Interventions to Promote Active Learning

26th August 2020

Presented by Crystal Fulton and Emma O’Neill, UCD Teaching Fellows.

This research project investigates how the LMS can be leveraged to support student metacognition and promote learning in line with the University’s education strategy. University appointed Teaching Fellows developed interventions to promote active learning in the LMS environment and develop metacognitive skills. These interventions also aimed to change the perception of the LMS as a “download-upload” platform to an engaging educational experience maximising meaningful learning. These interventions were underpinned by the literature-informed Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) framework, designed to promote metacognitive skills in the secondary school curriculum. Metacognitive strategies from the EEF framework were then mapped to the most appropriate LMS features.

– Learning design sequences were also developed to map student-centred activities online ensuring that they were visible and explicit to learners (Oliver & Herrington, 2001) in the LMS. These learning interventions were trialled in three case studies within Veterinary Medicine, Social Sciences, and Sport Psychology. Preliminary findings show a significant increase in student’s metacognitive index scores. Students engaged well with the approach and, while there was an initial period of adjustment to the change in learning, the majority of students appreciated the positive benefits of the approach.

Webinar Resources

The EDTL Approach: Planning for effective remote teaching during Covid-19
Technology Enhanced Learning in UCD Social Sciences & Law: See chapter 17 for Crystal’s case study on Digital Badges
Innovating with Digital Badges in Assessment: Crystal’s full paper
Metacognition and self-regulation, Education Endowment Foundation

A message from Crystal and Emma:
We enjoyed meeting you all today and discussing how to harness the VLE to promote metacognitive skills. Please feel free to get in touch! We would value any feedback, particularly around ideas for workshops. Also, if you want to implement our learning design in your modules and schools, we would love to hear from you. We are very interested in developing this project further.