Pedagogy empowered by technology

With the increasing ubiquity of web-based tools to facilitate learning and teaching, educators across universities worldwide are now required to prepare and deliver online programs. This requirement may be part of, or in addition to their face-to-face delivery workloads, or as part of migrating programs to be delivered ‘purely online’. In moving towards these new approaches to teaching and learning, there are a number of competing and significant challenges facing staff:

There is no one universal definition of online learning;

Existing workload models represent traditional forms of content delivery;

Prestige of research over teaching still largely exists across the sector (Bradwell, 2009; Keengwe & Kidd, 2010; HEA, 2014; OECD, 2005; O’Connor, 2009; Woodley, Funk & Curran, 2013).

With digital skill-building very much on the Irish national agenda for higher education (National Forum, 2015), institutions are now facing important decisions around how best to support staff and foster cultural change towards new technologically-enhanced learning paradigms.

This position paper draws on research undertaken at local, national and international levels and is focussed around providing an underpinning for the following:

a) Working definitions of what constitutes various forms of online delivery

b) Policy documentation around workload models

c) Recommendations for future directions.

This paper aims to provide a reference point for academics, sessional staff and heads of school regarding current best practice and recommendations for online teaching and learning in higher education.