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Teresa Dobler

Multitasking: Switching costs - 0 views

  • takes a toll on productivity
  • tries to perform two tasks simultaneously, switch . from one task to another, or perform two or more tasks in rapid succession
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      There are different "varieties" of multitasking. I have read elsewhere that you can't actually do two things at once, so when you are multitasking, you are, by definition, switching rapidly between two competing tasks. But the question still remains, is it bad to be consistently switching between two tasks?
  • switch cost -- one attributable to the time taken to adjust the mental control settings (which can be done in advance it there is time), and another part due to competition due to carry-over of the control settings from the previous trial (apparently immune to preparation).
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      Research found that you are less productive when switching between tasks.
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  • As tasks got more complex, participants lost more time
  • often the need to remember where you got to in the task to which you are returning and to decide which task to change to
    • Teresa Dobler
       
      Another reason why switching is harder: you have to remember details about the other task, otherwise you have to rethink about them when you switch back, which takes up time.
  • relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, th
Irene Watts-Politza

Teachers' Invisible Presence in Net-based Distance Education | Hult | The International... - 0 views

  • The stance taken in this paper, then, is constructivist – that conversation is learning in the making.
  • Any conversation, that is, draws on heteroglossia (Bakhtin’s neologism) – pools of different ideas whose elements, when exchanged, foster learning. According to Bakhtin, every utterance has a double significance. It is an expression of a 'unitary [common] language' used to conduct the conversation and, at the same time, it builds on the 'social and historical' differences embedded in the heteroglossia (1981, p. 272).
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is what happens in a discussion thread.
  • Yuri Lotman,
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  • described conversations as multi-authored texts rather than as multi-voiced heteroglossia (see Bakhtin, 1994,
  • texts “fulfill at least two basic functions:
  • fulfilled best when the codes of the speaker and the listener most completely coincide and, consequently, when the text has the maximum degree of univocality” (1988, p. 34). The generation of new meanings occurs when there are differences between the speaker and the listener. Texts used in educational exchanges cease:
  • online adult education is not the delivery of texts but, rather, the creation and insertion of ‘thinking devices’ into conversation.
  • For this article we have concentrated on teacher and student views of teachers’ role orientations in online courses.
  • our intention has been to identify and clarify teaching ‘saliences’ that have emerged in online adult education in Sweden. In a wider sense, however, our analysis is also a response to the question: ‘Whatever happened to teaching in the learning society?’
  • the posting data support the claim that the teachers adopted an initiating role.
  • Greater activity:
  • Greater influence on topic:
  • Faster response times:
  • When asked about their views, all students felt that teachers played a central role in supporting Net-based learning. Indeed, some of them suggested that moderation in online settings of adult education is more important than in face-to-face settings.
  • Orientations to Teaching
  • Activity Orientation
  • In this perspective, teachers gave students tasks that activated them and, thereby, fostered their understanding of subject matter.
  • offered students tips about articles, books and Internet sites
  • Some students spoke about being activated by stimulating tasks that led them to engage with the Web and libraries, with one of them adding ‘seeking by your self is a pre-condition for learning.’ Active searching also meant that students came into contact with information which extended their learning beyond the task itself.
  • None of the teachers, however, was entirely satisfied with their dialogic or conference practice. Levels of engagement, dialogue, and initiative-taking were not as high as they had hoped. In response, they tried to promote conversation by encouraging students to react to each other’s postings, by organising tasks where cooperation and interaction was needed, or by introducing new aspects and questions when discussion faltered.
  • Further, teachers reported that they also tried to act as models of good behaviour by giving swift replies to student postings and by making their own postings appropriate yet concise.
  • In contrast to the teachers most of the student group were satisfied with the course conversations.
  • A few
  • felt that sharing different aspects of the subject matter with the teacher and fellow students raised fresh questions. It made them reach beyond the book, evoking learning and thinking along new pathways. Even if they thought that well-chosen tasks were the most effective way of fostering dialogue, they also expected the course leader to participate fully, developing new themes if student postings declined, and remaining alert to student proposals that might enhance the interchange of ideas and knowledge.
  • Many students emphasised the importance of teaching that corroborated or validated their learning.
  • None of the teachers, however, spontaneously offered this view as their primary role or orientation. Nevertheless, when asked whether they had any correspondence with students through private mailboxes rather than ‘conferences’ and ‘cafes,’ some of them said that they occasionally responded privately to correct misinterpretations.
  • This task raises many questions about teaching, highlighting the difference, for example, between instructionist and constructionist paradigms for learning (Wilensky, 1991). Would a too well-planned course be instructionist, thus constraining student influence and the pursuit of democracy? In their postings, teachers in this study felt that there was no necessary contradiction – that well-planned courses could, indeed, strengthen student influence. Nevertheless, busy distance education students, according to the teachers, often appreciate instructionist courses with clearly stated activities and tasks, even if the students are left with limited opportunities to ‘construct their own relationships with the objects of knowledge’ (Wilensky, 1991, p. 202).
  • Teacher’s invisible presence is exemplified in taking a stand-by role and/ or being reluctant to intervene. ‘The [teachers’] silence should be deafening,’ one teacher recommended. Although most of the teachers agreed that well-planned courses do not inhibit course dialogue, the fact that in their own online course deliberations they set aside time to discuss this issue may reflect ambivalence in their stance. The question of when and how teachers should intervene remains impossible to resolve, except in practice.
  • three different aspects of teaching,
  • a second conclusion – that the promotion of learning in an open environment requires an animating or steering presence. Such teaching, however, is not a process of instruction. And for this reason the word teacher may no longer be appropriate. In English, the word tutor is commonly used in adult education, because it has connotations of ‘supervision’ and ‘guardianship’ as well as ‘instruction’ (see Oxford English Dictionary). More recently, Salmon has suggested ‘e-moderating,’ but even moderation carries instructionist connotations – to exercise a controlling influence over; to regulate, restrain, control, rule (OED) – that may not be appropriate to all forms of liberal education. In the context of mainland Europe, the word pedagogue may be appropriate since, etymologically, pedagogue denotes someone engaged in 'drawing out.'
  • Intellectual development, however, can be an intra- as well as an inter-personal phenomenon. That is, learning may not come directly from teachers but rather from their absent or invisible presence. Online pedagogues, therefore, can be present in different ways. They may be present in person, participating in learning conversations. They may constitute an absent presence that, nonetheless, is embodied in the learning resources directed towards students (e.g., the selected readings or activities). Or pedagogues may exist merely as inner voices, inherited from the language of others, that (invisibly) steer the desires, self-regulation, and self-direction of learners. Indeed, this last pedagogic position ‘auto-didacticism,’ has always been central to the post-Enlightenment ideals of liberal adult education.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Here's the money.
  •  
    Swedish study of university student and professor attitudes toward satisfaction with and definition of teacher presence in online adult learning. Implications for course design with respect to knowing one's audience.
Jessica Backus-Foster

