The Future of Education

The paper reports on the developments of the online learning portal OWL (by the German Institute for Adult Education, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) aiming to improve the pedagogical and psychological skills of the heterogeneous group of adult educators in Germany. The learning portal offers three different ways to access the learning content. One of them aims to support the adult educators in finding answers to relevant and frequent challenges and questions.
While designing the platform – from a technical as well as content-based perspective – the main questions are: How can we attract beginners as well as advanced learners? And what is the perfect combination of content, different types of media, case studies and different types of tasks? It should catch and keep the learners motivation and guide them step by step to solve their challenges. Also, previous studies on the platform show, that the target-group wants supportive, attractive and firm information which are aligned to their actual practice.
We identified the combination of two models to be helpful for the development ofsequencing the OWL-learning-paths: The taxonomy of Bloom, Andersen & Krathwohl and Understanding by design from Wiggins & McTighe.
The opening challenge for each learning paths defines boths: the level where the learners´ development needs to start and the learning target respectively the final level. This could be applying and analyzing as well as validating and creating. With this approach it is possible to target adult educators on different levels.
With the learning target in mind we know what it needs to solve the challenge and can arrange the paths backwards. The content, media, case studies and different types of tasks can be arranged along the taxonomy levels and complete each other.
The lower levels are addressed by displaying relevant content and conducting appropriate tests. The higher the level, the more the relevance of the content is shifted to best-practice-examples and varied tests in which it is about applying knowledge of lower levels and reflecting the learners’ own experience. Also social interaction plays an important role in the learning experience (Salmon), which will be addressed by small specific forums, peer-exchange and -feedback.
Beside developing coherent learning paths the challenge for the OWL platform is to be found in technical issues. Whilst the learning content is designed up on scientific results the platform itself is limited regarding to the needed flexibility, variety of tests and possibilities of social interaction. Accompanying studies are examining in which range the limited technical infrastructure can reach the intended goals.

Keywords: Competence development, taxonomy, task types, learning content, e-learning, adult education;

References:
[1] Schöb, S., Sahlender, M., Brandt, P., Fischer, M., & Wintermann, O. (2015). Information und Vernetzung – Bedarfe und Erwartungen von Lehrkräften an online-gestützte Fortbildungsangebote. Retrieved from http://www.die-bonn.de/doks/2015-erwachsenenbildner-01.pdf
[2] Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
[3] Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998).Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA:ASCD.
[4] Salmon G. (2000) E-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online Kogan Page London.