Authentic learning

 

The concept of authentic learning is more of a philosophy, that helps to provide a useful pedagogical guide and model for curriculum design rather than a learning theory (Herrington, 2015; Shaffer and Resnick, 1998). 

Authentic learning is based on a constructivist view in which students create their own understandings of new concepts and practices by integrating their previous experience, the resources they have, their own research and their current experience (Roach et al, 2018).

Shaffer and Resnick (1999) analysed the literature around  authentic education and found there to be four main identifiable kinds of authentic learning. They describe: (a) learning that is personally meaningful for the learner, (b) learning that relates to the real world out of school, (c) learning that provides opportunity to think in the modes of the particular discipline, and (d) learning where the means of assessment reflect the learning process (p.195). 

They details around each kind of learning are compared below to examples of teaching digital accessibility, as previously identified in the literature review.

(a) To make learning personally meaningful topics need to be aligned with what learners need to know or what they would find engaging, real or genuine. They would need to find it personally meaningful to their own lives or have the ability or intent to own it as work they can honour.

#Add in examples -  personal meaning of disability/family/friend/peers/tv characters and Microsoft situational personas#

(b) The materials and activities need to align to some aspect they can relate to out of school that concerns ‘real life’ or a real problem they would recognise. This means it has value both in and beyond the school context.

#Empathy simulations, people or peers with disabilities, also examples from everyday world#

(c) To be authentic to the discipline, methods and questions throughout the learning process should relate to students solving problems that could build on prior knowledge. It should offer real world authenticity and learning to think around the intellectual tradition of the profession or the discipline it is associated with.

#Websites they use, social media, audio visual, document creation and testing, WCAG professional criteria, empathetic modelling, legal aspects and lawsuits#

(d) Assessment should be more connected to the learning. It should be less about exams or tests and more about the types of activities they do. For example students could be solving problems that could build on prior knowledge where the assessment would be part of the learning process itself. It is suggested this relates to portfolios, performance or exhibition materials to assess knowledge. It could also make use of methods of evaluating students attitudes and self-perceptions to make meaningful connections to the subject. 

#Blogs, creation of websites, meeting user needs, create personas, attitude and skills surveys#

Shaffer and Resnick (1999) explain that in practical terms, students are individuals with distinct likes and interests. It may be difficult to construct a coherent curriculum that every student will regard as personally meaningful (p.201). However they argue that for a curriculum to be most effective, each of these kinds or categories of learning need to be combined and mutually supporting to offer a ‘thick’ authenticity for learning. This combination would certainly help with the multidisciplinary nature of digital accessibility skills and conceptual awareness.

This therefore offers an ideal framework for organising the data collection and analysis for this study, aligning it to the theoretical interests of pedagogy, educational practice and learning experiences.

Therefore this research will categorise the data collection and analysis of findings based on the following themes (Shaffer and Resnick (1999; p.197):

• Personal authenticity 
• Real-world authenticity
• Disciplinary authenticity 
• Authentic assessment 

These themes will also be particularly useful to inform and guide the planning of activities and assessments, as well as the structure of learner and teacher interviews. 

If planned well to ensure meaningful and authentic learning, the constructivist and real world nature should help combat any former lack of engagement in the topic of digital accessibility (Refs). It could also help with the exploration of personal meaning to address the lack of people seeing it as their responsibility (Refs). 

The word ‘accessibility’ in course names has issues (put in intro bit).

Extra papers:

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2212&context=edupapers

https://soar.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12648/7426/editorial_rule.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23752696.2018.1462099%40rhep20.2018.3.issue-V2

Herrington, J. (2015). Introduction to Authentic Learning. In V. Bozalek , D. Ng’ambi, D. Wood , J. Herrington , J. Hardman , & A.Amory (Eds.), Authentic learning, emerging technologies: Towards a transformative higher education pedagogy (pp. 61–67). London: Routledge.

Shaffer, D & Resnick, M (1999) "Thick" Authenticity: New Media and Authentic Learning. Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 10. 

https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/2622/1/172-1765-2-PB.pdf