We have done some initial trials in 2 of our courses, accepting informal engagement by people simply interested in our course, and supporting their learning free of charge along with the formally enrolled and fee paying participants. In both these trials, all the informal participants completed the course and enrolled afterwards for RPL. They were free to leave the course at any time, or free to engage at any level. It just so happened that in these trials, the informal participants were actually the most engaged and most motivated in the course. Much more so than the fee paying participants. It would be fair to say that their motivation and engagement carried the course somewhat, where the lack of engagement or motivation on the part of the formally enrolled would have seen it drag considerably. So the informal and free participants actively contributed to the formally enrolled learning.
This approach is not a new idea in this blog, I talked about free learning/fee education early in 2006. It seems like some people in Otago Polytechnic are ready to extend this trial to courses outside our Educational Development Unit. A proposal is afoot to develop 3 midwifery courses into open access courses along the free learning, fee education model. I hope it is accepted, there’s a lot that could be done with open access learning to topics relating to midwifery and child birth.
Way back in 2005 I think it was, I presented a model for free learning and discounted if not free education to Western Sydney Institute of TAFE. It included giving a student a laptop and broadband connection.. I think this would be a great next step for the Open Access Midwifery š here’s how it goes:
Application: Single mum makes herself known to Outreach coordinator as someone wanting to train at home while looking after her baby. A curriculum is negotiated and it is decided that she could complete competencies in word processing and Internet research, learning online from home. (replace wordprocessing and Internet research with what ever learning outcome you think appropriate).
Issued laptop and network connection: The student is issued a laptop complete with a range of open source software needed to complete her course. She is also given a broadband connection. The laptop and connection cost the Outreach center a total of $1000 per year. (Such a laptop is now available in the NZ market. It is the Asus Eee PC, available at Dicksmith for NZ$599. Good broadband costs $30 per month. Total of package = $929).
Learn online through the wikiCourses: The student has an option to attend face to face sessions to help her with digital literacies and familiarise herself with the devices she will need to use to complete the online course. A range of competency based courses are made available on a wiki, and maintained through International collaboration.
Course fees discounted: Each competency unit has an assignment that requires the student to develop a resource that teaches someone new to the subject how to obtain that same competency. The student keeps notes and loads each assignment to her web journal. When she has finished a targeted number of assignments she submits her web journal for assessment and recognition.
Resources published: The RPL process notes the assignments and any excellent examples are given to the course coordinator for consideration to include in the course wiki. If that student’s work is used in the course wiki credit is given in the form of attribution and a discount to the course fees that are totalled at the end of the course.
Gap Training: Any gaps in competencies are forwarded to the coordinator and the curriculum is renegotiated, encouraging the student to repeat or attend face to face sessions to fill any gaps and achieve the competency.
Collaboration pays the way: When the student has successfully completed all competencies she is ready for qualification. Before obtaining her qualification she must pay her fees, including the cost of the laptop and connection (which she will own).
The final amount owed is determined by: (course costs + laptop and connection) – (assignments used in the course wiki) – (willingness to serve as a mentor to the next student learning online).
For example:
(Course costs @ $1000 + laptop and connection @ $1000 = $2000)
– (4 assignments used $800) – (20hrs mentoring $400)
= $800 owed by student.
Student has bought, teaching services, a qualification and laptop for $800, which could be still further reduced with more resource production and mentoring.
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March 26, 2008 at 10:31 pm
midwikied
Don’t we look glam.
I am thinking about your ideas here and I do love this idea. The open access courses we are considering at the moment are courses for women who are already registered as midwives not the undergraduate group. Although we are moving into a flexible model for undergraduate midwifery education there is no move at the present time to see that being delivered in a free and open way. I would love to see this come in the future but it is a wee way away yet. None the less I do love the laptop idea. I can see that being quite a draw card to courses.
Never know what will happen in the future. Two or three years ago I would never have guessed that our midwifery program would be making the changes which are currently afoot.
I would never have guessed that I would have become so involved in social networking and I am loving it so anything is possible if an old chook like me can get into this new wave of communication.
March 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm
bronwyn hegarty
great photo of the savoy attendees and two of our star pupils. I do have to say though that we also did have some stars who were formally enrolled. It is interesting that in a classroom set up for social networking that students are expected to “put themselves out there”. It may not be everyone’s style, however, it looks like it is not that important if a few can carry the communication. Much like in a normal conversation in a group – some chatter, others are quiet, others speak when they feel they have something important to say.
What I was impressed with, in the course leigh refers to, and which I also facilitated, is that, the use of blogs for communication actually worked pretty well. People who preferred to remain more self-contained could post their own thoughts and critiques but not get involved in the group dynamic (feedback on each others blogs) if they chose not to do this. Those who liked chattering could flit from blog to blog and connect with others.
We cannot all be social butterflies all the time, and there is a place for all personality types it seems in social networking approaches for learning.
