaging student-centred environments that can support communication and collaboration. This article describes how an existing instructional framework was used to redesign an online unit to create a student-centred learning environment supported by technology to encourage learners to interact, communicate and collaborate. It explains the rationale for the unit design and how new technologies were used by students as cognitive tools to solve real-world problems to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the unit learning outcomes. The evaluation findings revealed that the redesigned unit was effective and that students were keen to interact and engage with their peers and lecturer.

This paper discusses how a design-based research approach is being used to explore how to design ... more This paper discusses how a design-based research approach is being used to explore how to design and develop authentic e-learning within the higher education sector. Like action research, design-based research is accomplished at the coal face, however, it involves an ongoing iterative process to monitor the effectiveness of a specifically designed artefact " to provide immediate (and accumulating) feedback on the viability of its 'learning theory' or 'hypothetical learning trajectory' " (Kelly, 2004, p. 105). Design-based research consists of four connected phases: analysis, development of solutions, iterative cycles of testing and refining solutions and reflection and production of design principles (Reeves, 2006). This paper focuses on phase one of the research process. It identifies some of the challenges educators face when designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and provides examples to demonstrate how technology is currently bei...

Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practiti... more Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. However, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This article looks at how online learning is currently being delivered within the higher education sector and identifies the elements of more constructivist approaches that are being employed and how technology is being used to support student learning. It discusses some of the challenges educators face for designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and proposes a framework for investigating more authentic and engaging learning environments.

"Abstract: Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher educati... more "Abstract: Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. Nevertheless, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This research project explores how a design-based research approach could be used to design and develop authentic e-learning within the higher education sector. Like action research, design-based research is accomplished at the ‘coal face’, however, it also involves an ongoing iterative process to monitor the effectiveness of a specifically designed artifact “to provide immediate (and accumulating) feedback on the viability of its ‘learning theory’ or ‘hypothetical learning trajectory’ ”(Kelly, 2006, p. 107). Design-based research consists of four connected phases: analysis; development of solutions; iterative cycles of testing and refining solutions; and reflection and production of design principles (Reeves, 2006). This paper discusses the first three phases of the research process and identifies some of the challenges educators face when designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and how technology is currently being used to support student learning. It proposes one possible solution for improving the quality of online learning in higher education is to create an online professional development course based on an authentic learning framework. The aim of the course is to provide practitioners with an opportunity to: experience online learning from a student’s perspective, learn how to use an authentic learning framework to create their own authentic learning courses, explore how new technologies can support learning and network with their peers. The qualitative methodologies, processes and data analysis strategies employed for the research project are described, together with preliminary findings that suggest authentic e-learning has the potential to engage students, and—in the learning process—assist them to develop self-directed lifelong learning skills."

As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative fo... more As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative for universities to address a number of challenges in order to provide quality learning experiences. One of the key challenges is identifying how to construct interactive and engaging student-centred environments that can support communication and collaboration. This article describes how an existing instructional framework was used to redesign an online unit to create a student-centred learning environment supported by technology to encourage learners to interact, communicate and collaborate. It explains the rationale for the unit design and how new technologies were used by students as cognitive tools to solve realworld problems to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the unit learning outcomes. The evaluation findings revealed that the redesigned unit was effective and that students were keen to interact and engage with their peers and lecturer.

ABSTRACT While increasingly large numbers of students are choosing to enrol in distance modes of ... more ABSTRACT While increasingly large numbers of students are choosing to enrol in distance modes of learning at university, many are poorly supported, left to struggle with mainly text-based resources while their on campus counterparts are well supported with a range of personal and technology-based supports. In this paper, we describe a first year compulsory university unit based on authentic learning pedagogy. The mandatory learning management system (LMS) was enhanced with a range of resources and communication technologies to provide a truly inclusive learning environment for distant students, using social media, open education resources and participatory web-based methods. Authors version available from: http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/13914/

A key challenge for university professionals is to identify how to construct more interactive, en... more A key challenge for university professionals is to identify how to construct more interactive, engaging and student-centred environments that promote 21st century skills and encourage selfdirected learning. Existing research suggests the use of real-life tasks supported by new technologies, together with access to the vast array of open educational resources on the Internet, have the potential to improve the quality of online learning. This paper describes how an authentic online professional development course for higher education practitioners was designed and implemented using a learning management system (LMS) and an open companion website. It also briefly discusses how the initial iteration was evaluated and identifies recommendations for improving future iterations of the course.