5. Increasing Time on Task: 7 Principles Collection of TLT Ideas - 0 views

  • helping communicate to students how much time and energy you and your institution expect them to invest in their work
  • the ability to store work and work-in-process on the school's network
  • ability to send file attachments with email has made it easy for students to send me a draft of their work for feedback at any time.
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  • With randomly generated homework problems, immediate feedback, and the opportunity to try again, students view the homework almost like a game with the challenge of getting all the problems correct. As a result, they seem to spend more time than with paper and pencil homework.
  • availability of many research materials on-line and through electronic databases to which libraries subscribe should enable students to access what they need from their homes or their dorms at time which are convenient to them
  • “capturing students’ beer time
  • streaming video versions of all lectures
  • our approach to students is to encourage students to do what works for them (but to be sure to do it!)
  • Access to the Internet has changed research possibilities. Students have access to much more information faster than in the past.
  • Hot links to articles and other readings
  • E-mail messages are quickly replacing the live visit to professors and probably encouraging more students to talk to professors since it is less scary to them to write rather than face professors face to face.
  • Searching for journal articles using electronic bibliographic databases has been a major time saver for students
  • electronic reserves at the library
  • Use of the Calendar in WebCT to promote planning by students. Can also use the Calendar to highlight particular content or web resources to be ready for in-class discussion. Remind students in different media such as in-class and on-line about the expected completion dates for projects. (Virginia Arp, Gannon University)
  • "2 hours outside to 1 hour in class
  • Some may be spending more time because they’re unfamiliar with the medium. Some may be spending more time because instructions for assignments are not well-written for online use Some may be spending more time because they want to: the assignments are more interesting. And so on. Depending on the reasons, “spending more time” may be a) a triumph, b) a problem to be fixed, c) a temporary situation to be endured.
  • Going 'paperless" has saved me much time on task
  • publisher of one of our texts provides a tutorial CD and website as well as online course support
Jessica M

The Technology Source Archives - Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Le... - 0 views

  • Learners should be required to participate (and their grade should depend on participation). Discussion groups should remain small. Discussions should be focused on a task. Tasks should always result in a product. Tasks should engage learners in the content. Learners should receive feedback on their discussions. Evaluation should be based on the quality of postings (and not the length or number). Instructors should post expectations for discussions.
  • Lesson for online instruction: Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgment feedback.
  • We found that instructors gave prompt information feedback at the beginning of the semester, but as the semester progressed and instructors became busier, the frequency of responses decreased, and the response time increased.
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  • Similarly, we found that instructors rarely provided acknowledgement feedback
  • The rationale was that many students needed flexibility because of full-time jobs. However, regularly-distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination.
  • Lesson for online instruction: Challenging tasks, sample cases, and praise for quality work communicate high expectations.
Donna Angley

A Constructionist Approach to Online college Learning - 0 views

  •  
    The key elements of online course design and pedagogy suggested by research as promoting effective learning are discussed through the lens of constructivist epistemology. Presentation of content, instructor-student and student-student interactions, individual and group activities, and student assessment are each addressed, in turn. The focus is on learning and recognition that, from time-to-time, all students are teachers as they bring diverse expertise, experiences, and worldviews to the task of learning. Reflection on past experiences, interaction with other members of the learning community, immediate instructor behavior, authentic group activities, and diverse assessment tasks with timely and detailed feedback are underscored.
lkryder

REAP - Resources > Assessment Principles: Some possible candidates - 0 views

  • Table 1: Principles of good formative assessment and feedback. Help clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, standards). To what extent do students in your course have opportunities to engage actively with goals, criteria and standards, before, during and after an assessment task? Encourage ‘time and effort’ on challenging learning tasks. To what extent do your assessment tasks encourage regular study in and out of class and deep rather than surface learning? Deliver high quality feedback information that helps learners self-correct. What kind of teacher feedback do you provide – in what ways does it help students self-assess and self-correct? Provide opportunities to act on feedback (to close any gap between current and desired performance) To what extent is feedback attended to and acted upon by students in your course, and if so, in what ways? Ensure that summative assessment has a positive impact on learning? To what extent are your summative and formative assessments aligned and support the development of valued qualities, skills and understanding. Encourage interaction and dialogue around learning (peer and teacher-student. What opportunities are there for feedback dialogue (peer and/or tutor-student) around assessment tasks in your course? Facilitate the development of self-assessment and reflection in learning. To what extent are there formal opportunities for reflection, self-assessment or peer assessment in your course? Give choice in the topic, method, criteria, weighting or timing of assessments. To what extent do students have choice in the topics, methods, criteria, weighting and/or timing of learning and assessment tasks in your course? Involve students in decision-making about assessment policy and practice. To what extent are your students in your course kept informed or engaged in consultations regarding assessment decisions? Support the development of learning communities To what extent do your assessments and feedback processes help support the development of learning communities? Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem. To what extent do your assessments and feedback processes activate your students’ motivation to learn and be successful? Provide information to teachers that can be used to help shape the teaching To what extent do your assessments and feedback processes inform and shape your teaching?
  •  
    a web resource with the REAP material in the JISC pdf for easier bookmarking
Alicia Fernandez

