Technology-enhanced learning

Source: https://teachwell.auckland.ac.nz/learning-technologies/technology-enhanced-learning/ Parent: https://teachwell.auckland.ac.nz/

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Technology-enhanced learning

A variety of modes of learning and teaching delivery play a key role in providing more accessible, equitable and lifelong higher education opportunities for our students.

On this page

• Modes of teaching delivery
• What do we mean by blended learning?
• Why do collaborative learning?
• Effective communication provides a foundation for learning
• Creating digital artefacts
• Related

Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) supports a wide variety of learning and delivery options, including blended, online, flexible, flipped, hyflex, dual, multimodal, and in-person (face-to-face, on-campus). TEL can foster rich on-campus experiences, open new settings for learning, help educate students for the present and empower them for life-long learning. By leveraging TEL, every physical or digital space; whether on campus, in the community, or industry-based can be transformed into an environment that promotes active student engagement and optimises the overall learning experience.

The University is committed to support a clear and consistent understanding of the various modes of teaching delivery. To achieve this, we present definitions that differentiate among the broad modalities, without narrowing down to specific types of teaching activities.

Modes of teaching delivery

In-person

In-person teaching requires that course content and learning material be taught in person to students. On-campus (or other physical location) learning events are scheduled regularly throughout the semester/quarter. Attendance at on-campus events is expected and may be compulsory. Lecture recording may or may not be available. Some resources, assessments and learning support may be available online, but these would primarily be static resources.

Blended learning

As a recognised subset of TEL, blended learning offers flexibility tailored to diverse needs.

• For learners, this could mean choice in time, pace, place, content, learning style, assessment, collaboration, and support mechanisms.
• For teachers, this flexibility can mitigate workload issues, facilitate access to external experts/contexts as part of learning and teaching, and address resource demands.
• For the institution, possibilities are offered to deal with travel to a main campus in a congested city to widen access to the student market and improve resilience to disruptions to teaching and learning.

While there exist varied interpretations of blended learning, the University will adopt the definition coined by Garrison & Kanuka (2004, p. 96)

“The thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences.” 1

The term ‘thoughtful’ is elaborated by the authors as reflecting the purposeful combination of the respective strengths of synchronous, asynchronous, face-to-face and online learning activities.

Fully online

Fully online courses are completed remotely, with no compulsory attendance of on-campus learning events. Online learning elements may include scheduled live (synchronous) learning events. Attendance at synchronous online learning events is expected and may be compulsory. This type of teaching may be synchronous, where students watch instructors deliver their lectures live over streaming services such as Zoom, or asynchronous, where students watch lecture recordings or engage with online spaces like discussion boards at different times with their peers.

What do we mean by blended learning?

Blended pedagogy is associated with models of delivery that require students to engage with timetabled onsite learning activities across the academic year and digital learning activities between these times.

Blended learning aligns well with Taumata Teitei (vision and strategic plan), where the definition of ‘blend’ is primarily campus-based, interwoven with technology’s increased flexibility and richness. This approach plays to our strength; the place-based experience and use of digital technologies offer to support greater student engagement. It affords maximum flexibility in learning design, and the delivery of learning and teaching, with the blend of online learning and face-to-face learning enhancing each other. The resulting ‘blend’ will vary from programme to programme and course to course. However, it will predicate on research-informed designs and practices used to promote the optimum use of technology as an enhancement in context.

Small steps

There are some factors that teachers might consider when adopting a blended learning approach.

Build a rapport

Engage students in class, e.g., a welcome video message in Canvas, weekly to-do lists, provide lecture notes before class and lecture recordings after class.

Build digital skills for life

Integrate technology in learning that is relevant to work life and enable students to review and update their digital literacy.

Encourage collaborative learning

Through the use of in-class activities and assessments.2

Set the pace

Use Canvas Learning Management System in a timely and consistent way.

Co-design activities and assessments with students

Provide an evaluation mechanism for students to reflect on their learning, making connections to real digital lives and work.

Know your students and their level of digital skills

Provide instructions and opportunities for familiarity and practise with a technology before it really matters, i.e., for an assessment task.

