Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Module 6 Reflection assignment
One of the important things I was exposed to in this class was the use of rubrics to evaluate online courses. I have seen evaluation tools before, but most were simply a checkbox-type indicating whether or not the component was included, with no real way to evaluate how effective the given tools were.
I do not teach any more, but as a professional course designer, I would like to look into becoming certified in the Quality Matters rubric. The place where I work uses a rubric that is a blend of multiple existing rubrics, that is used to score classes based on the features included in the course. However, the QM rubric is a recognized standard that goes into more detail about the expected contents of an online course, with the option to give partial credit for different points rather than an all-or-nothing approach for each element. Even if we never officially adopt the QM rubric, becoming certified will give me a deeper understanding of the process and why each element was included, and it could be useful in the future.
This course also reinforced the concepts that active learning and the use of media are important tools for any course--online or otherwise--and I hope to be able to incorporate some of this type of content into the courses that I develop in the future. However, I also worry about the possibility of relying too much on technology as an instructional tool, especially for adult learners. I have taught university-level classes for almost 25 years, and I have seen the use of and access to technology change drastically since I first started in 1985. While technology does allow greater access to information and a wider array of communication tools, it could also distract from the fact that learning is a student-centered activity. At some point, students have to be able to produce information on their own, and technology could become a crutch that prevents them from thinking on their own and creating their own content for life.
As education moves into a technology-based area, we need to gain a better understanding of how how students learn through technology,as well as what hindrances may exist.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Module 5: Blog Reflection on Moodle
I am relatively new to Moodle. I've played with it a few times over the last couple of years, but I'm more familiar with Angel, and I am using Blackboard extensively now as part of my work as a course designer.
There are several things that I really don't like about Moodle. One is the fact that it does not allow the learner to easily move from one page of content to the next. Angel pages include NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons that lead the user naturally from one page of content to the next, making it easier to create a lesson that guides the student from one activity to the next, much like a textbook. Angel also includes an outline view like the structure in Moodle, so students can easily jump to specific content if they wish.
Another fault with Moodle is the fact that a rubric cannot be assigned to a discussion forum. Rubrics are a great tool for both the student and the instructor, because they can be used to let the student know what the expectations are and make choices about which parts of an assignment are more important than others. For instructors, it streamlines the grading process, allowing the instructor to focus on one aspect of the assignment at a time, using a more objective system to grade assignments more consistently. Moodle does support rubrics for some assignments, so it would make sense to include them with discussion boards. The workaround I found was to create an assignment that is used solely to grade the discussion boards.
One of the major drawbacks to the online platforms I am familiar with is the fact that it is hard to present content as anything other than a page of text. External content can be linked into the course, but that requires the use of tools that are not native to the LMS. Not only does this make it more difficult to create content for a course, but it also makes it harder to maintain the content over time.
I believe that in another two or three years more interactive learning tools will be incorporated into online learning systems. The goal should be to have a course that replaces a traditional textbook but which is more interactive than ebooks as they exist today. I know that publishers are trying to create tools like this that can be embedded into an LMS, and I have used a few of these tools in the past. Some of these tools are good and cannot easily be replicated by an instructor or course designer, but they increase the cost of the course to the student. Incorporating social media tools into the content would also allow students to interact with each other more spontaneously than the current discussion boards and wikis do.
My goal is to create a course that allows students to access the content easily from any device, regardless of size, something that no LMS I am familiar with has been able to achieve. While I do not think that full-sized computers will not disappear completely, I think it could be useful if a student can load up the instructional content into a handheld device, allowing them to access that content from anywhere. They can read and work with the material wherever they happen to be, including waiting in a doctor's office or carpool like, or while commuting to and from work. After going through the content, a more traditional computer can be used to complete and submit assignments.
Eventually, what we now consider online learning will be the standard method to access learning content, replacing printed books. Classrooms will become centers that allow students to discuss the material they have learned outside of the classroom, with less reliance on lectures and formal instruction. Instructors will become content specialists who act as a repository for information about the subject as well as a guide to lead students through the learning process.
There are several things that I really don't like about Moodle. One is the fact that it does not allow the learner to easily move from one page of content to the next. Angel pages include NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons that lead the user naturally from one page of content to the next, making it easier to create a lesson that guides the student from one activity to the next, much like a textbook. Angel also includes an outline view like the structure in Moodle, so students can easily jump to specific content if they wish.
Another fault with Moodle is the fact that a rubric cannot be assigned to a discussion forum. Rubrics are a great tool for both the student and the instructor, because they can be used to let the student know what the expectations are and make choices about which parts of an assignment are more important than others. For instructors, it streamlines the grading process, allowing the instructor to focus on one aspect of the assignment at a time, using a more objective system to grade assignments more consistently. Moodle does support rubrics for some assignments, so it would make sense to include them with discussion boards. The workaround I found was to create an assignment that is used solely to grade the discussion boards.