Early Attrition among First Time eLearners: A Review of Factors that Contribute to Drop... - 1 views

  • Some have reported attrition from eLearning as high as 70 - 80% (Flood 2002, Forrester 2000, in Dagger & Wade, 2004). Parker (1999) argues that “With the growth of distance education has come the problem of exceedingly high attrition rates”. Citing Carter (1996), she suggests that eLearning student attrition in some institutions is exceeds 40%, while others (Frankola, 2001). Diaz (2002), put it at between 20 - 50%,  and Carr (2000), estimate it to be 10% - 20% higher than for traditional on-campus education.
  • learners in employment bring a different set of needs, strategies and motivations to the learning process.
  • frequently geographically removed from the learning resources, information sources, learner peers and Tutors compared to their on-campus peers
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  • Employed adults tend to complete eLearning in their personal time due to workload pressures in the workplace and/or Internet access issues at work
  • Cognitive Load Theory
  • states that learning is initially processed in working memory
  • Learning complex or technically demanding material requires building mental models or cognitive schemas about the subject being studied or the skill being developed over time
  • Learning new material or a skill, for which a schema in long term memory is undeveloped or non-existent, can cause working memory to quickly overload its limited capacity. This overloading can result in a learner becoming highly anxious and losing confidence, which in turn can lead to the learning process, in effect, freezing and the learner being unable to continue.  
  •  “Digital literacy involves more than the ability to use software or operate a digital device; it includes a large variety of complex cognitive, motor, sociological and emotional skills, which users need in order to function effectively in digital environments.”
  • It is this author’s experience in designing, developing and delivering several eLearning programmes to public sector employees in New Zealand, that a face to face workshop prior the start of the online distance course can make a significant difference to a first time eLearner’s perception and experience of eLearning. 
  • This type of pre-course face-to-face induction workshop can also be used to foster the group’s sense of itself, and to identify the individual participants and their backgrounds, along with their expectations and concerns. It is also helpful to have the course design, structure and philosophy explained and to discuss anxieties associated with beginning an online course.
  • The multi
  • al learning tasks of the first time eLearner
  • dimension
  • (1) negotiating the technology; (2) negotiating the course website; (3) negotiating the course content (4) becoming an eLearner (5) negotiating CMC interaction.
  • come to terms with the computing technologies involved.
  • develop a mental model of the content structure and navigation system in order to find his/her way around
  • engage with the learning materials, readings, activities and assessments that make up a programme of study
  • Confronting the actual content and of becoming a learner again.
  • anxiety
  • abandon his/her existing mental model of what it is to be a learner in a formal learning situation
  • embrace a model based on a self-directed and motivated learner
  • undertake the learning tasks involved in interacting with peers via synchronous and asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication
  • Successfully negotiating this early experience depends very much on the relevant skills, circumstances, motivations and personal attributes of the learner. It follows then, that paying particular attention to how an eLearning course is structured and introduced and the manner in which the learner is inducted can make a very important difference in a learner deciding whether or not to engage and persist or to drop out. 
  • actually apprising learners of the issues of cognitive overload and how it is commonly experienced would go some way towards inoculating learners against its more pernicious effects.
  • Supporting learners till they are over the initial “eLearning learning-curve hump”, may involve a seemingly high level of resource and effort on the part of the course facilitator and associated programme administration staff, but the payoff is that fewer learners will drop out at the early stage.
  • Actively supporting, encouraging, gently cajoling and following up on learners who seem to be struggling will help to keep wavering learners in the course.
  • In terms of the actual course design and the structure of the materials and learning activities, then it is a useful practice to aim to start slowly and build the course tempo over time.
  • The one area where something may be done to reduce attrition is in the early stages of an online course.
  • Cognitive overload is a likely contributor to high drop out rates, particularly where those withdrawing do so within the first few weeks of the start of a course.  Greater levels of persistence and completions may be achieved if learners are supported to anticipate, prepare for, recognise and recover from the cognitive burden they may experience as first time eLearners.   
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    Looks at why some students don't make it through online courses- many first time online students are unsure what to expect and are just overwhelmed by the whole experience.
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    The experience of the first-time online learner is qualified. Suggestions for decreasing early attrition are suggested.
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    Attrition among mature adult online learners is affected by sociological, psychological, technical and cognitive factors, critical features of which are the notions of cognitive load and locus of control.
Alicia Fernandez

Preparing for Distance Learning: Designing An Online Student Orientation Course - 0 views

  •  
    This paper describes the analysis undertaken to design a 1-credit-hour online orientation course for students new to online learning. An instructional design team, as a part of an advanced instructional design course, worked with a university-based client. The client identified specific problem areas encountered by novice students of online courses and the team designed a comprehensive program to meet those needs. Analysis of the data revealed surprising differences in expectations between instructors of online courses and their students of what an orientation to online learning should include. The team also conducted a task analysis to aid in further identifying the skills, knowledge and attitudes required by students for success in online courses. Findings indicated that there is a need for online learners to understand the time commitment required of an online course and possess or develop strong time management skills. Because of small sample size, results cannot be generalized beyond the respondents. The authors found a mismatch in the perception of instructor technical skills versus student technical skill. Based on their findings, the paper provides recommendations on the appropriate design, development and implementation of an orientation to online learning.
  •  
    This paper describes the analysis undertaken to design a 1-credit-hour online orientation course for students new to online learning. An instructional design team, as a part of an advanced instructional design course, worked with a university-based client. The client identified specific problem areas encountered by novice students of online courses and the team designed a comprehensive program to meet those needs. Analysis of the data revealed surprising differences in expectations between instructors of online courses and their students of what an orientation to online learning should include. The team also conducted a task analysis to aid in further identifying the skills, knowledge and attitudes required by students for success in online courses. Findings indicated that there is a need for online learners to understand the time commitment required of an online course and possess or develop strong time management skills. Because of small sample size, results cannot be generalized beyond the respondents. The authors found a mismatch in the perception of instructor technical skills versus student technical skill. Based on their findings, the paper provides recommendations on the appropriate design, development and implementation of an orientation to online learning.
Heather Kurto

