Universities are shifting learning away from the traditional behaviourist perspective where students are passive rote-learners (partly due to teacher-centred teaching) to a modern constructivist paradigm where students are actively involved in their learning (Neo, 2005). Explicitly, students learn through learning activities designed by their lecturers and they construct knowledge via experiences gained in the activities. This is in line with Kolb et al. (1984) who argued that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”. Thus, students are encouraged to build on their prior knowledge and experiences in order to attain deeper understanding of the events and to capitalise on peers’ shared experiences.
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Among them number of support resources, skills training for lecturers and students on how to navigate information technology and facilitators must be taught to use technology from the user-end, in order to facilitate delivery (Beadle and Scanty, 2008; Harris et al., 2009). Usually, universities handle this predicament by providing trainings to the lecturers. According to Sloman (2001) training is a process of acquiring the knowledge and skills related to work requirements using formal structured or guided means, but excluding general supervision, job specific innovations, and learning by experience. The knowledge and skills needed in a student centred teaching would be among others, how to host an online forum, how to design learning activities, how to facilitate and assess students’ learning and many others. Hence, to achieve the desired outcomes, trainings have to accommodate both hardware and software of technology. That is, besides using computers in the trainings lecturers must acquire first-hand experiences in online forum discussions so that when they eventually post topics for their students to discuss online, they are aware of the technical issues involved as well as the difficulties in maintaining the flow of discussions. Therefore, a private university in Malaysia decided to provide online training in a blended mode known as Lecturer e-Training Programme (LeP) to the lecturers. This article attempts to explore to what extent LeP supports lecturers in their preparation for a paradigm shift to student centred
Among them number of support resources, skills training for lecturers and students on how to navigate information technology and facilitators must be taught to use technology from the user-end, in order to facilitate delivery (Beadle and Scanty, 2008; Harris et al., 2009). Usually, universities handle this predicament by providing trainings to the lecturers. According to Sloman (2001) training is a process of acquiring the knowledge and skills related to work requirements using formal structured or guided means, but excluding general supervision, job specific innovations, and learning by experience. The knowledge and skills needed in a student centred teaching would be among others, how to host an online forum, how to design learning activities, how to facilitate and assess students’ learning and many others. Hence, to achieve the desired outcomes, trainings have to accommodate both hardware and software of technology. That is, besides using computers in the trainings lecturers must acquire first-hand experiences in online forum discussions so that when they eventually post topics for their students to discuss online, they are aware of the technical issues involved as well as the difficulties in maintaining the flow of discussions. Therefore, a private university in Malaysia decided to provide online training in a blended mode known as Lecturer e-Training Programme (LeP) to the lecturers. This article attempts to explore to what extent LeP supports lecturers in their preparation for a paradigm shift to student centred