One of the major drawbacks to the online platforms I am familiar with is the fact that it is hard to present content as anything other than a page of text. External content can be linked into the course, but that requires the use of tools that are not native to the LMS. Not only does this make it more difficult to create content for a course, but it also makes it harder to maintain the content over time.
I believe that in another two or three years more interactive learning tools will be incorporated into online learning systems. The goal should be to have a course that replaces a traditional textbook but which is more interactive than ebooks as they exist today. I know that publishers are trying to create tools like this that can be embedded into an LMS, and I have used a few of these tools in the past. Some of these tools are good and cannot easily be replicated by an instructor or course designer, but they increase the cost of the course to the student. Incorporating social media tools into the content would also allow students to interact with each other more spontaneously than the current discussion boards and wikis do.
My goal is to create a course that allows students to access the content easily from any device, regardless of size, something that no LMS I am familiar with has been able to achieve. While I do not think that full-sized computers will not disappear completely, I think it could be useful if a student can load up the instructional content into a handheld device, allowing them to access that content from anywhere. They can read and work with the material wherever they happen to be, including waiting in a doctor's office or carpool like, or while commuting to and from work. After going through the content, a more traditional computer can be used to complete and submit assignments.
Eventually, what we now consider online learning will be the standard method to access learning content, replacing printed books. Classrooms will become centers that allow students to discuss the material they have learned outside of the classroom, with less reliance on lectures and formal instruction. Instructors will become content specialists who act as a repository for information about the subject as well as a guide to lead students through the learning process.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Instructional Content in an Online Class
I have been developing online classes for more than ten years, and over that period of time, the concept of "instructor presence" has evolved significantly.
In the early days of online courses, an online course was typically created as an extension of an instructor's classroom version of the same course. Even today, many online classes include videos of an instructor standing in front of a blackboard (or whiteboard) lecturing to a classroom of students, with the idea that creating a video to replicate the classroom experience is the best way to make sure that online students have the same classroom experience as the on-campus students. Even without videos, the content was created by the instructor who intended to teach the class, allowing the instructor to embed their personality into the contents based on the style of their prose.
While we have moved away from this model to some extent, the fact remains that most stakeholders in the educational process believe that the instructor should be fully engaged with the online class, in the same way that a classroom instructor is. Adult students in particular often feel the need to have an authority who can provide details about what they are expected to learn, with guidelines on how they will prove that they have learned the material. Malcolm Knowles's proposals on the features of androgogy focus on student-centered learning, which requires that students be provided with all of the information and tools that they need to succeed, but David Grow's Staged Self-Directed Learning model suggests that there is a broader range of student engagement patterns, based on their readiness to learn (Stravredos, Chapter 2). In either case, the presence of a human instructor can be a vital part of the learning process, even when the course takes place fully online.
In parallel, though, the content of an online class has shifted from being the digital recreation of a specific instructor's class to that of an online textbook of sorts. Instead of each instructor creating their own class online, the concept of "cookie cutter" classes is becoming pervasive. In this model, a subject matter expert--often with teaching experience, but not always a full-time instructor--is hired to develop the course content, while an educational technology expert publishes the content to an online course. That course can then be duplicated and assigned to different instructors, so that the school can offer multiple but identical sections of the same course, and to ensure that the course is the same from one semester to the next.
Under this model, the content of an online course has moved from being the creation of a specific instructor that is imbued with the presence of that instructor to a much more neutral presentation of the core material, not unlike the way a textbook would present the same concept. The material is presented in the third person, rather than from a first-person experience, and the students are represented as an audience, rather than as participants in the learning event.
As both an instructor and an educational technology expert, I would like to see a change in this perspective, but I also wonder what the final product would look like.
I do think that the "cookie cutter" model is a good one. As with any human endeavor, there will be individual teachers who are more or less good at presenting the material and engaging students--whether the class takes place in a real classroom or a virtual one. From the students' perspective, having a core set of content that includes the correct material and the same student assessments helps ensure the quality of education for each student, regardless of who the instructor is. From the instructor's point of view, more time is available to engage with students and provide rich feedback for the assignments, because less time is spend developing content or planning lessons. The administration benefits because they can compare quality of instruction much more easily across sections and from one semester to the next, making global assessments and achievements easier to measure for accreditation purposes.
That said, the end result is often a dry, crumbly cookie in the mouth of the students. The online course presents them with stale content that creates a certain amount of distance between the instructor and the student. This gap can be bridged by the expectation that the actual instructor will add personalized content to the course, like introduction videos, frequent participation in discussion boards, scheduled live chats, and similar tools that present the instructor to the student as a live person, rather than as a bot of some kind, but the time required to generate this content detracts from the reasons for using the cookie cutter model in the first place.
The reason behind the depersonalization of the content is somewhat of a mystery to me. I do understand that the instructional voice of the content may be significantly different from the personality of the actual instructor, but in that sense, it really isn't any different from using someone else's recipe to bake a batch of cookies that are then presented as a creation of the cook, not the author of the original recipe. If the instructional content is presented more as a conversation between the instructor and the student--using first and second person pronouns--it seems to me that the student will be more engaged with that content. The fact that the personality of the author may be completely different from the personality of the actual instructor is not that important. Most online students have little direct interaction with the instructor over the course of a term, and those that do will determine the instructor's real personality from those interactions more than from the instructional content of the course. I think that a student has the capacity to understand that while the contents may be someone else's "recipe," the presentation of that content in some way represents the instructor who is actually leading the class.