In depth

It is useful for teachers to understand how technology enables them to enact pedagogical content knowledge, 3 which is knowledge about how best to teach particular content, that is different to knowledge about the content; therefore, combining ‘pedagogy’ (theories and practices of learning and teaching) and ‘content’ (curriculum, learning objectives and outcomes). Realise too that learning and teaching can change when particular technologies are used in particular ways, so it helps to understand the pedagogical affordances and constraints of a range of tools, as they relate to disciplinarily and developmentally-appropriate pedagogical designs and strategies.4

At the University of Auckland, technologies are being adopted in various ways to meet the demands of large classes5 and to address the needs of digital-savvy students.6

In evaluating the right technologies, Bates provides a framework for making effective decisions about the choice and use of media for teaching and learning.7

Roles that teachers play relate to teaching presence in class. Teachers take an active role in advocating, facilitating, sense-making, organising and maintaining a student’s learning environment.8

One example of blended learning is the flipped classroom model. Moffett provides practical tips for applying flipped classroom method which leads to an increase in teacher-student interaction.9

Additional resource

Strategies for engaging learners in a blended environment (PDF 4.7Mb)

Why ‘do’ collaborative learning?

Collaborative learning can take place peer-to-peer or in groups of students. Research shows that educational experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to deeper learning.10 It includes discussion, practise, and production. Building on investigation and knowledge acquisition, learners take part in the process of knowledge building.

The benefits of collaborative learning include:

• Development of higher-level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills.
• Promotion of student-faculty interaction.
• Increase in student retention, self-esteem and responsibility.
• Exposure to and an increase in understanding of diverse perspectives.
• Preparation for real life social and employment situations.

Small steps

There are some ideas to incorporate collaborative work among students.

Team-based learning and group work prepare students for real-work dynamics, ways of working and problem solving.

Collaborative learning, which includes sense-making among peers.

Peer-to-peer tutoring (students explain what they’ve learnt to each other).

Think-pair-share / write-pair-share.

Group brainstorming and problem solving.

Six hats technique for problem-solving activity in the classroom. Assigning each thinking style a colour serves as a visual cue to help students recognise the thinking skill they are using.

Fishbowl is a strategy for managing medium to large group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle (or fishbowl), students have a discussion; students in the outer circle listen to and take notes.

Buzz groups are small groups of 3-4 students, formed to discuss a topic for a short period. These groups may be assigned the same or different topic to discuss. For example:

• how much they already know about a topic
• what they are not sure about
• what they want the lecturer to cover next

Jigsaw method is a collaborative group activity in which students are interdependent to achieve a common goal. One group becomes the “expert” on specific knowledge and then shares that with another group of students. This activity offers a way to help students understand and retain information while they develop collaboration skills.

Effective communication provides a foundation for learning

When students have opportunities to share, compare and discuss with others, they can actively engage with content. Students articulate their ideas and questions, challenge and respond to the ideas and questions from their teacher and peers. They also develop skills that help them to organise, present and convey their ideas to others—work-ready graduates.

Creating a dialogue between your students can be a challenging yet fundamental part of teaching. Modelling the behaviour to allow for effective communication can help to build and foster a safe learning environment where students can thrive, grow and learn.

Communication checklist

Some techniques to help develop a sense of learning community.

• Provide a personalised welcome to the course.
• Communicate contact details and office hours.
• Create to-do lists and consistent announcements to prepare students on how their course will run, where they can find the learning resources and how they will be assessed.
• Enable ongoing discussions; scaffold students in discussions to build engagement.
• Keep questions in public discussions, so all students benefit from open resources.

• Facilitate peer dialogue around learning. Students don’t always understand the feedback given by teachers. When feedback is a transmission process involving ‘telling,’ they may ignore the active role the student must play in making meaning from feedback. Think of feedback as a conversation rather than information transmission. Students who have just learned something can often explain this to their peers in a way that is accessible. Consider allowing space for discussions between students.

• Encourage the use of collaborative documents (e.g., Google Docs or MS Office) for shared notes and comments.

• Consider the use of MS Teams for group messaging, or another University-approved platform that works within your discipline, e.g., Canvas Discussion or Ed Discussion.
• If discussion is assessed, provide rubrics, so students have clarity alternatively, provide exemplars of good discussion practice that help students engage. This can be in the form of question prompts or guidance on how to engage constructively with peers.
• Create a safe and inclusive discussion forum, model good communication practices within the class setting, and clearly state expectations and outcomes.

A bit about online discussions

Online asynchronous discussion gives teaching staff and students a space to actively engage with the course and each other.

At their best discussions can:

• Increase student-student interaction
• Establish a learning relationship between the teacher and student
• Support and grow confidence, competence, and autonomy
• Increase critical engagement with the contents of the course
• Open new channels for fast informal feedback
• Build a genuine learning community that is not bound by the confines of the physical classroom

For teachers, online discussions can:

• Reduce time spent addressing common questions and misunderstandings
• Provide feedback on how students are engaging with the course
• Identify knowledge gaps or areas for improvement in how the course is taught

However, to realise these benefits, online discussions must be purposefully designed, framed, and facilitated. An unplanned or unattended discussion forum is unlikely to be effective.