March 27, 2008 at 7:53 pm
bronwyn hegarty
one thing missing from your wonderful pics leigh of the Outreach mother is her bottle of anti-depressants. I can only hope that this is due to the fact that she is using creative ways to communicate and connect with other like-minded people online. This takes skilled facilitators and dedicated work on the part of the participants – facilitators included. I am not a fan of purely self-paced and non-interactive courses as i believe that social interaction and connection in a “classroom” environment is very important, so I hope the mother is not offered only a self-paced option. :[
March 27, 2008 at 8:54 pm
leighblackall
Hi Bron, sure! I didn’t mean to suggest excluding social interaction and the supports in CAN offer – and in fact, good teaching and learning services would be nurturing such a thing for her to consider accessing should she want it. Its a balance though isn’t it, the line between what students tend to organise themselves and what teachers organise for them on their behalf. I think in the online, part time, distance and self paced world of learning it would be appropriate for a teacher to intervene and make such social learning opportunities possible.. perhaps through a collaboration with the Student Association…
March 27, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Yvonne
Hi Leigh
“the informal participants were actually the most engaged and most motivated in the course. Much more so than the fee paying participants”. This wasn’t my experience and I think Bronwyn points out rightly that learning ‘style’ is an issue.
“So the informal and free participants actively contributed to the formally enrolled learning”. Yes, absolutely.
Yvonne
March 31, 2008 at 5:46 am
Sarah Stewart
I too am very supportive of this model that Leigh suggests but I am also mindful of motivation. As Carolyn noted, the proposal we are developing is for registered midwives. Up to now, they have a shown a distinct lack of motivation to engage with formal courses, even when they have been offered free of charge. ‘The informal participants’ that Leigh has been talking about were motivated by a number of extrinsic factors, not least getting a qualification because they ‘have to’. Also they had each other for motivation and support. So these things have to be kept in mind.
I am really hoping our proposal gets accepted so we can investigate the viability of open access in midwifery in greater details. cheers Sarah
April 3, 2008 at 10:25 pm
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May 3, 2008 at 6:22 pm
rae
In terms of open access undergraduate midwifery education – one important aspect of midwifery education is the integration of midwifery practice experiences alongside theoretical learning – we would need to consider how we incorporated this into the students experience – when the student is not fee paying….practice experience is expensive and we couldn’t cover the cost of this – I feel at this point like the student would have to repeat any theoretical or other work already completed alongside the practice experiences to get the benefit of the whole – which would not give the usual time savings which are so attractive in this open access plan. Love the social idea of opening access to education – but this fragmented idea is not usually a positive thing for midwifery – so my question is : how do we maintain the necessary graduate profile? ie: get the midwife we want at the end of the process. Integration is really crucial.
Rae
May 3, 2008 at 6:26 pm
rae
oh – another thought….re open access to midwifery education – one of the benefits i do see is opening access to the community of women – to midwifery education so they can be a more meaningful contributer to the education of midwives – than they already are. This idea i find hugely exciting – the women 9users – but i hate that word) get the benefits of growing theri knowledge in the area – and the students and educators get the benefit of having our “users” in the classroom as a consistent presence! Now that is brilliant.
Rae
May 3, 2008 at 8:02 pm
leighblackall
Hi Rae, thanks for the feedback. Would an informal apprentice model work? If I was a friend or relative of a midwife, and she was agreeable to me helping out a little, and with that I had access to free and open distance education, could I not bring that theory back to the practical experiences I am having. Having access to formal education via distance would reduce the burden on the midwife I was helping, and it would build confidence in me to formally enroll at some point. Having a familiarity with the course and its content before formally starting would probably enhance my experiences. Even if it was a repeat, we all know that with an attitude of ‘life long learning’ nothing is really a repeat. To my mind, it is always the assessment that ensures standards, and in midwifery everyone practicing has to certified, so everyone has to pass assessment.
Certainly the open access just for the benefit of the public being able to learn more about midwifery, that can only be a good thing for midwifery surely. Better I access information from Otago Polytechnic than from another individual or organisation that is perhaps not even New Zealand. I know for sure that when my wife and I have children, I will be looking everywhere for information. If I found almost everything I needed from OP Midwifery, not only would I expect that the information was sound, but I would associate OP with midwifery, and start thinking of midwifery as an essential service for my wife, our baby and I. Before coming to NZ and meeting you midwives, I probably never would have considered such a service. Now, through the access that I get through my job, I think about it a lot. I think that in some way would be the same for people obtaining ‘open access’.
What do you think?
May 4, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Sarah Stewart
Hi Rae and Lee, to be honest, I hadn’t even thought of how open access midwifery education could involve women – doh! But I think you are both right – it would allow access to knowledge that is normally kept from women. How amazing it would be to get women’s involvement in knowledge development through open access.
Personally, I do not really see an informal apprenticeship model working in NZ because I think midwives struggle with supporting ‘proper’ students – why would they add to their workload and take on informal apprentices for absolutely no gain at all?
How I do see it working is allowing people to do the theory papers in their own time so that when they enroll formally into an undergraduate program they are really ready to fly with all their study skills already developed. We may even see a smaller failure rate and people less likely to have to repeat years. I know that PhD students take this sort of approach – they develop up their proposal and do their literature review before they officially enroll so that they are able to reduce to their candidature time and ultimately reduce their fees.
November 19, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Guljan Amiry shayan
Midwifery online free coures i want to learn
November 20, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Sarah Stewart
We are developing online materials for our midwifery degree which will hopefully be made availible in the near future. Please feel free to contact me for more details.
December 13, 2008 at 7:04 pm
leighblackall
Rae, regarding the practical experiences you mention.. I think it would be fair to charge for them. So the course is for free and openly accessible… and in the course are a few options for how to gain practical experience… one of them is the Polytech’s practical programs that run for a fee because they have to.. unless the EFTS can cover it?
July 2, 2009 at 8:12 am
phearak
I need accounting class.