Over the last few weeks, my job has required that I generate instructional content for online courses. At the beginning of this process, I used a conversational tone in my writing. While I avoided the first person, I purposely chose to use second-person pronouns as a way of pulling the student into the situation I was describing, and presenting the choices that the learner would have to make in the future. When that content went through the editing process, however, all the second-person pronouns were stripped, and replaced by abstract nouns like "developers" or "people"--words that create distance between the learner and the context.
I realized this week that the content I am currently creating is devoid of the conversational tone I started with, and much of the content sounds like what the student would read in a textbook instead. I am not convinced that this is a better approach to creating content for adult learners. I think it is more important to create an instructional presence in the online classroom, even if that presence is not identical to the personality of the actual instructor. This creates a conversation between the student and the content, which is better than a "sage on the stage" lecture from a podium--which in itself creates that distance between the instructor and the student, even when they are in the same room.
In the early days of online courses, an online course was typically created as an extension of an instructor's classroom version of the same course. Even today, many online classes include videos of an instructor standing in front of a blackboard (or whiteboard) lecturing to a classroom of students, with the idea that creating a video to replicate the classroom experience is the best way to make sure that online students have the same classroom experience as the on-campus students. Even without videos, the content was created by the instructor who intended to teach the class, allowing the instructor to embed their personality into the contents based on the style of their prose.
While we have moved away from this model to some extent, the fact remains that most stakeholders in the educational process believe that the instructor should be fully engaged with the online class, in the same way that a classroom instructor is. Adult students in particular often feel the need to have an authority who can provide details about what they are expected to learn, with guidelines on how they will prove that they have learned the material. Malcolm Knowles's proposals on the features of androgogy focus on student-centered learning, which requires that students be provided with all of the information and tools that they need to succeed, but David Grow's Staged Self-Directed Learning model suggests that there is a broader range of student engagement patterns, based on their readiness to learn (Stravredos, Chapter 2). In either case, the presence of a human instructor can be a vital part of the learning process, even when the course takes place fully online.
In parallel, though, the content of an online class has shifted from being the digital recreation of a specific instructor's class to that of an online textbook of sorts. Instead of each instructor creating their own class online, the concept of "cookie cutter" classes is becoming pervasive. In this model, a subject matter expert--often with teaching experience, but not always a full-time instructor--is hired to develop the course content, while an educational technology expert publishes the content to an online course. That course can then be duplicated and assigned to different instructors, so that the school can offer multiple but identical sections of the same course, and to ensure that the course is the same from one semester to the next.
Under this model, the content of an online course has moved from being the creation of a specific instructor that is imbued with the presence of that instructor to a much more neutral presentation of the core material, not unlike the way a textbook would present the same concept. The material is presented in the third person, rather than from a first-person experience, and the students are represented as an audience, rather than as participants in the learning event.
As both an instructor and an educational technology expert, I would like to see a change in this perspective, but I also wonder what the final product would look like.
I do think that the "cookie cutter" model is a good one. As with any human endeavor, there will be individual teachers who are more or less good at presenting the material and engaging students--whether the class takes place in a real classroom or a virtual one. From the students' perspective, having a core set of content that includes the correct material and the same student assessments helps ensure the quality of education for each student, regardless of who the instructor is. From the instructor's point of view, more time is available to engage with students and provide rich feedback for the assignments, because less time is spend developing content or planning lessons. The administration benefits because they can compare quality of instruction much more easily across sections and from one semester to the next, making global assessments and achievements easier to measure for accreditation purposes.
That said, the end result is often a dry, crumbly cookie in the mouth of the students. The online course presents them with stale content that creates a certain amount of distance between the instructor and the student. This gap can be bridged by the expectation that the actual instructor will add personalized content to the course, like introduction videos, frequent participation in discussion boards, scheduled live chats, and similar tools that present the instructor to the student as a live person, rather than as a bot of some kind, but the time required to generate this content detracts from the reasons for using the cookie cutter model in the first place.
The reason behind the depersonalization of the content is somewhat of a mystery to me. I do understand that the instructional voice of the content may be significantly different from the personality of the actual instructor, but in that sense, it really isn't any different from using someone else's recipe to bake a batch of cookies that are then presented as a creation of the cook, not the author of the original recipe. If the instructional content is presented more as a conversation between the instructor and the student--using first and second person pronouns--it seems to me that the student will be more engaged with that content. The fact that the personality of the author may be completely different from the personality of the actual instructor is not that important. Most online students have little direct interaction with the instructor over the course of a term, and those that do will determine the instructor's real personality from those interactions more than from the instructional content of the course. I think that a student has the capacity to understand that while the contents may be someone else's "recipe," the presentation of that content in some way represents the instructor who is actually leading the class.
