Self-directed Learning in the era of the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Join Deakin Learning Futures for a free, in-person and online seminar with visiting scholar Robert J. Balfour as he discusses his recent book Self-directed Learning in the era of the COVID-19 Pandemic: research on the affordances of online virtual excursions which was published by Aosis Publishers in 2022.
Abstract:
COVID-19 compelled NWU to consider alternatives to the traditional face-to-face excursions associated with WIL. Based on successful face-to-face excursions conducted since 2016 by the Faculty of Education as part of WIL for first year students, a multi-faculty team considered at the outset the conditions needed for virtual, online excursions to achieve the same outcomes, and to enhance self-directed learning with a view to addressing the professional learning opportunities associated with WIL in teacher education, law and the health sciences.
In the literature, virtual excursions usually refer to learning opportunities where ‘a museum, author, park or monument is brought to the student’ (Hehr, 2014:1). The virtual excursion in the context of the innovations associated with the three faculties at NWU, was conceived as an activity system (Engeström, 1987) where students’ learning was scaffolded across the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), and where their ‘social and pedagogical boundaries are stretched or expanded’ (De Beer & Henning, 2011:204). This seminar describes the research insights (documented in a book published in September 2022) arising from the development and experience of the virtual excursions at NWU during COVID-19.
REGISTER: Self-directed Learning in the era of the COVID-19 Pandemic
10:00 am – 11:30 am AEST, Thursday 15 September 2022
Location: Deakin University Burwood Campus | Building BC
221 Burwood Highway
Burwood, VIC 3125
or online via zoom.