Assigment 1: Flexibility, its types with advantages and disadvantages

Our first class last week was on understanding the word flexibility in the context of learning and its implications for the learner, the instructor, other key stakeholders and the learning process. We further discussed about various types of flexibilities which can be offered in a learning process through two case studies; one of nursing education and the other of responding to learner need for choices in a criminology course in an Australian University. This post summarizes the five kinds of flexibilities in learning with their advantages and disadvantages.

What is flexible learning?

Flexible learning is a movement away from

• a situation in which key decisions about learning dimensions are made in advance by the instructor or institution,
• toward a situation where the learner has a range of options from which to choose with respect to key dimensions

Key dimensions as taken from a multinational study are time, content, entry requirements, instructional approach, delivery and logistics. Each of these components are discussed below in detail with their key advantages and disadvantages.

Flexibility related to Time:

In any learning process time offered for learning is a key component. Flexibility in time can mean the pace of finishing a course, the flexibility in terms of submitting assignments, choices for times of interactions within the course, moments of assessment and so on. The continuum of a learning course having fixed time to having flexible time has a lot of choices to offer. Each choice again has implications on the other component- content, entry requirements, instructional approach and delivery and logistics. For example, in the masters course offers some amount of flexibility for students. They can either complete the course in one year or two year –i.e either part time or full time. Similarly there are distance courses which allow the learners to choose when they want to get assessed. The advantage of more flexibility offered is that there will be more learners keen on doing the course along with their other work and personal commitments, learners are not stressed as each has a chance to move a different paces offered. However this has implication on the organization – this means different learners would be completing the course at different times, more time choices means more costs involved for the learner as well as the course provider  and this means that there will be less choices offered for common interactions with peers or teachers.

Flexibility related to content:

Flexibility related to content may be with regards to what topics to teach, the sequencing of the topics, orientation of the course, learning materials and assessment standards and completion requirements. The continuum again is from fixed content to a very flexible content. A flexible content can offer a lot of choices to both teacher and learners. The learners can choose what is relevant and useful for them, they can choose the approach whether theoretical or practical or both and what will be the standards of completion. This implies also that the learner is highly motivated and is able to take the responsibility which comes with these choices. More flexibility in content means more work for the course organizer. It may mean more costs if you offer more courses choices, different approaches and different standards of assessment.

Flexibility regarding the entry requirement:

Another kind of flexibility is the choices given in order to enroll for a course. Criteria like age, country, gender, experience, education qualification etc are used to group people or cohorts for a particular course. If the flexibility in the entry requirement; especially their prior knowledge and motivation is more we would have a diverse group for instruction. This will have implications for the instructional approaches to be adopted by the instructor.

Flexibility related to instructional approach and resources:

This flexibility relates to choices regarding the social organization of the group of learners, language or medium of instruction, choice of resources for learning and instructional organization for learning. The choices can be limited to many on each of these dimensions. From just face-to-face interactions to using a combination of these can be offered to the learner. Choices of medium helps learners from diverse countries participate in the same course. The learners can have limited to many choices with regards to the course materials and resources for learning from text books to web to peers etc. Similarly there can be choices as to how instruction is organized from individual to group assignments etc. Each choice has an implication for the course provider, the instructor as well as the student or the learner. Though the student may get more flexibility, it may mean more work for the instructor and more work and costs for the course provider.

Flexibility related to delivery and logistics:

This has various dimensions like flexibility related to time and place for instructor and learners to meet, ways of getting support for learning, communication and technology required, location  and technology for participating in various aspects of the course, delivery channels for course information, content and communication. The advantages of having more flexibility for learners on these dimensions means that students can pursue courses long distance with very few logistics arrangements to be made from their side and a lot of long distance support can be made available. Of course it offers less support for face to face social interaction with instructors and peers and also has implications in terms of technological costs for the course provider.

Thus each dimension and choices affect three key stakeholders to varying degrees. It may be advantageous to one and not feasible or difficult for another stakeholder .No flexibility option is simple to carry out in practice. If an institution wishes to commit itself to flexible learning, it needs to make explicit choices as to which flexibility dimensions it will focus upon, and what range of options will be feasible to offer within these dimensions (Collis & Mooren; 2001)

Source:

Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2001, second printing 2002). Flexible learning in a digital world: Experiences and expectations. London: Kogan Page.

Fisser, P. (2009). Lecture of September 23, 2009. Pedagogies for flexible learning supported by technology.