Over the last few weeks, my job has required that I generate instructional content for online courses. At the beginning of this process, I used a conversational tone in my writing. While I avoided the first person, I purposely chose to use second-person pronouns as a way of pulling the student into the situation I was describing, and presenting the choices that the learner would have to make in the future. When that content went through the editing process, however, all the second-person pronouns were stripped, and replaced by abstract nouns like "developers" or "people"--words that create distance between the learner and the context.
I realized this week that the content I am currently creating is devoid of the conversational tone I started with, and much of the content sounds like what the student would read in a textbook instead. I am not convinced that this is a better approach to creating content for adult learners. I think it is more important to create an instructional presence in the online classroom, even if that presence is not identical to the personality of the actual instructor. This creates a conversation between the student and the content, which is better than a "sage on the stage" lecture from a podium--which in itself creates that distance between the instructor and the student, even when they are in the same room.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Module 3: Reflection on online learning tools
The readings for this week have focused on online and computer-enabled tools that can help the adult learner be more successful. Several different tactics have been taken in this respect, including a variety of tools discussed by Ko & Rossen, microblogging by Hsu & Ching, and multiple pillars and dimensions considered by Finger, Sun, & Jamieson-Proctor. Much of this reading has focused on attempting to convince the instructor that it is both reasonable and desirable to incorporate digital tools into the adult classroom, but in my own mind, these articles are in some sense preaching to the choir. Those of us who are reading these articles are already convinced--we just want to know how to do it.
I have been teaching university-level classes since 1985, and by all rights, I should fall into the "old dog" camp that cannot learn new tricks. However, I am in the MET program because I am completely convinced that within the next decade, most learning at the adult level will be computer-enabled. I want to be part of that trend rather than in the small camp of resistors. As a student, I do my best to take advantage of technology as much as possible, including the use of digital books that allow me to look up terms, take and collate notes in my readings, and even follow hyperlinks as I encounter them, rather than waiting until later to check them out. Digital content is also much more portable. Most of what I need can be accessed through a 7" tablet that is smaller than most textbooks, or I can access material online from virtually any computer at any time. I like the ability to interact with classmates on a variety of topics, as well as the option to get help from the instructor with relative ease. I also like the flexibility that online learning offers--I can take breaks when I need to, and be "in class" as often as I want to, schedule permitting.
However, as much as I have read about alternative technologies that are available as learning tools, I have not been expected to use very many of these tools during my studies in the MET program. One class that I enjoyed very much was offered through Google Hangouts, and we were required to use a variety of different technologies as part of the learning process, but the bulk of the classes have done the same kinds of reading, discussions and written assignments that are the digital equivalent of lectures, class time and homework. Most classes have even required dead-tree books, with no digital option at all.
This is an observation more than a criticism, but I think it is worth considering. Many instructors who fail to use digital technology tools as an integral part of the course content follow the path of least resistance because they do not have the time or other resources required to do otherwise, not because they don't want to learn new tools. With all the reading I have had to do in the classes I have already completed for the MET, I have never seen a study that shows the instructor side of the equation--everything is focused on how well these tools work for students and for learning, not on how to use the tools effectively from the instructor point of view.
As an instructor, I know that it takes time to incorporate a new learning tool into the classroom repertoire. First, it takes time to learn the technology well enough to feel comfortable adopting it and presenting it to students. Second, it takes time to invent activities that can take full advantage of that technology, Third, it takes time to teach the students how to use the technology to meet the educational objectives. Fourth, it takes time to determine how to evaluate student work and provide appropriate feedback to the student.
Much of this time can be seen as an investment, but it does mean having to give up something else in a schedule that may already be completely full. While we know that adult students often have to handle family responsibilities and a full-time job in addition to their coursework, it is usually the case that the instructor is doing the same thing, and without much more free time than their students have.
I would like to see educators sharing content on a wider basis. Too often, an instructor will invest time in creating content for their own class, but the content is never shared at all, even with colleagues who might be able to re-use the content in their own classes. I know that there are repositories of content available online, through sites like Merlot and the OER Commons, but much of that content is either too focused to be of use outside of the class it was created for, or of such poor quality that it is virtually useless. In addition, it often takes as much time to find an appropriate learning module or video as it does to create one from scratch.
An idea that did inspire me came from a book entitled Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online, by Robin Smith (2008). This book is addressed to an instructor who is building an online course for the first time, and it addresses many of the topics we are covering in this class. In Chapter 3, Smith discusses a situation where students asked for a video that would help them understand specific concepts. Instead of creating the video himself, he suggested that the students make videos that he could then incorporate into future iterations of the course. However, the next time he offered the course, the new students had heard about this video assignment and wanted to do it themselves. Instead of including an instructional video created by someone else, he simply added this as an assignment for the students.
