Group items tagged

Flexibility in learning provides a student room for volitional control and an array of strategies and encourages persistence in the face of difficulties. Autonomy in and control over one's learning process can be seen as a condition for self-regulated learning. There are a number of categories and dimensions for flexible learning; following professional publications, time, location, lesson content, pedagogy method, learning style, organization, and course requirements are all elements to consider. Using these categories and the dimensions of flexible learning, we developed and validated a questionnaire for an open and distance learning setting. This article reports on the results from a study investigating the relationship between flexible learning and self-regulated learning strategies. The results show the positive effects of flexible learning and its three factors, time management, teacher contact, and content, on self-regulated learning strategies (cognitive, metacognitive, and resource-based). Groups that have high flexibility in learning indicate that they use more learning strategies than groups with low flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of evidence that more and more students are engaging in online learning experiences, details about the transition for teachers and students to a new learning environment are still unconfirmed. While new technologies are often expected to make work easier, they also involve the development of new competencies. This change may, in itself, elicit an emotional response, and, more importantly, emotion may impact the experience of online learning. Knowledge about the impact of emotion on learning broadly is available, but not about emotion and online learning. This study presents evidence of emotions present in online environments, and empirical data which suggests emotional presence may exist as a fundamental element in an online community of inquiry.

An online course was studied to investigate how integration of formative assessment enhanced the course design to facilitate learner engagement with meaningful learning experiences within the context of ICT-related professional development for teachers.

Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework

An article about teacher presence in an online course.

Teaching presence is defined as the core roles of the online instructor. That the facilitation of discourse is the factor most strongly associated with students' sense of learning and community indicates that this skill should be emphasized and fostered through faculty development efforts.

Trends that affect distance education. The part that shows how different online students are now is very interesting.

Bloom's and Online Education.  A good resource developed for online learning.

ooooh execllent tags highlighting and comments!!

The author contends that using a learning-centered, or constructivist, approach in online courses is critical to student success.

Describes principles for second language acquisition. Gives ideas to reinforce these principles in the classroom.

brief piece describing what is meant by funds of knowledge - understanding students' lives

Addresses various uses of scaffolding in online instruction.

This article provides examples of online instructional scaffolding.

"A note about Learning Styles in young people's education, and by implication potentially elsewhere too: I am grateful to the anonymous person who pointed me towards a seemingly growing lobby among educationalists and educational researchers, towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, which I summarise very briefly as follows: that in terms of substantial large-scale scientific research into young people's education, 'Learning Styles' theories, models, instruments, etc., remain largely unproven methodologies. Moreover, Learning Styles objectors and opponents assert that the use of, and certainly the heavy reliance upon, Learning Styles theory in formulating young people's education strategies, is of questionable benefit, and may in some cases be counter-productive."

"Using Peer Feedback to Enhance the Quality of Student Online Postings"

Patients want to be treated humanely and as individuals by their care-providers. Many curricula, usually written by university faculty, have been developed to teach physicians such skills. Rarely are patients' actual preferences taken into account when designing curricula. This study was undertaken to identify what hospitalized patients most valued about their encounters with attending faculty physicians. In this study, medical residents (post-graduate medical trainees) identified faculty physicians as outstanding teachers of humanistic care. Patients receiving care from these outstanding physicians were interviewed, as were the students and residents on the care team and the study physicians. Using qualitative techniques, patients' comments were analyzed and common themes were identified. These findings were compared with qualities identified by medical residents and students and by the attending physicians themselves. Patients identified the following specific behaviors as those they most valued in their physicians: direct communication, understanding, direct involvement in care, adequate explanation, and overt expressions of respect, as highly valued. Outstanding teachers of humane care exhibited several discrete behaviors that patients described as valuable. Since these behaviors can be discretely identified, they can be taught as part of medical curricula. The content of medical education in communication and doctor-patient relationships should incorporate goals informed by the perspectives of patients.