The Technology Source Archives - Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Le... - 0 views

  • Instructors should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.
  • Establish policies describing the types of communication that should take place over different channels.
  • Well-designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students.
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  • Set clear standards for instructors' timelines for responding to messages.
  • Discussions should be focused on a task.
  • Discussion groups should remain small.
  • Only at the end of all presentations did the instructor provide an overall reaction to the cases and specifically comment about issues the class identified or failed to identify. In this way, students learned from one another as well as from the instructor.
  • Tasks should always result in a product.
  • Tasks should engage learners in the content.
  • Learners should receive feedback on their discussions.
  • earners should be required to participate
  • Instructors should post expectations for discussions.
  • "information feedback" and "acknowledgement feedback."
  • Information feedback provides information or evaluation, such as an answer to a question, or an assignment grade and comments.
  • Acknowledgement feedback confirms that some event has occurred.
  • We found that instructors gave prompt information feedback at the beginning of the semester, but as the semester progressed and instructors became busier, the frequency of responses decreased, and the response time increased.
  • nstructors can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each individual student. In this way, instructors can address patterns and trends in the discussion without being overwhelmed by the amount of feedback to be given.
  • egularly-distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination. They also provide a context for regular contact with the instructor and peers.
  • Communicating high expectations for student performance is essential. One way for instructors to do this is to give challenging assignments.
  • Another way to communicate high expectations is to provide examples or models for students to follow, along with comments explaining why the examples are goo
  • Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.
Melissa Pietricola

Mini-multitaskers: For young people, a tendency to multitask may impoverish learning, p... - 0 views

  • 81 percent of young people report "media multitasking" at least some of the time.
  • esearch suggests that it slows children's productivity, changes the way they learn and may even render social relationships more superficial
  • People who multitask actually take longer to get things done.
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  • Plus switching itself takes a toll: As you're switching, says Meyer, you're not concentrating on either task. And you need a mental warm-up to resume the suspended task.
  • igital media play an important role in the social development of the 800 young people she and her team interviewed. T
  • "The entire culture is starting to look like what you see in attention deficit disorder, where there's a difficulty in focusing and distractibility,"
  • working short times on many different things at one time."
  • In particular, people with divided attention may not deeply integrate new information and may have trouble applying it later as a resul
  • e could lose qualities like empathy that are probably stimulated by face-to-face interaction."
  •  
    multi-tasking leads to superficiality of relationships and learning
sherrilattimer

2001 Beder - 0 views

  • Their most commonly expressed intention was to meet learners' needs.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      Meeting learner's needs rather than challenging them to rise to find out more.
  • In contrast, the data from our 40 observations portrayed a type of instruction that was the near antithesis of learner-centered instruction. In each and every case the organizing unit of instruction was a teacher-prepared and teacher-delivered lesson. There was virtually no evidence of substantive learner input into decisions about instruction. Communication was overwhelmingly teacher-to-learner, learner-to-teacher. Learner-to-learner communication rarely occurred unless the teacher directed it to occur through such things as peer coaching exercises.
  • They enabled the teacher to determine if learners had "learned" the lesson and they supplemented the content of the lesson by reinforcing learners' correct responses and demonstrating the correct answer to learners whose responses were incorrect.
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  • Although adult literacy teachers intend to be learner-centered they, teach in teacher-directed ways. Why? Although it could be that teachers were induced to teach in teacher-directed ways by supervisors or other forces, we found no evidence of this. Rather, we conclude that there two reasons. The first pertains to the socialization process that all teachers and learners are products of. The roles of teacher and student are two of the most intensely socialized roles in our society. The great majority of the teachers we observed were certified in K-12 education. For them, socialization into the teacher role began in grade school and continued through their teacher training. For learners, socialization into the student role also began in grade school and continued until they dropped out of school.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      This is so true! If you ask a random person to teach a lesson, they think it's about standing in front of the room and talking to the group. They will ask questions, and ask for "students" to raise their hand to answer.
  • We infer that teachers taught in teacher-directed ways because that that way of teaching was a deeply ingrained product of their socialization.
  • teachers believed that their learners were primarily motivated toward obtaining their GEDs, and the perceived benefits of doing so, in the shortest possible time
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education. Thus teachers wanted to maximize efficiency and believed that teacher-directed, basic skills-oriented instruction was the best way of doing so.
  • Most teachers maintained a helping posture in class. Thus, there appears to be a duality to the meaning teachers of adult literacy education ascribe to their teaching. While their instruction is teacher directed, their learner-centered values and beliefs are manifest in their affective relations with learners. In this sense, for adult literacy teachers being learner-centered is not a teaching technology or methodology. Rather, it is a set of values that guide teacher-learner interactions.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      This is the key to all of it for me, personally. I think all of this is true for my co-workers and me.
  • Teachers liberally praised learners for correct answers and rarely sanctioned learners negatively for such things as being tardy or tuning out.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      I JUST finished writing this exact thing about myself!!! Who would have thought that I fit into the research-based mold of an adult literacy instructor.
  • If teacher-directed instruction is indeed a product of intense and protracted socialization and commonly held beliefs about learners' motivations, then changing teacher-directed behavior will be a very difficult task, perhaps requiring re-socialization. Such an effort may be beyond the means of the current professional development system in adult literacy education.
    • sherrilattimer
       