As a result, I developed group projects for one of my classes where students were asked to create a presentation or video on specific topics during the semester. At the end of the semester, they were asked to watch and critique their classmates' presentations. This led to several favorable outcomes. One was that the students were engaged in active learning, and they most likely retained more of the information than if I had created a video or given a lecture on the same content. It also allowed them to see the information from several different perspectives--not just mine and their own. Finally, because the presentations were on core topics covered in the class, the requirement that they review the presentations created a natural review exercise at the end of the semester. While it did take time for me to develop a rubric and assess both the original presentations and the critiques, it was a better learning experience for the students.
References
Finger, G., Sun, P., & Jamieson-Proctor, R. (2010). Emerging frontiers of learning online: Digital ecosystems, blended learning and implications for adult learning. In T. Kidd, & J. Keengwe (Eds.) Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes (pp. 1-12). Hershey, PA: . doi:10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch001
Hsu, Y., & Ching, Y. (2012). Mobile microblogging: Using Twitter and mobile devices in an online course to promote learning in authentic contexts. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 13(4), 211-227. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1222/2313
Ko, S. & Rossen, S. (2010) Teaching online: A practical guide. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AU7E8S/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o04_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Smith, R. (2008) Conquering the content: A step-by-step guide to online course design. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Content-Step-Step-Jossey-Bass-ebook/dp/B0015DYIUO
I have been teaching university-level classes since 1985, and by all rights, I should fall into the "old dog" camp that cannot learn new tricks. However, I am in the MET program because I am completely convinced that within the next decade, most learning at the adult level will be computer-enabled. I want to be part of that trend rather than in the small camp of resistors. As a student, I do my best to take advantage of technology as much as possible, including the use of digital books that allow me to look up terms, take and collate notes in my readings, and even follow hyperlinks as I encounter them, rather than waiting until later to check them out. Digital content is also much more portable. Most of what I need can be accessed through a 7" tablet that is smaller than most textbooks, or I can access material online from virtually any computer at any time. I like the ability to interact with classmates on a variety of topics, as well as the option to get help from the instructor with relative ease. I also like the flexibility that online learning offers--I can take breaks when I need to, and be "in class" as often as I want to, schedule permitting.
However, as much as I have read about alternative technologies that are available as learning tools, I have not been expected to use very many of these tools during my studies in the MET program. One class that I enjoyed very much was offered through Google Hangouts, and we were required to use a variety of different technologies as part of the learning process, but the bulk of the classes have done the same kinds of reading, discussions and written assignments that are the digital equivalent of lectures, class time and homework. Most classes have even required dead-tree books, with no digital option at all.
This is an observation more than a criticism, but I think it is worth considering. Many instructors who fail to use digital technology tools as an integral part of the course content follow the path of least resistance because they do not have the time or other resources required to do otherwise, not because they don't want to learn new tools. With all the reading I have had to do in the classes I have already completed for the MET, I have never seen a study that shows the instructor side of the equation--everything is focused on how well these tools work for students and for learning, not on how to use the tools effectively from the instructor point of view.
As an instructor, I know that it takes time to incorporate a new learning tool into the classroom repertoire. First, it takes time to learn the technology well enough to feel comfortable adopting it and presenting it to students. Second, it takes time to invent activities that can take full advantage of that technology, Third, it takes time to teach the students how to use the technology to meet the educational objectives. Fourth, it takes time to determine how to evaluate student work and provide appropriate feedback to the student.
Much of this time can be seen as an investment, but it does mean having to give up something else in a schedule that may already be completely full. While we know that adult students often have to handle family responsibilities and a full-time job in addition to their coursework, it is usually the case that the instructor is doing the same thing, and without much more free time than their students have.
I would like to see educators sharing content on a wider basis. Too often, an instructor will invest time in creating content for their own class, but the content is never shared at all, even with colleagues who might be able to re-use the content in their own classes. I know that there are repositories of content available online, through sites like Merlot and the OER Commons, but much of that content is either too focused to be of use outside of the class it was created for, or of such poor quality that it is virtually useless. In addition, it often takes as much time to find an appropriate learning module or video as it does to create one from scratch.
An idea that did inspire me came from a book entitled Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online, by Robin Smith (2008). This book is addressed to an instructor who is building an online course for the first time, and it addresses many of the topics we are covering in this class. In Chapter 3, Smith discusses a situation where students asked for a video that would help them understand specific concepts. Instead of creating the video himself, he suggested that the students make videos that he could then incorporate into future iterations of the course. However, the next time he offered the course, the new students had heard about this video assignment and wanted to do it themselves. Instead of including an instructional video created by someone else, he simply added this as an assignment for the students.
As a result, I developed group projects for one of my classes where students were asked to create a presentation or video on specific topics during the semester. At the end of the semester, they were asked to watch and critique their classmates' presentations. This led to several favorable outcomes. One was that the students were engaged in active learning, and they most likely retained more of the information than if I had created a video or given a lecture on the same content. It also allowed them to see the information from several different perspectives--not just mine and their own. Finally, because the presentations were on core topics covered in the class, the requirement that they review the presentations created a natural review exercise at the end of the semester. While it did take time for me to develop a rubric and assess both the original presentations and the critiques, it was a better learning experience for the students.
