teaching_and_learning_with_technology

34 CONTENT REPRESENTATION
Around one-third of the projects, according to their published descriptions, are
committed to producing learning and teaching materials. This compares with the
figure of 25 per cent of responses reported in Table 2.1. This difference of just
one or two projects can probably be accounted for in terms of the relative
salience of producing learning and teaching materials, compared with other
project goals, and the effect of the time constraints in the ‘History of the future’
exercise in causing respondents to restrict themselves to what they perceived as
the most important outcomes of their work.
The internal logic of projects
The data discussed thus far tell us something about the ‘outcomes of interest’ of
the projects and about their methods, including something about their
assumptions concerning how their activities may connect with improvements in
teaching and learning. A useful tool for exploring this further is the ‘project logic
map’ (McClauglin and Jordan, 1998; Nash et al, 2000). Figure 2.1 gives an
example of an internal logic map for projects in this area.
The logic map is read as follows. At the right-hand side we see the main
‘outcome(s) of interest’. These are the main kinds of things that are meant to
emerge in the ‘History of the future’ exercise. They capture what the project is
meant to achieve—what difference it will make in the world. On the left-hand
side are the project team’s initial resources—what they have to hand in
embarking on the project. In between are the entities that the team needs to
create or otherwise set in place in executing its work. The arrows linking the
main entities encapsulate the team’s sense (its implicit theory) of causation. For
example, placing a link between ‘well-designed learning tasks’ and ‘constructive
alignment of tasks and assessment’ implies that it is not enough to design good
tasks: they must also be aligned with course assessment requirements. Team
members’ beliefs about the nature of this link can be probed through discussion,
for example to reveal beliefs that what students in UK higher education choose to
do is in part a satisficing response to the course assessment demands placed upon
them (Biggs, 1999).
The logic map has been divided into two parts. The lower part (below the thick
horizontal line) is absent from many of the projects in the set with which we are
concerned—whether one creates a logic map from their published documentation
or begins to sketch one from the data in the ‘History of the future’ exercise. The
upper part is present in most projects. The goal of improved student achievement is
at least implicit in most projects, though causal links with project inputs and
goals are absent or not apparent.
Part of our task in providing the formative pedagogical evaluation of the
DNER is to help project teams articulate and then enrich their project logic
maps. Part of the intention is to help them move towards methods of making
content available that stand a good chance of allowing integration with students’
learning activity. Though the maps provide a useful resource for internal