      I think it is beyond the means of the current professional development system in adult literacy education because there is a high rate of turnover. I think once someone has a certain degree of skill or education, they are seeking out another position. I think this report should have been followed up/accompanied by a survey of the teachers.
  • Equipped for the Future (Stein 1999) advocates a form of adult literacy based on what learners need to do in their roles of worker, parent and citizen.
  • Gillespie (1989) advocates an instructional model for adult literacy that emphasizes critical thinking.
  • the amount of time available for instruction was relatively short in comparison to elementary, secondary or higher education
Heather Kurto

Pedagogical Love and Good Teacherhood | Määttä | in education - 1 views

shared by Heather Kurto on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • A teacher’s proficiency is manifested by the ability to look at the subject from a learner’s point of view, to foresee the critical junctions in learning, and to design teaching to meet learners’ information acquisition and collection processes (e.g., Zombylas, 2007).
  • van Manen (1991) claims that as teachers embrace all children, regardless of their characteristics they become real educators, and thus, educators’ pedagogical love becomes the precondition for pedagogical relations to grow (p
  • Individualistic features, position, nationality, gender, abilities, race, or language do not determine a human being’s value. Those differences based on skills, intelligence, or knowledge are insignificant compared with that basic human presence that is the same for all people: the right and need to be loved, accepted, and cared for as well as the right and need to grow and develop (Bradshaw, 1996; Lanara, 1981; Sprengel & Kelly, 1992).
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  • A teacher’s ethical caring means genuine caring, aspiring to understand and make an effort for pupils’ protection, support, and development. Because of this pedagogical caring, the teacher especially pursues pupils’ potential to develop and thus help them to find and use their own strengths.
  • Pedagogical love has been considered the core factor in the definition of good teacherhood for decades, though the characteristics of a good teacher have always included a variety of features. Features such as the ability to maintain discipline and order, set a demanding goal level, and the mastery of substance have been especially emphasized (e.g., Davis, 1993; Zombylas, 2007; Hansen, 2009)
  • Love influences the direction of people’s action as well as its intensity. Positive emotions, joy, strength, and the feeling of being capable lead mental energy toward the desired goal (Rantala & Määttä, 2011). Negative emotions, grief, fear, and anger cause entropy, an inner imbalance that burns off energy, brands the target with negative status, and pursues nullifying and undervaluing (e.g., Isen, 2001).
  • he educator’s task is to provide pupils with such stimuli and environment where students are guided to limit their instincts by controlling enjoyment and vital-based values, in order to be able to achieve higher values and skills (Solasaari, 2003).
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 2000) has launched the concept that refers to an optimal or autotelic experience where people are riveted so comprehensively by a challenging performance that the awareness of time and place blurs. Flow is possible when the challenges in a task are balanced with an actor’s abilities. Flow is an enjoyable state of concentration and task orientation, leading to optimal performance, whether the case is wall creeping, chess playing, dancing, surgery, studying languages, painting, or composing music.
  • This sets challenges for skill development. If a task is too easy, it will bore. If it is too difficult, it will cause anxiety and fear. The exact experience of flow and the active sense of well-being resulting from the former, encourage people to develop and improve their skills. People are willing to strive for flow whether it was about love for math, art, programming, or orthopedics (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
  • In an interview, Gardner (as cited in Goleman, 1999) said flow is intrinsically rewarding without the hope for reward or threat of punishment. We should use learners’ positive moods (love) and through it get them to learn things about fields they can succeed in. People have to discover what they like, what things and doings they love and do these things. Even a child learns the best when he/she loves what he/she is doing and finds it enjoyable. (p. 126)
  • Pedagogical love might contribute to pupils’ learning and success by providing them with positive learning experiences, initial excitement, and perceived successes. These are the seeds of expertise as a positive feeling that can be considered the source of human strengths (Isen, 2001).
  • Pedagogical love springs from an individual learner’s presence persuading it to come forward more and more perfectly and diversely. A skillful educator does not just sit by and watch if a learner makes worthless choices or fails in his or her opportunities to grow and develop.
  • Haavio emphasized the meaning of pedagogical love in teachers’ work and considered that teachers’ work consists of the following two obligations: attachment to learners and dutiful perseverance of life values.
  • Pedagogical love speaks to interdependence—the recognition and acceptance that we need others.
  • Love appears in teaching as guidance toward disciplined work, but also as patience, trust, and forgiveness. The purpose is not to make learning fun, easy, or pleasing but to create a setting for learning where pupils can use and develop their own resources eventually proceeding at the maximum of their own abilities
  • A loving teacher reveals for a pupil the dimensions of his or her development in a manner of speaking. This is how a pupil’s self-esteem strengthens and he or she can develop toward higher activities from the lowest, pleasure-oriented ones. Achieving high-level skills is rewarding because it brings pleasure, and yet, it often demands—as mentioned previously—self-discipline and rejections
  • A teacher’s work is interpersonal and relational, with a teacher’s own personality fundamental to building relationships with students. A teacher’s work involves plenty of emotional strain. In addition, a teacher inevitably has to experience frustration in his or her work. There are many situations when a teacher will feel like she or he has failed regardless of the solution he or she creates.
  • Consequently, teachers are likely to experience guilt because they cannot sufficiently attend to all pupils in an appropriate way that is congruent with the notion of caring.
  • However, teachers have to realize that their own coping, motivation, and engagement require attention; they are not automatic.
  • Pedagogical love emerges through teachers’ emotions, learned models, moral attitude, and actions
  • Good teachers are examples to learners even in the most difficult life situations. Teachers have to believe in their work and endeavour to build a nurturing environment and a more humane world.
  • To be happy about life, to guide students to see the wonder and joy in the mundane is a teacher’s most important skill. Being able to help students find and negotiate the joy, wonder, happiness, and pain in the everydayness of life is an increasingly important quality in today’s insecurities, with the mounting pressure of increased demands for efficiency
Amy M

Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUC... - 0 views

shared by Amy M on 28 May 09 - Cached
  • 30 million people today qualified to enter a university who have no place to go. During the next decade, this 30 million will grow to 100 million. To meet this staggering demand, a major university needs to be created each week.
  • Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which has provided free access to a wide range of courses and other educational materials to anyone who wants to use them.
  • Web 2.0,
    • jessica mascle
       
      ?
    • Amy M
       
      Web 1.0 was individuals accessing information.  Web 2.0 is the "social web."  Users focusing on social interaction rather than just getting conent.
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • from access to information toward access to other people.
  • What do we mean by “social learning”?
  • e that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning.5
  • Students in these groups can ask questions to clarify areas of uncertainty or confusion, can improve their grasp of the material by hearing the answers to questions from fellow students, and perhaps most powerfully, can take on the role of teacher to help other group members benefit from their understanding (one of the best ways to learn something is, after all, to teach it to others).
    • Shoubang Jian
       
      The dichotomy between Cartesian and Social Learning is problematic, and this is one of the reasons why. If Social Learning still comes down to group learning from each other, it remains unclear what would be the "alternative" model of learning/teaching between group users, if not substance/pedagogy.
  • But viewing learning as the process of joining a community of practice reverses this pattern and allows new students to engage in “learning to be” even as they are mastering the content of a field.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Schools of Ed/teacher prep programs are being charged with providing "clinically rich" programs that engage candidates more actively, earlier, and more frequently in their program of study. This is proving to be difficult to actualize in the current wave of APPR uncertainty.
  • apprenticeship
  • open source movement
    • Shoubang Jian
       
      Open Source Project may be a model for building up knowledge base among devoted users who are willing to follow the "path" set by predecessors. It is quite another issue whether it is a model for education.
  • Digital StudyHall (DSH)
    • Shoubang Jian
       
      It's not clear in what sense this DSH method is an example of social learning.
  • We now need a new approach to learning—one characterized by a demand-pull rather than the traditional supply-push mode of building up an inventory of knowledge in students’ heads. Demand-pull learning shifts the focus to enabling participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning.
  • open participatory learning ecosystems
    • b malczyk
       
      Not only is it a matter of "if" such campuses are a possibility, but "should" such campuses be a priority. If online and distance education can yield at least comparable results to traditional academic settings, then their ease of accessibility and lower overhead costs warrant further exploration as a viable possibility.
  • “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are
  • provided students with opportunities to observe and then to emulate how experts function
    • b malczyk
       
      How does the open source idea fit with fields like medicine or chemistry where knowledge is less "socially constricted"? 
    • Amy M
       
      Open Source/Access research.  One of the problems right now is that the NIH or fed government will pay for research, but the public then had to pay for the results of that research.  We are paying for the same research twice.  Open Access Journals (see Harvard Memo) hopes to change this.
  • seeking the knowledge when it is needed in order to carry out a particular situated task.
    • b malczyk
       
      Knowledge that is obtained when "needed" then answers the famous question many high school students ask their teachers, "When will I ever use this?" 
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      I grew to see high school as a time for exposure to all disciplines in order to find what best suited one in preparation for college or the workplace. Now I am wondering if the multiplicity of disciplines will be "tailored" to fit the personal interests of the learner. Will differentiating for all eradicate the question Ben mentions?
  • all student writing was done on public blogs
    • b malczyk
       
      This form of education was also based on what could be called an industrial style of education. They education system became an extension of industry--students were passed along on the assembly line from one course to the next, year after year and came out a finished produce with similar skills and altitudes as their peers. Now education has and can become more narrow and niche based and less industrial.
  • This involves acquiring the practices and the norms of established practitioners in that field or acculturating into a community of practice.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is the model embraced by most teacher ed programs.
    • Amy M
       
      Which has its advantages and disadvantages. 
  • In this open environment, both the content and the process by which it is created are equally visible, thereby enabling a new kind of critical reading—almost a new form of literacy—that invites the reader to join in the consideration of what information is reliable and/or important.
  • And at the third level, any participant in Second Life could review the lectures and other course materials online at no cost. This experiment suggests one way that the social life of Internet-based virtual education can coexist with and extend traditional education.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Will the professions embrace as colleague one who excels in a non-credit course of study or will opportunities continue to be closed to those who don't present the "right" credentials?
  • Through these continuing connections, the University of Michigan students can extend the discussions, debates, bull sessions, and study groups that naturally arise on campus to include their broader networks. Even though these extended connections were not developed to serve educational purposes, they amplify the impact that the university is having while also benefiting students on campus.14 If King is right, it makes sense for colleges and universities to consider how they can leverage these new connections through the variety of social software platforms that are being established for other reasons.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      I am wondering if "leveraging" these networks will become a basis for funding in the case of state colleges and universities.
  • he site’s developers note: “We fundamentally believe that the new electronic environment and its tools enable us to revive the humanistic spirit of communal and collaboratively ‘playful’ learning of which the Decameron itself is the utmost expression.”
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      The notion of 'playful' learning is my ideal; this seems to be at odds with the test drill environment I am currently observing in grades 3 - 6. Currently, it seems as though there are two tracks developing in "Learning 2.0": assessment-driven and learner-driven.
  • As more of learning becomes Internet-based, a similar pattern seems to be occurring. Whereas traditional schools offer a finite number of courses of study, the “catalog” of subjects that can be learned online is almost unlimited. There are already several thousand sets of course materials and modules online, and more are being added regularly. Furthermore, for any topic that a student is passionate about, there is likely to be an online niche community of practice of others who share that passion.
  • that will support active, passion-based learning: Learning 2.0. This new form of learning begins with the knowledge and practices acquired in school but is equally suited for continuous, lifelong learning that extends beyond formal schooling.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      Surely the content and skills currently being taught and assessed Pk-12 must give way to a new set of literacies.
  • In addition to supporting lecture-style teaching, Terra Incognita includes the capability for small groups of students who want to work together to easily “break off” from the central classroom before rejoining the entire class. Instructors can “visit” or send messages to any of the breakout groups and can summon them to rejoin the larger group.
  • CyberOne Classroom in Second Life
  •  
    Social View of Learning
Diane Gusa