References
Finger, G., Sun, P., & Jamieson-Proctor, R. (2010). Emerging frontiers of learning online: Digital ecosystems, blended learning and implications for adult learning. In T. Kidd, & J. Keengwe (Eds.) Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes (pp. 1-12). Hershey, PA: . doi:10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch001
Hsu, Y., & Ching, Y. (2012). Mobile microblogging: Using Twitter and mobile devices in an online course to promote learning in authentic contexts. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 13(4), 211-227. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1222/2313
Ko, S. & Rossen, S. (2010) Teaching online: A practical guide. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AU7E8S/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o04_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Smith, R. (2008) Conquering the content: A step-by-step guide to online course design. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Content-Step-Step-Jossey-Bass-ebook/dp/B0015DYIUO
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Module 1 Reflection: Adult Learning Theory
This reflection is for EDTECH 522, Module 1
What are the primary criticisms of andragogy and where do you stand on the issues?
Proponents of andragogy as a separate practice from pedagogy claim that instructional techniques used with children are not entirely appropriate for use with adult learners. As presented by Stravredes (2011), Knowles, Holton, & Swanson maintain that adults are more likely to be self-motivated, and that adults place more value on associating new information with existing knowledge, as well as on understanding how the new information will be useful to them. In addition, adults depend more on internal motivation (Chap 2, para. 5-8). Further but alternative support for the difference between children and adults is proposed by David Grow, who describes the stages of learning that adult students are likely to go through, including gradual movement from dependent learner to self-motivated learner (Stravredes, 2011, Chap 2, Self-Directedness, para. 2).
As stated in Taylor & Kroft (2009), there has been little effort to investigate how valid these claims are. As a starting point, it is not clear if andragogy is a theory of learning that can be used to improve student outcomes, or if it is simply a philosophy that can act as a guide for instructors of adult learners. If it is a theory, we should be able to prove it using evaluations of students, to see if the techniques are effective at improving learning. However, because andragogy rests on a foundation where the learner determines what they will learn, it is very difficult to compare the outcomes of one student to the outcomes of another student.
Samaroo, Cooper, & Green (2013) summarize the recognized difference between pedagogy and andragogy as that of directed learning versus self-directed learning. In other words, pedagogy includes the assumption that children need a teacher to manage what the children learn, while adults are more capable of learning on their own, without specific instruction. However, they claim that the emphasis on the fact that a child requires a teacher is overstated. They maintain that all people of any age learn through self-direction, regardless of age, and that any learner can benefit from a teacher who acts as a guide through the learning process. They use the term pedandragogy to describe this model of teaching.They recognize that there are differences between how children and adults approach learning, but they also claim that all people learn in essentially the same way, regardless of age or other differences. Their model includes creating an appropriate learning environment for each student on an individual basis, with emphasis on self-directed learning techniques (p. 85).
I tend to follow Samaroo, Cooper, & Green’s (2013) model that emphasizes individual learning differences instead of grouping specific learning styles by general characteristics. I believe that any successful learner must have some amount of internal motivation toward the learning process, and that the internal motivation drives a process of self-directed learning. In my experiences as a teacher and as a mother, those learners who have been most successful are those who took on challenges that were not required by the expectations of the teacher or the course. I do not think that age or other societal characteristics are as important as the learner’s willingness to learn.
At the same time, though, I do believe that Grow’s stages of learning as described by Stavredes (2011) describe an essential part of the learning process for any age student. Any learner can benefit from some amount of guidance on how and why they should learn new skills, and some learners will need more than others. However, the truly successful student--who not only learns the new skills but who also knows how to use those skills in other contexts and how to find even more information about how those skills can be used--must reach the point where they do not depend on another person to show them how to learn new things.
As an interesting and relevant point, I happened to come across a TED talk this week on this specific subject. It was given by Sugata Mitra in 2010, and it is entitled “The child-driven education.’ While I think that it is important to hear the talk in its entirety, his experiment of giving tools to children in poor neighborhoods and watching them learn from teaching themselves and each other demonstrates that children are capable of teaching themselves.
References
Mitra, S. (2010, July) The child-driven education. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education
Samaroo, S., Cooper, E., & Green, T. (2013). Pedandragogy: A way forward to self-engaged learning. New Horizons in Adult Education & Human Resource Development, 25(3), 76-90. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/docview/1532178557/C60E49371AE4756PQ/1?accountid=9649
Stavredes, T. (2011) Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Online-Teaching-Foundations-Strategies/dp/0470578386/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409602551&sr=8-1&keywords=stavredes+2011+effective+online+teaching
Taylor, B., & Kroft, M. (2009) Andragogy's Transition into the future: Meta-analysis of andragogy and its search for a measurable instrument. Journal of Adult Education 38(1). Retrieved from http://edtech.mrooms.org/pluginfile.php/91632/mod_resource/content/0/M1/Taylor_Kroth_2009.pdf
Where are you on the Grow's Staged Self-Directed Learning Model described in Stavredes (2011)? What is the implication of this model for you as an online teacher?
