Evolution of E-learning Projects: A Creative Experience?

Figures & data

Figure 1 Community of Inquiry Model (Garrison, Anderson and Archer 2000). Taken from Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education 2 87–105, http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model

Table 1 ELP seminars and associated tasks

Seminar	Task
What are e-Learning Projects and what is e-learning (pedagogy)?	Online quiz on course format and pedagogy of (e) learning
Research and review the literature and online resources	Group discussion of selected journal articles; online review of resources
Target group, questionnaire design & ethics	Complete ethics form & design Needs Analysis for selected target group
Project planning & designs for learning	Project timeline/GANTT chart; outline learning design
What technology? Software toolkit, graphics, audio and video	Explore software applications (in relation to learning design)
Storyboard your project	1-2-1 discussion with e-learning team
Home sweet home	Build your Homepage
Literature review	Submission
Testing, testing: quizzes and assessment tools & evaluation	Design assessment & evaluation questions
Analyse your data	Qualitative and quantitative (statistical - SPSS) analysis of quiz scores and questionnaire data
Final report	Submission

Table 2 Creativity techniques; Students work in groups of four; one student presents their project to the group for ∼3 minutes then records ideas for their resource generated by:

Creativity technique	Student examples
Brainstorming	Some ideas for resource for nurses on the GI tract
5 mins brainstorming of ideas.	Anatomy, histology, physiology Obesity-bariatric surgery Promote healthy eating or ‘did you know’ cool facts? Judging poo - Bristol scale for poo Clinical settings Cartoon-images compared to real images Answer a question before you can advance to the next stage of the GI
Brainwriting	Ideas for resource on obesity and type II diabetes
Students write an idea on a proforma divided into a grid of 4 × 4; they swop sheets and add another idea, and so on until the proforma is complete.	Option 1: Adipose tissue- visceral fat- white and brown fat Option 2: hormones from adipose- leptin, adiponectin, inflammatory tnf alpha, IL-6, circulating hormones ghrelin, cck,glp-1; genetics — stimulation & inhibition — drug therapies Option 3: diseases associated - co-morbidities, obesity, T2DM, atherosclerosis; obesity global impact; NHS- promote healthy eating- benefits of exercising- depression and reward- cannaboid receptors
Random words A random word is selected (using an online generator) and the attributes of the word are listed. These are then used to stimulate ideas for the project.	Random word generate: THEATRE. Attributes: visual, uses sound to express ideas, can be interactive, uses characters, uses stories Ideas for resource on cell signalling Use characters (made up or from tv/film that is well known?) and assign them as components of the pathway. Have a different outcome: (for example do the two characters end up together/ in other words the pathway goes to completion, or is it inhibited by another molecule: a ‘bad’ character that gets in the way, holds someone back or ‘degrades;/kills them). Good technique as it got us thinking ‘outside the box’
Visual prompts Students choose a postcard from a selection and use the image to prompt ideas about their resource and/or educational experience. Ideas shared within the group, then the class.	“…a man hanging off a clock reminded me of time restrictions and the importance of being organised and the need to start planning for my resource now.” “A picture of a train over a viaduct made me think of the different sections of my resource and how I could link them together in a linear sequence.” “A photograph of a dog-sledding expedition across the snow made me think that studying can make you feel isolated and ‘out in the cold’ — shows the importance of engaging the target group in your resource.”
Analogies	Resource on adaptation
Students try to generate analogies to represent aspects of the resources.	Could record a video of people demonstrating something such as a bottleneck, with people representing different genes from individuals in the population
	Resource on circadian rhythms
	Use a clock face as an analogy for the biological clock
	Resource on determination of blood groups
	Use images of teletubbies (with different shaped hats) to illustrate antigenic variation

Table 3 SCAMPER creativity tool. SCAMPER is an acronym to help evaluate and modify existing resources. Students work alone and consider each aspect in relation to their resource. Example: Resource on alcohol dehydrogenase

Substitute (what else could we do/use instead?)	Substitute one substrate for another to investigate enzyme specificity; substitute practical with e-resource; use different target group — physiologists?
Combine (how about a blend/combination/assortment?)	Combine audio with video to explain how to calculate the initial rate; combine different enzymes and see how rate is affected
Alter/Add (can I use exisiting resources/materials?)	Alter amount of enzyme or substrate and look at effect or add different substrates and measure the rate of reaction — virtual experiment
Magnify/modify (what could I change — meaning, mode, length, frequency?)	Zoom in on enzyme 3D structure to explore molecular structure at active site
Put to other uses (can this be re- purposed, change the context?)	Use resource for assessment, or revision, or pre-lab prep.
Eliminate - “less is more” (what can I leave out, condense, make lighter?)	Design a quiz of a virtual enzyme assay leaving out essential ingredients — student has to add what is needed
Rearrange or reverse (what if items are interchanged, transposed etc?)	Instead of monitoring absorbance, calculate expected absorbance from a given activity of enzyme; compare human alcohol dehydrogenase and yeast alcohol dehydrogenase — they act in opposite directions

Figure 2 (a) Classification of project marks for ELP students 2010–11; (b) Comparison of ELP classifications with those for other types of project, 2010–11

Table 4 Measurement of creativity using Torrance’s Unusual Uses Task pre- and post-ELP

	Pre-survey n=25		Post-survey n=16		T statistic	P value
	Total uses	Mean ± SD	Total uses	Mean ± SD
Brick	26	3.2 ± 1.8	33	2.9 ± 1.7	0.59	0.67
blanket	33	3.0 ± 1.8	33	3.3 ± 1.8	−0.54	0.66
Newspaper	41	3.4 ± 2.2	43	4.4 ± 2.2	−1.45	0.19
Total uses	100	3.2 ± 1.9	109	3.5 ± 2.0	−0.94	0.26

Table 5 Survey of student perceptions of creativity

	% Responses pre-ELP (n=39)	% Responses post-ELP (n=10)
What do you understand by creativity?
being artistic	64	41
thinking in different ways about things	94	95
able to express yourself in different ways	83	58
being open-minded	70	67
able to generate new ideas	65	51
problem-solving ability	65	42
What makes someone creative?
They have solved a problem in a way that is different to how others have done it	38	32
They have thought in ways that are different to how think	26	24
They have created something no-one else has	18	29
Can creativity be taught?	62	71
Can creativity be learned?	92	100

GarrisonD. R.,AndersonT. and ArcherW. (2000) Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education 2 87-105, available at http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model [accessed 9 August 2011]

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