The Technology Source Archives - Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Le... - 0 views

  • Principle 5: Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task Lesson for online instruction: Online courses need deadlines. One course we evaluated allowed students to work at their own pace throughout the semester, without intermediate deadlines. The rationale was that many students needed flexibility because of full-time jobs. However, regularly-distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination. They also provide a context for regular contact with the instructor and peers.
    • Kristina Lattanzio
       
      Set clear deadlines for work to create comfortable online learning environments. Helps students keep themselves on task and enhances learning.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      I considered doing this, but was not sure...I noticed Alex did this when she would say "read Ian's post" or EXCELLENT! aand I wanted to check out what was said even more.
  • Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.
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  • Communicating high expectations for student performance is essential.
  • give challenging assignments.
  • communicate high expectations is to provide examples or models for students to follow, along with comments explaining why the examples are good.
  • publicly praising exemplary work communicates high expectations. Instructors do this by calling attention to insightful or well-presented student postings.
alexandra m. pickett

Authentic On-line Learning - 3 views

  • I suppose one of the assumptions that I have about my own on-line course is that if a certain percentage of my students are of the Generation Y population, they may very well know more about the technology than I do.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      question your assumptions!!!!
  • 20 to 22
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      it's 20-24 yrs old- that is 38% Fifty-one percent are over 25 yrs old.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      the larger percentage are OVER 25 years old!
  • so I guess that will most likely be my audience.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      check your assumptions!
    • Donna Angley
       
      You're right; I don't really know who my audience will be. I also assume that the Generation Y population have the technology down pat; that's not necessary true.
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  • While I think the technology has to be embedded in instruction whenever possible, it can’t be left to teachers alone to solve this problem.
    • Donna Angley
       
      I feel teachers need much more support from administrators as well as the Education Department. I know that SED is currently addressing the problem of making technology accessible in our classrooms, but even as they are planning it, the technology is increasing exponentially. It's going to take major educational reform -- Our new commissioner has been personally involved with the Technology task force.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      This is a wonderful analogy, which I plan on using in my instructions for discussions!
    • Diane Gusa
       
      This is my struggle too. I am spending this weekend stopping in. I do like the post titles, it helps me to priortize what I want to read.
    • Donna Angley
       
      I think a lot of my difficulty is that my only comparison for online learning are the 2 courses I've taken prior to this. One was okay, the other not so good. So, I'm only realizing now that the online environment and experience can be a lot more robust that I had thought.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      I work to 2AM every morning to keep up...as I teach an online course and take care of a 18 month old. However, I am enjoying the late night flow as I work! I have enjoyed your posts, and I can see your hard work.
    • Donna Angley
       
      Thanks Diane, a lot of this is new to me as well, but I'm working through it.
  • I had to question what the objectives were first, and then create an assessment that tied into the objectives. 
    • Donna Angley
       
      This is probably one area that still scares me. I think I'm going to have to come up with a rubric for the forum in my course, and I don't have any experience creating a rubric. I've Googled it and there are many rubrics out there, but I don't know if I can just "borrow" a rubric and tweak it or is this plagarism?
  • what I need to do is think of these posts as mini research papers.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      exactly!!! i actually say "Every post you make in this course is an exam. " in the interaction course info document for the course!! : )
    • Donna Angley
       
      Now that I realize this, I'm finding the workload a little easier. I had to adjust my schedule. I'm used to doing most of my online work on weekends, but that's not enough for this course, so I made changes. Now I come home from work and put aside about 2 hours each night specificallly for addressing posts.
  • I don’t feel like I can get to it all.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      you can't. just really digg into stuff that interests/engages you.
    • Donna Angley
       
      Whew! Thanks Alex. I'm feeling a little more comfortable this week as far as what I should be doing to stay on top of things.
  • I’m doing my best.
    • Donna Angley
       
      I am making it work, and I don't feel as overwhelmed as I did just 2 weeks ago. Feeling more confident in the whole process of posting and working in the course shell.
  • I decided to give it a try.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      excellent!! give your students the gift of having high expectations : )
  • 1) Will it help you present content in a more effective or engaging manner, 2) will it facilitate collaboration or interaction between students in an more effective manner, and 3) will it help provide feedback or help assess students more effectively.  I feel the blog will get students interacting in a more casual setting regarding the stories, and the Wiki will definitely facilitate collaboration.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      brilliant!!
    • Diane Gusa
       
      Your assessment of the first 4 weeks is so correct, (in my opinion). I am into the end of the 4th week in an online course I am teaching now and my students are finally soaring, It is soooooo exciting for me to see the growth. The only problem is that my class is only 6 weeks summer....The course I am planning is a 4 week winter term course, so now how to I get my students to soar within one week? My dilemma.
    • Donna Angley
       