I am firmly in Stage 4 of Grow’s Staged Self-Directed Learning Model. I have already completed one Masters degree and most of a PhD in French Linguistics, and I have chosen to complete this Masters degree in Education Technology as a personal learning project, rather than as a job requirement or because of other people's expectations. I have also started several free MOOCs, but only completed one to its end. (I don’t see the unfinished MOOCs as a failure, however. For those classes I did not finish, I made the decision to stop participating either because I had no motivation to learn the content, or because other things became more important to me at the time.) I am well-organized in terms of scheduling my time effectively, and understanding what I need to do to learn what I want to learn. I rely little on an instructor except as a guide to help me determine the best order in which the learning process should take for the class, and I find that I resent instructors who try to control the class flow too restrictively--by placing too strict limits on what content is available, for example, or by trying to impose their own concepts of how students should learn the material (Stravredes, 2011, Chap 2, Self-Directedness, para. 5).
As an online teacher, I tend to think that my students are as advanced in Grow’s Model as I am, and as a result, I often stay by the side of the learning activities provided in my classes, stepping in only when things seem to get too far off-course. As a result, while I do read everything posted to discussion boards, I rarely post to them except to answer questions or to prompt a student with an interesting idea to expand on that idea. Instead, I like to see that students are interacting and learning from their peers. When I first started teaching online, I did post much more frequently, with the idea that I would be more “present” in the class that way, but I found that it often made it too easy for students lean on me to guide them. By waiting a day or two to post a reply that I feel is necessary, I am giving other students the chance to step into that gap, and they often do it quite well.
While the ideal online student should be at Stage 4, I also recognize that there are many who are not, especially in the classes I teach at the 100- and 200-level. At the start of each quarter, I do try to identify where my students are on Grow’s spectrum, then try to make more effort to guide the students who are still clearly at Stage 1 or Stage 2. This can be very challenging in an online class, however, because many of the students at the lower stages lack confidence not only in their ability as a student, but also in their understanding of how classes function online. For these students, rather than imposing myself as a strong instructor in the online discussion boards, I tend to reach out to them by phone or email, so that I can provide a more personalized interaction with the course material. As the quarter progresses, though, I try to wean these students off the need to rely on me, and show them that they can be more independent in the learning process.
As an analogy, virtually every video game I have ever played--be it for a child or an adult--includes a tutorial as a starting point, to teach the new player the basic skills required to be successful in the game. Some players will need more practice in learning these skills than others, and a few players may decide that the game is too complicated before even making it through the tutorial. I think that any approach to education should include this stair-step approach that allows the learner to acquire the basic set of skills required for the learning goal, and to move forward at their own pace as they master those skills.
Reference
Stavredes, T. (2011) Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Online-Teaching-Foundations-Strategies/dp/0470578386/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409602551&sr=8-1&keywords=stavredes+2011+effective+online+teaching
What are the primary criticisms of andragogy and where do you stand on the issues?
Proponents of andragogy as a separate practice from pedagogy claim that instructional techniques used with children are not entirely appropriate for use with adult learners. As presented by Stravredes (2011), Knowles, Holton, & Swanson maintain that adults are more likely to be self-motivated, and that adults place more value on associating new information with existing knowledge, as well as on understanding how the new information will be useful to them. In addition, adults depend more on internal motivation (Chap 2, para. 5-8). Further but alternative support for the difference between children and adults is proposed by David Grow, who describes the stages of learning that adult students are likely to go through, including gradual movement from dependent learner to self-motivated learner (Stravredes, 2011, Chap 2, Self-Directedness, para. 2).
As stated in Taylor & Kroft (2009), there has been little effort to investigate how valid these claims are. As a starting point, it is not clear if andragogy is a theory of learning that can be used to improve student outcomes, or if it is simply a philosophy that can act as a guide for instructors of adult learners. If it is a theory, we should be able to prove it using evaluations of students, to see if the techniques are effective at improving learning. However, because andragogy rests on a foundation where the learner determines what they will learn, it is very difficult to compare the outcomes of one student to the outcomes of another student.
Samaroo, Cooper, & Green (2013) summarize the recognized difference between pedagogy and andragogy as that of directed learning versus self-directed learning. In other words, pedagogy includes the assumption that children need a teacher to manage what the children learn, while adults are more capable of learning on their own, without specific instruction. However, they claim that the emphasis on the fact that a child requires a teacher is overstated. They maintain that all people of any age learn through self-direction, regardless of age, and that any learner can benefit from a teacher who acts as a guide through the learning process. They use the term pedandragogy to describe this model of teaching.They recognize that there are differences between how children and adults approach learning, but they also claim that all people learn in essentially the same way, regardless of age or other differences. Their model includes creating an appropriate learning environment for each student on an individual basis, with emphasis on self-directed learning techniques (p. 85).
