Flexible learning
Flexible learning is an approach to teaching and learning that encompasses activities which allow for greater responsiveness to students' learning interests, needs and circumstances, increasesstudents' access to, and/or control over, particular teaching and learning environments.
Flexible approaches to teaching and learning aims to offer learning which is accessible, appropriate and valuable to a diverse student base, and deploy strategies and technologies to meet the diverse needs of students regarding the location and time of study. Flexible learning approaches can:
- give students choice about where, when and how they learn.
- recognise the wide diversity amongst our students in terms of the times they have available to study, their other commitments (family and work),
- respond to the learning needs of our students.
Flexible learning may encompass and include the following approaches to learning:
- e-learning, which refers to computer-enhanced learning, web-based teaching materials, CD-ROMs, web sites, discussion boards, collaborative software, e-mail, blogs, wikis, text chat, mobile technologies.
- online learning is more narrow in scope than e-learning, and generally refers to web-based learning (La Trobe University Educational Technologies Glossary).
- blended learning, which is learning that is facilitated by the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning, and founded on transparent communication amongst all parties involved with a course. (Heinze, A. and C. Procter 2004).
Flexible learning encompasses the whole configuration of the learning environment, and incorporates understandings of the physical, social as well as technological network, and opens up possibilities that extend learning environments into the social and professional worlds of learners.
An effective application of flexible learning is the blended learning approach, in which engaging the learner is a primary concern, and the mix of face-to-face and online can bring new possibilities of extended interaction spaces, and improved outcomes resulting from blended learning approaches (Normand & Littlejohn 2006; Abraham 2007; Bonk & Graham 2006; Garrison & Kanuka 2004; Bretag & Hannon 2007).
Flexible learning topics