Innovation Profile 088

e-learning improves examination results

It has been generally accepted for a long time that a student can learn effectively from a good book. The problem is that it has usually only been academically able students who have done this. Occasionally teachers are surprised when a student they consider to be not very able finds a book that engages them deeply, in learning something of personal interest.

It is now beginning to be accepted that students can learn effectively from e-learning systems, provided of course that the content is good. But it seems that e-learning systems can engage students of all abilities.

Improvement in results through use of e-learning has been independently researched by the Fischer Family Trust, with students in over 400 secondary schools in UK, who were using the Sam Learning e-learning system. You can find details of the amount of improvement in their examination results at http://www.samlearning.com.

Even students who made only between 2 and 10 hours use of the e-learning system improved their results, but those who used the system for 10+ hours made considerably more improvement.

Something significant is happening here and the obvious question is why such a few hours of e-learning should make such a significant difference. Compared to the total learning time that teenagers have experienced a few hours should make little difference. But the difference in approach to learning may make a big difference to students' willingness to concentrate and their personal responsibility to achieve success.

The message for teachers is that a pedagogical change is happening here. Whereas previously most school work by students was supervised and controlled by teachers, now pupils are able to take more control of their work through use of e-learning systems.

We may see this balance move much further. Learning in the final analysis is an individual process that can only happen autonomously. Just as a teacher guiding an able student using a good book may need to provide only a little input, relative to the amount of learning happening, it may be that with good e-learning the majority of students will learn well and need little control and supervision by teachers.

Teachers can then decide how to use their time to help students achieve even more.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

_________________________________________________________________________________________