I tend to follow Samaroo, Cooper, & Green’s (2013) model that emphasizes individual learning differences instead of grouping specific learning styles by general characteristics. I believe that any successful learner must have some amount of internal motivation toward the learning process, and that the internal motivation drives a process of self-directed learning. In my experiences as a teacher and as a mother, those learners who have been most successful are those who took on challenges that were not required by the expectations of the teacher or the course. I do not think that age or other societal characteristics are as important as the learner’s willingness to learn.
At the same time, though, I do believe that Grow’s stages of learning as described by Stavredes (2011) describe an essential part of the learning process for any age student. Any learner can benefit from some amount of guidance on how and why they should learn new skills, and some learners will need more than others. However, the truly successful student--who not only learns the new skills but who also knows how to use those skills in other contexts and how to find even more information about how those skills can be used--must reach the point where they do not depend on another person to show them how to learn new things.
As an interesting and relevant point, I happened to come across a TED talk this week on this specific subject. It was given by Sugata Mitra in 2010, and it is entitled “The child-driven education.’ While I think that it is important to hear the talk in its entirety, his experiment of giving tools to children in poor neighborhoods and watching them learn from teaching themselves and each other demonstrates that children are capable of teaching themselves.
References
Mitra, S. (2010, July) The child-driven education. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education
Samaroo, S., Cooper, E., & Green, T. (2013). Pedandragogy: A way forward to self-engaged learning. New Horizons in Adult Education & Human Resource Development, 25(3), 76-90. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/docview/1532178557/C60E49371AE4756PQ/1?accountid=9649
Stavredes, T. (2011) Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Online-Teaching-Foundations-Strategies/dp/0470578386/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409602551&sr=8-1&keywords=stavredes+2011+effective+online+teaching
Taylor, B., & Kroft, M. (2009) Andragogy's Transition into the future: Meta-analysis of andragogy and its search for a measurable instrument. Journal of Adult Education 38(1). Retrieved from http://edtech.mrooms.org/pluginfile.php/91632/mod_resource/content/0/M1/Taylor_Kroth_2009.pdf
Where are you on the Grow's Staged Self-Directed Learning Model described in Stavredes (2011)? What is the implication of this model for you as an online teacher?
I am firmly in Stage 4 of Grow’s Staged Self-Directed Learning Model. I have already completed one Masters degree and most of a PhD in French Linguistics, and I have chosen to complete this Masters degree in Education Technology as a personal learning project, rather than as a job requirement or because of other people's expectations. I have also started several free MOOCs, but only completed one to its end. (I don’t see the unfinished MOOCs as a failure, however. For those classes I did not finish, I made the decision to stop participating either because I had no motivation to learn the content, or because other things became more important to me at the time.) I am well-organized in terms of scheduling my time effectively, and understanding what I need to do to learn what I want to learn. I rely little on an instructor except as a guide to help me determine the best order in which the learning process should take for the class, and I find that I resent instructors who try to control the class flow too restrictively--by placing too strict limits on what content is available, for example, or by trying to impose their own concepts of how students should learn the material (Stravredes, 2011, Chap 2, Self-Directedness, para. 5).
As an online teacher, I tend to think that my students are as advanced in Grow’s Model as I am, and as a result, I often stay by the side of the learning activities provided in my classes, stepping in only when things seem to get too far off-course. As a result, while I do read everything posted to discussion boards, I rarely post to them except to answer questions or to prompt a student with an interesting idea to expand on that idea. Instead, I like to see that students are interacting and learning from their peers. When I first started teaching online, I did post much more frequently, with the idea that I would be more “present” in the class that way, but I found that it often made it too easy for students lean on me to guide them. By waiting a day or two to post a reply that I feel is necessary, I am giving other students the chance to step into that gap, and they often do it quite well.
While the ideal online student should be at Stage 4, I also recognize that there are many who are not, especially in the classes I teach at the 100- and 200-level. At the start of each quarter, I do try to identify where my students are on Grow’s spectrum, then try to make more effort to guide the students who are still clearly at Stage 1 or Stage 2. This can be very challenging in an online class, however, because many of the students at the lower stages lack confidence not only in their ability as a student, but also in their understanding of how classes function online. For these students, rather than imposing myself as a strong instructor in the online discussion boards, I tend to reach out to them by phone or email, so that I can provide a more personalized interaction with the course material. As the quarter progresses, though, I try to wean these students off the need to rely on me, and show them that they can be more independent in the learning process.
As an analogy, virtually every video game I have ever played--be it for a child or an adult--includes a tutorial as a starting point, to teach the new player the basic skills required to be successful in the game. Some players will need more practice in learning these skills than others, and a few players may decide that the game is too complicated before even making it through the tutorial. I think that any approach to education should include this stair-step approach that allows the learner to acquire the basic set of skills required for the learning goal, and to move forward at their own pace as they master those skills.
Reference
Stavredes, T. (2011) Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Online-Teaching-Foundations-Strategies/dp/0470578386/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409602551&sr=8-1&keywords=stavredes+2011+effective+online+teaching
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