Ubiquitous Learning in Appropriate Learning Environments

Abstract

The changing society sets teacher training, its learning environments and teacher’s challenges, which require transforming the operational cultures and broadening the ways, that learning environments are seen and understood. Change in the operational culture requires, above all, the teachers to function and network in new ways to achieve a new kind of understanding and internalization of learning environments and pedagogy. Pedagogical development is primarily important as the concepts of learning, essential information, education and world are rapidly changing. Study modules that are based on new kinds of pedagogical models increase the accessibility of university studies and give individuals better possibilities for lifelong learning. Class teachers’ adult education is developing learning environments with emphasis on elearning. Adult students’ life situations pose challenges to full-time attendance, and this has been seen as a possibility to develop class teacher educators’ pedagogical abilities in planning, developing, and using transformational e-learning methods and new pedagogical models. The 25 years of class teachers’ adult education has been based on the students’ physical attendance. Now, taking into consideration the students’ needs and hopes, we are developing ‘distance attendance’ alternatives for physical attendance. In this article we describe a blended learning study module that was carried out in class teachers’ adult education. It offered the students versatile, unique, individual and communal possibilities to fully study in authentic contextual environments, exploiting virtual tools. The goal of the planning of this module was to create a learning environment that would give a student an optimal learning experience (Creative Work Flows for Learning) in versatile, authentic, e-learning environments. In the study, the ubiquitous learning model was tried out in a 6 credits’ study module for class teachers’ adult education that was based on the principles of transformational pedagogy (OED). The module was carried out in flexible and versatile learning environments based on transformational pedagogy, where knowledge also included command of the 21st century teaching skills 21. [27] The theoretical framework of the study module followed the model of contextualpedagogical model [22]. The study module, that was based on a strong pedagogical ground, offered the students a possibility to not only choose a suitable time for studying, but also to acquire transversal competences which are linked to transformational pedagogy, as a part of an authentic learning experience.