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Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another.

Students served as instructors to their classmates, and together they worked toward learning goals more effectively than if they had been provided with the answer by the instructor.

Several of our speakers were able to shed light on the cause of this rising tide of faculty opposition to computer mediated instruction. Andrew Feenberg of San Diego State University summarizes the situation in the opening paragraph of his "Distance Learning: Promise or Threat" (1999) article: "Once the stepchild of the academy, distance learning is finally taken seriously. But not in precisely the way early innovators like myself had hoped. It is not faculty who are in the forefront of the movement to network education. Instead politicians, university administrations and computer and telecommunications companies have decided there is money in it. But proposals for a radical "retooling" of the university emanating from these sources are guaranteed to provoke instant faculty hostility."

The implementation of online education shows both promise and peril. Computer mediated instruction may indeed introduce new and highly effective teaching paradigms, but high-quality teaching is not always assured. Administrative decisions made without due consideration to pedagogy, or worse, with policies or technology that hampers quality, may cause much wasted time, money and effort of both faculty and students.

In training, a particular package of knowledge is imparted to an individual so that he or she can assume work within a system, as the firefighters do for example. According to Noble, training and education are appropriately distinguished in terms of autonomy (Noble, 1999). In becoming trained, an individual relinquishes autonomy. The purpose of education, as compared to training, is to impart autonomy to the student. In teaching students to think critically, we say in effect "Student, know thyself." Education is not just the transmission of knowledge, important as that is, but also has to do with the transformation of persons (and the development of critical thinking skills).

Classroom Behavior Your behavior in class, or the manner in which you conduct yourself, is also an ethical choice. One of the most common set of rules for interactions within a technologically-enabled environment is called Netiquette, which is important because “the distance imposed by computer networks disrupts our interactions so that people may become more vocal (mostly a good thing), but also more careless.” What I’ve noticed during class discussions is that students may forget that their classmates are people and can read, interpret, and misinterpret what has been posted. That’s why I remind students to read their messages aloud before posting them and consider both the content and possible tone of the messages. I also encourage students to find specific elements of their peers’ responses to focus on when they are posting messages – in other words, keep it academic, not personal.  Another ethical choice to make, concerning your classroom behavior, is related to the issue of cyber safety, which involves how you behave or act towards others online. Cyber safety for students “includes the language they use and the things they say, how they treat others, respecting people's property (e.g. copyright) and visiting appropriate websites.” Also related to cyber safety is cyber bullying. Forms of cyber bullying can include: •    “Insulting: Posting or spreading false information about a person that will cause harm to that person or that person’s reputation. •    Targeting: Singling someone out and inviting others to attack or make fun of her or him. •    Excluding: Pressuring others to exclude someone from a community (either online or offline). •    Harassment: Repeatedly sending someone nasty, mean and insulting messages.” It is your responsibility as a student to act ethically in your class. Instructors know the importance of monitoring online interactions to ensure that students have a safe classroom environment to work in. For example, if I observe a message within the discussion board that may be perceived as threatening or hostile, I’ll address it right away with that student and should the problem continue I can file a Student Code of Conduct violation with the school.

The more engaged a person is with the content, the better the person learns it because (s)he adds his own meaning and associations to it

The more connections people have to a concept, the more likely that person will be able to retrieve it later and in another context

shifts the emphasis from what instructorsdo to what the studentsdo to learn

Drama puts the teacher in the role of supporter in the learning process and the students can take more responsibility for their own learning.  Ideally, the teacher will take a less dominant role in the language class and let the students explore the language activities.  In the student centered classroom, every student is a potential teacher for the group.

Students are encouraged to express their own ideas and contribute to the whole

Instead of having the students relying on someone else's information and accepting it as truth, the students should be exposed to data, primary sources, and the ability to interact with other students so that they can learn from the incorporation of their experiences.

tting should include classroom applications of constructivism within a few key concepts. The first is discovering and maintaining an individual's intellectual identity. This forces students to support their own theories, in essence taking responsibility for their words and respecting those of others. The next component is having the teacher ask open-ended questions and leaving time to allow the students to think and analyze a response, based on their experiences and personal inquiry.

Begin with a question that is concrete and based on concrete experience that the students can all relate to. Students need the prerequisite knowledge for the discussion to begin or the discussion can initially devolve into an explanation of required preknowledge. Through response, students verify their understanding of the question. Students provide possible answers or resolutions to the question. Often the answers should draw on personal experience. Subsidiary questions are explored based upon responses.

primary assessment involves the quality of the discussion

There is a danger of the instructor dominating the discussion