Chapter And Authors Information
Content
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: UTILIZING OER WITH BLENDED APPROACHES FOR ENABLING HIGHER EDUCATION IN REFUGEE CONTEXTS
OER IN THE INFORMATION AGE
MOOCS – AN OER PHENOMENON IN BLENDED LEARNING MODELS
TIME, FIDELITY, SPACE AND HUMANNESS OF BLENDED LEARNING MODELS
BLENDED LEARNING IN REFUGEE CONTEXTS
INZONE’S COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ECOSYSTEM FOR ENABLING HIGHER EDUCATION IN REFUGEE CONTEXTS
InZone’s collaborative learning ecosystem model for enabling higher education in refugee contexts has been developed specifically to address various obstacles faced by learners in low resource and challenging contexts and to provide scaffolding support which enables blended learning in these contexts. The learning ecosystem uses, Collaborative Learning theory as a framework from which a learning ecosystem can utilise various support mechanisms to enable learning. The theory, at its most basic level, can be said to describe and govern a situation where two or more people learn together, or attempt to learn together (Dillenbourg, 1999). It is borne out of the Vygotskian perspective which sees learning as essentially a sociocultural process that understands cognitive development as requiring interaction between two or more people (Lantolf and Pavlenko 1995; Lantolf and Thorne 2006). Learning from this theoretical perspective is not just a matter of peers interacting and learning from each other, but can also require individuals interacting with mentors and more knowledgeable peers who enable learning through a process of guidance and/or collaboration (Lin, 2015). The InZone collaborative learning ecosystem embraces this perspective by placing the learner at the centre of an ecosystem where he or she interacts with his or her peers, as well as interacting with other the actors in the learning ecosystem who facilitate and collaborate in the learning process. Through a decade long experience of working with learners and other education actors in low resource and fragile contexts, InZone has accumulated extensive knowledge into the obstacles and barriers faced by learners and the context in which its programmes operate in. From this informed perspective, the InZone collaborative learning ecosystem model has been developed to incorporate 5 key actors who collaborate in a flexible and adaptive manner to enable higher education courses in the locations in which it operates in – students, lecturer, course coordinator, onsite facilitator, and online tutor. The key actors collaborate together in the ecosystem to enable tailored higher education undergraduate blended learning. InZone enables these courses in Azraq refugee camp in Jordan and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya. The following diagram illustrates collaboration among the actors in the InZone collaborative learning ecosystem. This diagram is followed by a brief outline of the key actors and their roles.
KEY ACTOR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY AT THE HEART OF INZONE’S COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ECOSYSTEM
DATA – THE FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY OF INZONE’S LEARNING ECOSYSTEM AS SCAFFOLDING IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS
Course Name | One Health | Basic Engineering | Basic Engineering | Global Poverty | Global History | Human Rights | Basic Medical Training Kakuma | Human Rights | One Health |
Course Length | 12 weeks | 14 weeks | 14 weeks | 12 weeks | 12 weeks | 12 Week | 12 | 15 | 12 |
Year | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 |
Location | Kakuma | Kakuma | Azraq | Kakuma | Azraq | Kakuma | Kakuma | Kakuma | Kakuma |
No. of Students Enrolled | 15 | 15 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 20 | 13 | 20 | 5 |
No. of Male Students Enrolled | 9 | 13 | 13 | 6 | 4 | 18 | 11 | 12 | 4 |
No. of Female Students Enrolled | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
No. of Online Tutors | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
No. of Students Passed Exam | 14 | 15 | 15 | 9 | 4 | 12 | 9 | 15 | 4 |
Course Completion Rate | 93% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 66% | 60% | 69% | 75% | 80% |
CONCLUSION
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