This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate... more This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate unit for pre-service teachers. In this unit students learn to use information technologies as part of their future teaching practice. The unit aims to foster graduates who become life-long reflective educators by providing opportunities to explore and reflect on how they might use technology in authentic learning situations. Whilst peer review is an appropriate activity for supporting critical thinking and reflective practice in this kind of unit, it requires a number of decisions to be made in relation to student preparation and support, implementation strategy, and technological infrastructure to make it work in specific contexts. Much research has been conducted in recent years to inform educators in making these decisions. However, there are still gaps in the research, particularly in how to improve the quality and consistency of feedback that students give to each other in their fe...

Issues in Educational Research, 2017

Welcome to IIER's first issue for 2017! With publication date 15 January, IIER 27(1) marks ou... more Welcome to IIER's first issue for 2017! With publication date 15 January, IIER 27(1) marks our earliest ever start to a new year. Previously our earliest starts were for 20(1) on 15 February 2010 and 22(1) on 27 February 2012. The early start to 2017 reflects the expansion in 2016, when IIER received 195 submissions, compared with 124 in 2015. In 2016 IIER published 40 articles, compared with 31 in 2015. For 2017 we do not have a precise target, though depending on review process outcomes and the recent expansion of our editorial team it may turn out to be larger then 40. After some brief impressions about the 11 articles in 27(1), this Editorial introduces our expanded editorial team...

Issues in Educational Research, 2017

Over the past few years there has been a rapid growth in online learning in higher education inst... more Over the past few years there has been a rapid growth in online learning in higher education institutions in most developed countries around the world. However, many developing countries have not yet embraced this educational approach. In this paper, we discuss some of the benefits and challenges for implementing online learning in developing countries, and some of the issues students from developing countries face when studying abroad. We then describe how an online course, based on authentic learning principles (Herrington, Reeves & Oliver, 2010), was designed and implemented using a design - based research approach to provide Cambodian university students with the opportunity to experience online learning for the first time. The data findings and facilitator reflections for the initial implementation of the course are then presented and discussed. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the course design for future implementations.

Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners... more Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. Nevertheless, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. A key challenge for educators is linking learner needs, pedagogy and technology in order to construct more interactive, engaging and student-centred environments that promote 21st century skills and encourage self-directed learning. Existing research suggests that the use of real-life tasks supported by new technologies, together with access to the vast array of open educational resources on the Internet, have the potential to improve the quality of online learning. This article describes how an authentic online professional development course for higher education practitioners was designed and implemented using a learning management system (LMS) and an open companion website. It then discusses how the in...

Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practiti... more Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. However, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This article looks at how online learning is currently being delivered within the higher education sector and identifies the elements of more constructivist approaches that are being employed and how technology is being used to support student learning. It discusses some of the challenges educators face for designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and proposes a framework for investigating more authentic and engaging learning environments.

Australian Journal of Education, 2014

As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative fo... more As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative for universities to address a number of challenges in order to provide quality learning experiences. One of the key challenges is identifying how to construct interactive and engaging student-centred environments that can support communication and collaboration. This article describes how an existing instructional framework was used to redesign an online unit to create a student-centred learning environment supported by technology to encourage learners to interact, communicate and collaborate. It explains the rationale for the unit design and how new technologies were used by students as cognitive tools to solve real-world problems to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the unit learning outcomes. The evaluation findings revealed that the redesigned unit was effective and that students were keen to interact and engage with their peers and lecturer.

