This project aims to increase student ownership by developing an IT-enhanced future-proof personalized learning system. Key to the innovation is facilitating student ownership of curricular choices by letting students develop personal goals. These goals will lead the students in their curriculum choices by linking these personal goals to the curriculum learning goals, taking into account the program end terms and other program requirements. Students will reflect periodically on their goals by using digital storytelling as a reflective tool.

Download the entire Comenius programme application Student ownership at UCU

Background

In recent years personalized education has become a topic of educational research and much more is known about the possibilities and consequences of personalized learning and individual learning paths. Student motivation is one of the key elements in academic success (Bandura, 1993; Biggs & Tang, 2011; Williams & Williams, 2011). In Liberal Arts and Sciences education, students’ intrinsic motivation is even more essential, since creating your own program is part of the experience. Autonomy is key, therefore, the best way to keep students intrinsically motivated is by creating student ownership over their academic program and progress (Stefanou et al., 2004; Williams & Williams, 2011). UCU’s structures have always attended to this, but we now realize that more needs to be done to accommodate student ownership. A student portfolio has been implemented, but we realize a more constructive integration with the curriculum and implementation of student reflection is indicated as we strive for autonomy and student ownership.

Current practice, where tutors are the main source of information for students, has two major disadvantages:

• this academic staff invests a lot of time in creating an overview of the complex teaching system of UCU, which is time-consuming, expensive, not very motivating for the tutors;
• as bearers of the inside information, tutors (un)consciously filter the information they give to students, taking over partial ownership of the student decisions.

Project description & goals

We aim for an IT-enhanced future-proof personalized learning system that includes a revamped tutor system in which each student becomes more conscious of her learning by making her a full owner of her curricular choices and, with that, her future possibilities. Key to the innovation is facilitating student ownership of curricular choices by letting students develop personal goals. The learning system will lead the students in their curriculum choices by linking their personal goals to the curriculum learning goals, taking into account the program end terms and other program requirements. The students will be guided setting their personal goals, by a tutorial and by the tutors. Students will reflect periodically on their goals by using digital storytelling as a reflective tool.

Digital storytelling:

To optimally incorporate personal goals in the curriculum decisions and create student ownership, students need to constantly reflect and seek feedback on the personal goals, but also in a broader sense, in order to adjust the goals, based on the experiences during their journey. Digital storytelling is upcoming in higher education, as a tool to both create a narrative and critically reflect on the process (Daniels, 2013; Ivala et al., 2014; Leon, 2012; Ribeiro et al., 2014). By using digital storytelling, we actively involve the students in their goal-setting, leading to intrinsically motivated students who do not see the self-reflection as perfunctory hoop-jumping, but as a natural tool within their own journeys, and at the same time, helping them to use higher thinking skills through the story it conveys about their learning. With this project we will assess whether and how reflection with digital storytelling indeed leads to ownership of the curriculum.

Expected results

• Curriculum web application which shows all curriculum content and is connected to learning goals and program restrictions.
• E-portfolio system with personal goal setting tool and reflection options.
• The curriculum web application and the E-portfolio system will be connected in an integrated system in NGDLE (‘Next Generation Digital Learning Environment’).
• Two online tutorials:
  1. Personal goalsetting in a Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) curriculum
  2. Reflection through digital storytelling

Related

• The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment project (NGDLE) [Educate-it]
• Inspiration project A complete digital portfolio with Scorion [Educate-it]

References

• Bandura, A. (1993) Perceived self- efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational psychologist, 28, 117-148. (Login required)
• Biggs, J.B., & Tang C. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.
• Daniels K (2013). Exploring the impact of critical reflection through the use of service-learning and digital storytelling. I-manager’s Journal on School Educational Technology, 9, 1-9.
• Ivala, E., Gachago, D., Condy J., & Chigona A. (2014). Digital Storytelling and Reflection in Higher Education: A Case of Pre-service Student Teachers and Their Lecturers at a University of Technology. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 2, 217-227.
• Leon, S.M. (2012). Slowing Down, Talking Back, and Moving Forward; Some reflections on digital storytelling in the humanities curriculum. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 7, 220-223. (Login required)
• Ribeiro, S., Moreira, A., & Pinto da Silva, C. (2014). Digital storytelling: emotions in higher education. 11th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (CELDA 2014), 180-186.
• Stefanou, C. R., Perencevich, K. C., DiCintio, M., & Turner, J. C. (2004). Supporting autonomy in the classroom: Ways teachers encourage student decision making and ownership. Educational psychologist, 39(2), 97-110. (Login required)
• Williams K.C., & Williams, C.C. (2011). Five key ingredients for improving student motivation. Research in Higher Education Journal, 12, 1-23.