Last week, in the the first lecture of the course 'Pedagogies for flexible learning supported by technology' our lecturer started the lecture with several questions about flexibility and flexibility learning. "What kind of flexibility options are there in our course, mastertrack, university and educational world?" Thinking about the answers I discoverd that I found it difficult to get a good comprehensive answer to it. I could name some kinds of flexibilities, like time or distance, but started thinking about what else would be possible. Luckely, my lecterer came up with various forms of flexibility, like content, requirements, instructional approach, logistics, according to Collis and Moonen (2001). Collis and Moonen (2001) describe flexible learning as a movement from a situation where the key choices are made by the instructor or institution, towards a situation where the learners has a lot of freedom to choose several opportunies. Flexibility learning intends to meet the needs of the learners, not only by the variety of courses, locations and times, but also by variety in coure resources, variety in types of learning activities, variety in media to support learning and much more.
I'm going to describe five kinds of flexibility more extensively, with advantages and disadvantages for each kind of flexibility.
Flexibility related to time
The first kind of flexibility I would like to describe is flexibility related to time. When instructors or institutes offer a lot of flexibility in time, the learner can for instance choose when starting and finishing a course, choose when he or she wants to submit assigments and will interact in the course, choose the tempo or pase of studying and the moments of assesments. This could be very beneficial for students when they have a busy life beside their study. A lot of students work and have a very busy social life. If they get a lot of freedom in time it easier to plan their life in such a way it best suits them. On the other hand, a lot of students facing problems planning their study and motivate themselve to study. If students may choose when to submit an assigment or in what tempo or pace it can cause delay for students, because in their busy life they maybe rather choose something they like more than studying.
Flexibility related to content
The second kind of flexibility I would like to describe is flexibility related to content. In a flexible content situation students can choose the topics of the course, the sequences of different parts of the course, a theoretical or practical orientation of the course, the key learning materials and the assessment standards and completion requirements. I think this gives student a lot of freedom to choose subject matter which corresponding their interests which keeps students more motivated. I'm not sure if to much freedom in the content is a good thing. On the other hand it offers students maybe to much freedom, because not every student knows what he or she wants to learn. It is also possible that students only choose courses or topics they are already familiar with or subject were student alreadymuch knowledge about. In that situation students would learn more if the institution or instructor decide what students have to learn.
Flexibility related to entry requirements
The third kind of flexibility I'm going to describe is flexibility related to entry requirements. If students have a lot of flexibility in this, they can choose of decide the conditions for participation. This is good for students who want to involve in some kind of studies and don't have the required knowledge or skills yet to join a course, because they will still have time to acquire these skills and knowledge during the course and don't be delayed. On the other hand it could effect the level of the course or subject.
Flexibility related to approach and research
The fourth kind of flexibility I will describe is flexibility related to approach and research. In a situation where there is a lot of flexibity in approach and research students can choose for face-to-face organisation of learning, our in groups or individual, they can choose the language to be used during the course, the learning resources and the instructional organisation of learing like assignments and monitoring. It this way students can choose a way of learning they prefer. Some students are better in individual learner, some students prefer oneother language etc. A disadvantage of this flexibility could be that it takes a lot of time and costst to organize this kinds of options for students.
Flexibility related to delivery and logistics
The fifth and last flexibility I'm going to describe here is the flexibility to delivery and logistics. This includes time and place where contact with instructor and other students occurs, methods, technology for obtaining support and making contact, types of help, communication available, technology required, location, technology for participating in various aspects of the course and delivery channels for course information, content and communication. I think this flexibility can be very handy for students. For example if students can follow a course with distance-learning by technology it is also possible to join lectures on the other side of the world. This can save a lot of time and money. On the other hand this delivery and logistic situations costs a lot of work, time and costs to organiye as well and can give the student also to many choises so his studyprogram can become unclear.
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