When you start your class discussion, consider drawing students’ attention to the page on Learning Essentials called communicating respectfully and constructively.

Creating digital artefacts

When students actively engage in creating artefacts that demonstrate their understanding, they develop a range of skills that are part of the work-ready graduate profile. Students explore opportunities to model professional or vocational practices through digital tools. This allows them to replicate scholarly, professional or workplace practices based on authentic scenarios. These relevant learning experiences engage students with real-life issues that prepare them for lifelong learning and global citizenship.

The Graduate Profile outlines capabilities that the University seeks to foster in all graduates, through the teaching and learning experiences of their programmes.

Critical thinking

Graduates are expected to be able to contest knowledge and practice, critically consider ideas, texts and research and think reflectively and reflexively.

Solution seeking

Graduates are expected to be able to apply theory, analysis, research and creative skills to solve problems and make reasoned decisions. They are expected to be able to consider historical, long-term and big picture perspectives, to systematically address complex problems and to be inventive in their solution seeking.

Communication and engagement

Graduates are expected to be able to receive and interpret information, express ideas and share knowledge with diverse audiences in a range of media and formats.

When students create learning artefacts, their process involves active and often social learning, which leads to student engagement with the learning process.

Small steps

Some steps that could enable students to make sense of a topic and make connections between the knowledge they’ve gained from teachers and peers could include:

• Active learning through doing.
• Authentic work-integrated learning.
• Creating artefacts that effectively communicate ideas, information or concepts, e.g., infographics or mind maps (Lucid), portfolios (Canvas portfolios), digital presentations or video.

Digital stories

Students (as individuals, pairs, or in groups) are provided with a scenario or case study which they must analyse. They prepare a 5-minute digital story that explains what the relevant issues are, including the stakeholders, the options, the impacts and consequences etc., (as relevant to your discipline and context).

Infographic

When students are learning about processes or procedures; dealing with statistics, numbers, and dates; learning about complex ideas with interactions on different levels; or something similar, you can ask students to produce an infographic to explain, describe, and visualise this information. Lucid is a useful tool for this application.

One-minute paper

A formative assessment strategy where students are asked to take one minute (or more) to answer two questions: what was the most important thing they learned in class today, and what remains unclear to them? The one-minute paper provides a level of input and control to the students, encouraging motivation and active engagement.11

On this page

• Modes of teaching delivery
• What do we mean by blended learning?
• Why do collaborative learning?
• Effective communication provides a foundation for learning
• Creating digital artefacts

Related

• Artificial Intelligence 101

Page updated 11/03/2026 (merged subsections into one page)

1. Garrison, D. Randy, and Heather Kanuka​. “Blended learning: Uncovering its Transformative Potential in Higher Education.” Internet and Higher Education 7, no. 2 (2004): 95-105. ↩
2. Barkley, Elizabeth F., K. Patricia Cross, and Claire H. Major. Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. John Wiley & Sons, 2014. ↩
3. Shulman, Lee S. “Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching.” Educational Researcher 15, no. 2 (1986): 4-14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X015002004. ↩
4. Koehler, Matthew, and Punya Mishra. “What is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)?” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 9, no. 1 (2009): 60-70. ↩
5. Eberhard, Andrew, Khushbu Tilvawala, Gabrielle Peko, and David Sundaram. “Engaging a Class of 2200 Digital Natives: A Blended Approach.” In 2014 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 1-7. IEEE, 2014. DOI: 10.1109/RCIS.2014.6861061 ↩
6. Datt, Ashwini, and Trudi Aspden. “Motivating learning and skills development in netizens.” In Motivation, Leadership and Curriculum Design, 63-74. Springer, Singapore, 2015. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-230-2_6. ↩
7. Bates, Anthony W. Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Designing Teaching and Learning. Vancouver: BCcampus, 2015. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage. ↩
8. Richardson, Jennifer C., Adrie A. Koehler, Erin D. Besser, Secil Caskurlu, JiEun Lim, and Chad M. Mueller. “Conceptualizing and Investigating Instructor Presence in Online Learning Environments.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 16, no. 3 (2015). ↩
9. Moffett, Jennifer. “Twelve Tips for “Flipping” the Classroom.” Medical Teacher 37, no. 4 (2015): 331-336. ↩
10. Centre for Teaching Innovation, Cornell University. “Collaborative Learning.” Accessed November 15, 2022. https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/active-collaborative-learning/collaborative-learning. ↩
11. Chizmar, John F., and Anthony L. Ostrosky. “The one-minute paper: Some empirical findings.” The Journal of Economic Education 29, no. 1 (1998): 3-10. DOI: 10.1080/00220489809596436. ↩