Rethinking University Teaching: a framework for the effective use of learning technologies

Rethinking University Teaching, by Diana Laurillard, was a hard slog, especially after reading Biggs and Tang. It's much more technical and jargon-driven, and the author uses words in a manner which just don't match up with dictionary definitions. Having said that, it's an impressive piece of work, looking at computer-supported learning, and how effective the various different forms of digital learning tools are. She sets up a theoretical framework describing how teaching and learning works (the "Conversational Framework"), and then looks at each type of teaching interface to determine how they match the framework.

My personal feeling was that the framework she established was created in a rather arbitrary manner - I come from a mathematics and physics background, where if you're going to set up explanatory theories or frameworks, you bloody well better have solid experimental evidence, otherwise you're just waffling and handwaving. It's taking me quite a while to get used to the world of Education, where the things they are studying are so complex and hard to measure, and the science it's based on (psychology and cognitive science) still so fast-moving and unsettled, that the kinds of hard experimental evidence and proof that I'm used to are a long way off.

However, the value of the framework is not in its explanatory powers regarding teaching and learning, but rather in the way that it highlights the shortcomings of each educational technology, and show what they are useful for. There is a lot of useful information in here about when and where to use video, interaction, discussion tools, and so on; and also in how to mix them.

This is far and away the hardest book I've hard to read, in terms of sheer density and complexity of prose, in quite a few years. And coming from a fan of H. P. Lovecraft, that's quite a strong statement. It reads like an academic paper, rather than a textbook. And since it's from 2002, in technology terms it's almost ancient history, and many of the descriptions are quite dated. On the other hand, pretty much all the technologies she talks about are still with us, and in similar forms. Many of the technical impediments she talks about are largely gone (provide videos on DVD? Pfft!), but the vast majority of the pedagogical issues remain.