Supporting variable pedagogical models in network based learning environments

This paper discusses how a variable pedagogical model can be supported in a network based teaching and learning environment. This work is being developed as part of the EU/IST project, CANDLE (Collaborative and Network-based Distributed Learning Environment), developing re-usable network based learning material. Online material for learning takes several forms such as notes pages, interactive demos and tests. Often the author(s) have in mind specific ways of a student using that material; e.g. following a set of notes, then doing a demonstration or test; or that a problem is set and the student searches selected material relevant to solving the task. The way a student is expected to use the material constitutes an explicit or implicit pedagogical model; and it is often hard to re-use material between differing approaches. We describe how to enable the reuse of material to support a variety of pedagogical models. To enable this, a formalism of these models needs to be devised so that the author of the material, the constructor of a course, and a learner, can specify their approach to learning. The material needs to be prepared at fine enough granularity and tagged with metadata. Finally tools need to be built to help construct and navigate courses. This paper presents our approach to these tasks. The work of Tom Reeves is used to provide XML metadata to describe a wide range of pedagogical approaches. We show how this, combined with the CANDLE model including taxonomies and soft and hard ontologies, can be used to solve the above problems.