This paper discusses how a design-based research approach is being used to explore how to design ... more This paper discusses how a design-based research approach is being used to explore how to design and develop authentic e-learning within the higher education sector. Like action research, design-based research is accomplished at the coal face, however, it involves an ongoing iterative process to monitor the effectiveness of a specifically designed artefact " to provide immediate (and accumulating) feedback on the viability of its 'learning theory' or 'hypothetical learning trajectory' " (Kelly, 2004, p. 105). Design-based research consists of four connected phases: analysis, development of solutions, iterative cycles of testing and refining solutions and reflection and production of design principles (Reeves, 2006). This paper focuses on phase one of the research process. It identifies some of the challenges educators face when designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and provides examples to demonstrate how technology is currently bei...

Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practiti... more Over the past few decades there has been a massive swing among educational theorists and practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. However, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This article looks at how online learning is currently being delivered within the higher education sector and identifies the elements of more constructivist approaches that are being employed and how technology is being used to support student learning. It discusses some of the challenges educators face for designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and proposes a framework for investigating more authentic and engaging learning environments.

"Abstract: Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher educati... more "Abstract: Over the past few decades there has been a substantial swing among higher education practitioners towards a more constructivist approach to learning. Nevertheless, it is still evident that many instructivist models are widely used in both classroom and online learning environments. This research project explores how a design-based research approach could be used to design and develop authentic e-learning within the higher education sector. Like action research, design-based research is accomplished at the ‘coal face’, however, it also involves an ongoing iterative process to monitor the effectiveness of a specifically designed artifact “to provide immediate (and accumulating) feedback on the viability of its ‘learning theory’ or ‘hypothetical learning trajectory’ ”(Kelly, 2006, p. 107). Design-based research consists of four connected phases: analysis; development of solutions; iterative cycles of testing and refining solutions; and reflection and production of design principles (Reeves, 2006). This paper discusses the first three phases of the research process and identifies some of the challenges educators face when designing and delivering student-centred learning environments and how technology is currently being used to support student learning. It proposes one possible solution for improving the quality of online learning in higher education is to create an online professional development course based on an authentic learning framework. The aim of the course is to provide practitioners with an opportunity to: experience online learning from a student’s perspective, learn how to use an authentic learning framework to create their own authentic learning courses, explore how new technologies can support learning and network with their peers. The qualitative methodologies, processes and data analysis strategies employed for the research project are described, together with preliminary findings that suggest authentic e-learning has the potential to engage students, and—in the learning process—assist them to develop self-directed lifelong learning skills."

As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative fo... more As student enrolments increase in online learning courses in higher education it is imperative for universities to address a number of challenges in order to provide quality learning experiences. One of the key challenges is identifying how to construct interactive and engaging student-centred environments that can support communication and collaboration. This article describes how an existing instructional framework was used to redesign an online unit to create a student-centred learning environment supported by technology to encourage learners to interact, communicate and collaborate. It explains the rationale for the unit design and how new technologies were used by students as cognitive tools to solve realworld problems to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the unit learning outcomes. The evaluation findings revealed that the redesigned unit was effective and that students were keen to interact and engage with their peers and lecturer.

ABSTRACT While increasingly large numbers of students are choosing to enrol in distance modes of ... more ABSTRACT While increasingly large numbers of students are choosing to enrol in distance modes of learning at university, many are poorly supported, left to struggle with mainly text-based resources while their on campus counterparts are well supported with a range of personal and technology-based supports. In this paper, we describe a first year compulsory university unit based on authentic learning pedagogy. The mandatory learning management system (LMS) was enhanced with a range of resources and communication technologies to provide a truly inclusive learning environment for distant students, using social media, open education resources and participatory web-based methods. Authors version available from: http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/13914/

A key challenge for university professionals is to identify how to construct more interactive, en... more A key challenge for university professionals is to identify how to construct more interactive, engaging and student-centred environments that promote 21st century skills and encourage selfdirected learning. Existing research suggests the use of real-life tasks supported by new technologies, together with access to the vast array of open educational resources on the Internet, have the potential to improve the quality of online learning. This paper describes how an authentic online professional development course for higher education practitioners was designed and implemented using a learning management system (LMS) and an open companion website. It also briefly discusses how the initial iteration was evaluated and identifies recommendations for improving future iterations of the course.