ABSTRACT
TELD stands for “Teaching by Examples and Learning by Doing”. It unifies what have been widely known as Case method (CM), Problem-base learning (PBL), and Project-based learning (PBL) in business, medical, and engineering education respectively. Two key premises of successful TELD are student participation and collaboration during the TELD process. It is usually resource-intensive to accomplish these two premises. The number of tutors required to facilitate seminars and workshops within small groups is obviously greater than that of teachers to give formal lectures to large classes. This requirement restricts the adoption of the TELD method in educational establishments where resources are increasingly stretched already. The TELD courseware engine has been developed with an intention to overcome this limitation to some extent. As a virtual study room, TELD provides facilities for the groups and teams to plan their learning activities, to indicate the roles and responsibilities of team members, and to indicate when and what individual members should do and how they should integrate their findings through teamwork in the form of workshops or meetings. This paper discusses and explains these TELD online facilities for enabling student involvement and collaboration.
Keywords: Case method, Teaching by examples, Learning by doing, Problem-based learning, Project-based learning, Online courseware.
1. INTRODUCTION
TELD stands for “Teaching by Examples and Learning by Doing”. TELD represents a teaching and learning method that unifies what have been widely known as Case method (CM), Problem-base learning (PBL), and Project-based learning (PBL) in business, medical, and engineering education respectively. For example, the case method (CM) has been adopted by a vast number of business programs all over the world since its formal introduction at the Harvard Business School in 1900s (Barnes et al, 1994; Erskine et al, 1998). Likewise, the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method has been widely practised by leading medical schools in the world since it was formally introduced at the McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences in 1920s (http://edweb.sdsu.edu/clrit/learningtree/; http://www.samford.edu/pbl/). Engineers have always been trained through various projects. Project-Based Learning (PBL) has been commonly used for teaching senior undergraduate and graduate courses, even for teaching subjects such as design technology in primary and secondary schools (http://www.autodesk.com/foundation/pbl/). It is until recent years when Case Method, and Problem-/Project- Based Learning (PBL) are no longer the preserves where they were originally introduced. They have been widely promoted across a wide range of disciplines.
Whatever the term is used to describe these methods, the essence is to extensively use real and/or hypothetical problems, examples, and case studies in the course of teaching and learning. TELD (Teaching by Examples and Learning by Doing) captures this essence and therefore unifies these different terms. For this reason, CM, PBL, and TELD are used interchangeably throughout this paper. TELD emphasizes the balance between the knowledge acquisition and skill development. That is, knowledge is most effectively acquired in the context in which it is discovered. “Teaching by Examples” provides such a context of problem-based learning. In addition, skills are most efficiently developed during the process by which a practical problem is solved. “Learning by Doing” creates such a problem-solving process.
Among the many premises of the TELD method, student participation and collaboration in the teaching and learning process are key to the success. Cooperative learning (CL) encourages students to learn from each other in addition to class contact with the tutors. This method has a number of advantages in engineering education (Johnson, 1999; Johnson and Johnson, 1988; Mourtos, 1997). For example, CL results in greater efforts to learn, a greater understanding of technical information, and a greater independent ability to perform job functions. The method promotes higher achievements, development of critical thinking and reasoning, positive attitudes towards learning, interpersonal skills, and self-confidence.
The TELD method emphasizes the balance between collaborative, individual and competitive learning. When a project is assigned to a team, the members must collaborate in order to complete the project to a good standard. The project is broken down into smaller work packages or activities and the activities are in turn allocated to individual team members. Individual contributions resulted from activities are integrated to form the overall solution to the entire project. Towards the end of the project, a peer assessment is carried out to indicate the degrees of individual contributions to the project among the team members. This element of competitive learning is essential to distinguish the academic achievements of individual members.
It is widely accepted that student involvement and collaboration are more effective and efficient within small groups than in large classes. Naturally, small groups demand more involvement and supervision from the tutors. This requirement of intensive resources cannot usually be met in many educational establishments where resources are limited and stretched already. The lack of resources is one of the main factors that restrict the adoption of the TELD methodology, despite all the advantages.
One of the possible solutions is to exploit the latest technology. The web technology is economical and effective. The web is playing increasingly important roles in the delivery of curriculum materials and operation of course activities. The authors have developed an online courseware engine, namely TELD, over the world wide web to support the TELD methodology (Huang et al, 2000a). The TELD engine combines the four functions of the courseware search engine, the courseware web server/host, the virtual classroom, and the virtual study room. This paper focuses on explaining how students and tutors participate and collaborate in teaching and learning activities with TELD virtual classroom and study room.
Section 2 will present a brief overview of the TELD as both a contemporary teaching and learning method and an online search engine and host of cases on the world wide web (web). Section 3 discusses various TELD online facilities for the delivery of curriculum materials, and operation and conduct of the lectures, guided workshops, and self-centred learning activities. Some of the observations are made based on our initial experience to conclude the paper.
Figure 1 TELD overview.
2. OVERVIEW OF THE TELD.NET COURSEWARE ENGINE
TELD not only unifies the Case Method and Problem/Project-Based Learning method but also represents a web-based online courseware engine as a computer system on the Internet. After our initial efforts, the prototype TELD system has been developed. Figure 1 shows a general scenario where TELD is used to support faculty and student users. The TELD courseware engine combines the following four key functions into one framework:
· Firstly, TELD represents a teaching and learning method that unifies a number of contemporary methods such as Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in medical education, Project-Based Learning (PBL) in engineering education, and Case Method (CM) in business education.
· Secondly, TELD serves as a web server for hosting teaching and learning materials especially based on the TELD method. A variety of online facilities are provided for editing and uploading course materials such as syllabus, schedule, curriculum, examples of case study, exercises of mini-project, assessments.
· Thirdly, TELD is a courseware search engine where educators are able to register their course materials and search for materials suitable for a particular course. In contrast with general-purpose search engines, TELD is set up for the special purpose of education. Therefore, the time and efforts spent on surfing are expected to be reduced dramatically.
· Finally, TELD is an online virtual study room and classroom for electronic delivery of electronic curriculum materials.