Current Issue

Balance between guidance and self-regulated learning: teaching and learning strategies in online, hybrid and blended learning in higher education

Guest editors: Victoria I. Marín and Jesús Salinas

Papers should be submitted by 31st December 2021

Download the full guidelines here

Although some guidelines for flexible learning in the context of higher education and COVID-19 have been designed, many of them have been focused on aspects concerning the delivery methods and digital tools to use, the formats for assessment or design guidelines for activities and strategies so far (Huang et al., 2020). Other aspects have been scarcely addressed, even before the pandemic. For instance, a challenge in teaching and learning processes identified in the literature is the balance between guidance and self-regulated learning and learner’s autonomy (Blaschke & Marín, 2020; Tchounikine, 2019). This balance refers to the mechanisms that educators design to support the development of student self-regulated learning, but also to the students’ learning strategies. Literature has extensively covered self-regulated learning from the students’ perspective (Anthonysamy et al., 2020; Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Hooshyar et al., 2020, Roth et al., 2016) and more recently, from the educators’ view (Russell et al., 2020).

However, addressing the balance between guidance and self-directed learning is still a challenge to both students and educators: the degree of guidance may be too high and, therefore, limit students’ self-regulated learning or, on the contrary, if too much flexibility is given, students may feel lost in their learning process and do not find their way. We should also consider the wide diversity that can exist among different students in terms of learning strategies and personal learning trajectory. In addition, the different forms of education modalities in higher education (online, blended and hybrid learning) ask for diverse approaches to this balance. Although used often as a synonym or as a form of blended learning, hybrid learning is considered to be subtly different (Cohen et al., 2020): it is more than just combining on-site and online learning or synchronous and asynchronous online learning as in blended formats; it involves blurring the parts and creating something new by rethinking our conception of place (Stommel, 2018).

Taking into account all these aspects, we pose the following question in this special issue: how to find the balance between guidance and self-regulated learning in online, hybrid and blended learning in higher education from educators and students’ perspectives, especially in post-COVID19 settings?

There are some self-regulated learning supports that can be helpful for educators and students to consider, such as personalised learning pathways (Crosslin, 2018; Salinas & de Benito, 2020) or adaptive systems and intelligent tutoring systems (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2020). However, the situated student’ and educator’s views are still missing, and much needed, in order to put into place effective and caring strategies for self-regulated learning that integrate digital possibilities. The current context in higher education demands more research as comprehensive and systematic intervention based on evidence, but also and more importantly, on innovation and experimentation properly evaluated, which form a natural part of the building processes of learning scenarios. In addition, the topic of the special issue should be considered against the pandemic backdrop of possible shortages in digital competence by educators and students, and the urgent need of optimising educators’ practice around the world.

We aim especially for empirical, experience or theoretical analysis articles that focus on the situated analysis related to students and educators’ perspectives of strategies and artifacts to support balance between self-regulated learning and educator guidance in online, hybrid and blended learning higher education.

Possible topics include

• Personalised learning pathways codesigned by educators and students that include self-regulated learning strategies.
• Designing effective educator and ICT-supported feedback and guidance for self-regulated learning.
• Relationships between educators’ self-regulation and supports and students’ self-regulated learning, self-directed learning, self-determined learning, autonomy and agency.
• Educators’ and students’ use, selection and remixing of Open Educational Resources for supporting guidance and self-regulated learning.
• Co-design of strategies for assessment that emphasise educators’ and students’ self-regulation (e.g., self-assessment, co-assessment, peer-assessment).
• Design-based research of strategies/artifacts for self-regulated learning supports.
• Relationships between digital competence/literacy and students’ self-regulation learning skills.
• Digital competence for educators that focus on establishing a balance between self-regulation and guidance.
• Using, interpreting, understanding and critically assessing learning data to support strategies to balance guidance and self-regulated learning.
• Adaptive systems and intelligent tutoring systems to balance guidance and self-regulated learning.

Each year JIME publishes reviews of some of the latest books released on the topics of educational technology and the role of multimedia technologies in higher education. Reviewers are currently sought for the following volumes:

• Nichols, M. (2020). Transforming Universities with Digital Distance Education: The Future of Formal Learning. Routledge.
• Davis, E. L., & Currie, B. (2019). Tech Request: A Guide for Coaching Educators in the Digital World. Routledge.
• Morgana, V., & Kukulska-Hulme, A. (Eds.). (2021). Mobile assisted language learning across educational contexts. Routledge.
• Bayne, S., Evans, P., Ewins, R., Knox, J., & Lamb, J. (2020). The Manifesto for Teaching Online. MIT Press.
• Bearman, M., Dawson, P., Ajjawi, R., Tai, J., & Boud, D. (Eds.). (2020). Re-imagining University Assessment in a Digital World. Springer.
• Jules, T. D., & Salajan, F. D. (Eds.). (2019). The Educational Intelligent Economy: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things in Education. Emerald Publishing Limited.
• Holmes, W., Bialik, M., & Fadel, C. (2019). Artificial intelligence in education. Boston: Center for Curriculum Redesign.
• Gronseth, S. L., & Dalton, E. M. (Eds.). (2019). Universal access through inclusive instructional design: International perspectives on UDL. Routledge.

How to submit a review

Reviewers should in the first instance email Victoria Murphy via victoria.murphy@open.ac.uk with an expression of interest. This should include a brief biographical description indicating your suitability as a reviewer and a list of all volumes you would be willing to review.

Reviews are commissioned on a first-come, first served basis for qualified reviewers and are due by 31st August 2021. The final collection of reviews will be published in December 2021.

Reviews should be around 1000-1500 words long and should focus on the relevance of the volume for educational technologists, instructional designers, and educators working in higher education institutions.

Examples of JIME book reviews

For guidance on the expected format and style of JIME book reviews, please refer to our previous articles.

• 2020 book reviews
• 2019 book reviews
• 2018 book reviews

The Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) is a global community of researchers in Open education. We invite papers from GO-GN members (past and present) to highlight the research they are undertaking and impact of the network. As well as conventional research papers, we are interested in the following formats:

• Joint papers with other members or external to the network
• Shorter, work-in-progress papers (2000-3000 words)
• Case studies or narrative accounts of OEP
• Innovative formats (please contact us with suggestions)

This is an opportunity for members to showcase their work, gain feedback and demonstrate the value of the network. The GO-GN team are willing to act as mentors for any authors who wish to work up their contributions, please indicate in the submission if you would like this.

Contributors should take account of JIME's Guidelines for Submissions.

Please address any queries to the GO-GN account.

Papers should be submitted by the 12th April 2021.