      Wow, 4 weeks is not very long. What kind of class will you be teaching in the winter session? I'm not sure you can push the timeframe of when they begin to soar...that happens when it happens. I guess if you can somehow get them interacting with each other right away, that might help promote discussions that lead to those 'aha' moments.a little quicker.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      I decided not to do winter term...I will no less than 8 week courses...which as an adjunct is a $$$ decision that will hurt. However, I do not believe that 16 courses squeezed into 4 weeks is ethical.
  • My Avatar
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      WOW!!! cool
  • I really hope I get the opportunity to teach this course
  • I really hope I get the opportunity to teach this course
  • the course unfolded slowly
  • the course unfolded slowly
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  • off.  Luckily, the course unfolded slowly and in a very specific order, and I had time to reflect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me.  I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete
  • flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me.  I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it.  This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment.   It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
  • flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me.  I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it.  This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment.   It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
  • the course unfolded slowly
  • the course unfolded slowly
  • the course unfolded slowly
  • the course unfolded slowly
  • ’s also come at a g
  • prepare, and digest the information coming at me.  I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it.  This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment.   It’s also come at a g
  • Never in a million years did I ever think that I would go on to graduate school, but here I am on the cusp of that achievement.  I am the first out of 6 siblings to earn a master’s degree. 
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      Congratulations Donna!!!
  • I didn’t realize that I was in charge of my own learning. 
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      any kind of learning... online or f2f is ONLY student-centered if that is how it is designed and if that is how the instructor facilitates it... now that you know that you are in charge of your own learning, i need your help : ) You can help me change the world by sharing that insight with anyone you have the opportunity to teach in the future. I have very high expectations of you Donna!!! : )
  • I came to realize that I didn’t have to give them all my knowledge — that in fact, I had to let them learn some of these things on their own.
  • I think it’s a situation where I don’t know what I need until somebody tells me that I need it.  I’m certainly open to suggestions, but at this point I feel like I’ve done what I was supposed to do; however, I realize that this is VERY new to me and that I have probably made some mistakes that will be pointed out to me.  That’s fine, and as I said, I welcome comments and suggestions. 
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      good point
Sue Rappazzo

Teaching at an Internet Distance-----MERLOT - 1 views

  • 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."
    • Kelly Hermann
       
      As a red-head, I'm just glad they didn't use the phrase "red-headed stepchild." LOL
  • 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).
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  • Does good teaching in the classroom translate to good teaching online? If so, what elements can be translated and which ones can't or shouldn't?
  • "The shared mantra of the faculty and staff during the development of this document was that "good teaching is good teaching!" An Emerging Set of Guiding Principles... is less about distance education and more about what makes for an effective educational experience, regardless of where or when it is delivered."
  • Good practice encourages student-faculty contact. Good practice encourages cooperation among students. Good practice encourages active learning. Good practice gives prompt feedback. Good practice emphasizes time on task. Good practice communicates high expectations. Good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
  • Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of class is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students' intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and future plans.
  • At first glance, teaching a class without the ability to see and hear the students in person appears daunting. The enlightened, quizzical, or stony facial expressions, the sighs of distress or gasps of wonder, and even the less-than-subtle raised hands or interjected queries that constitute immediate feedback to a lecture, discussion, or clinical situation are absent. Yet the proponents of online instruction will argue that these obstacles can be overcome, and that the online format has its own advantages. In the online experiences documented in the "Net.Learning" (www.pbs.org/netlearning/home.html) videotape, which our seminar viewed early in the year, Peggy Lant of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo presented a striking example that occurred in her class' online discussion of civil war. One student's comments were especially gripping as she had just survived a civil war in her home country. Shy students who have trouble participating in a classroom discussion are said to feel more comfortable in an online setting. The ability to sit and think as one composes a question or comment also can raise the quality of the discussion. Susan Montgomery at the University of Michigan has developed an interactive website that addresses diverse learning styles through the use of multimedia (Montgomery, 1998).
  • Teachers, trainers, and professors with years of experience in classrooms report that computer networking encourages the high-quality interaction and sharing that is at the heart of education. ...(The) characteristics of online classes... generally result in students' contributing material that is much better than something they would say off the top of their heads in a face-to-face class. There is a converse side, however. Just after the passage above, Harasim cautions (Harasim et al. 1995) On the other hand, unless the teacher facilitates the networking activities skillfully, serious problems may develop. A conference may turn into a monologue of lecture-type material to which very few responses are made. It may become a disorganized mountain of information that is confusing and overwhelming for the participants. It may even break down socially into name calling rather than building a sense of community.
  • At what cost is this high degree of interaction, the need for which we suspect is student motivation and the professor's (online) attentiveness, achieved? In the previous section it was noted that charismatic professors of large (several hundred student) classes might indeed reach and motivate the students in the back row by intangible displays of attentiveness. Online, attentiveness must be tangible, and may involve more effort than in a face-to-face setting. These considerations imply an inherent limitation of online class size; size is determined by the amount of effort required to form a "community of learners."
  • Small class sizes and the linear dependence of effort on student numbers are indicative of the high level of interaction needed for high quality online teaching
  • The best way to maintain the connection [between online education and the values of traditional education] is through ensuring that distance learning is 'delivered' not just by CD ROMs, but by living teachers, fully qualified and interested in doing so online ... [P]repackaged material will be seen to replace not the teacher as a mentor and guide but the lecture and the textbook. Interaction with the professor will continue to be the centerpiece of education, no matter what the medium.
  • and Ronald Owston, who points out (Owston, 1997) "...we cannot simply ask 'Do students learn better with the Web as compared to traditional classroom instruction?' We have to realize that no medium, in and of itself, will likely improve learning in a significant way when it is used to deliver instruction. Nor is it realistic to expect the Web, when used as a tool, to develop in students any unique skills."
  • Facilitating Online Courses: A Checklist for Action The key concept in network teaching is to facilitate collaborative learning, not to deliver a course in a fixed and rigid, one-way format. Do not lecture. Be clear about expectations of the participants. Be flexible and patient. Be responsive. Do not overload. Monitor and prompt for participation. For assignments, set up small groups and assign tasks to them. Be a process facilitator. Write weaving comments every week or two... Organize the interaction. Set rules and standards for good netiquette (network etiquette)... Establish clear norms for participation and procedures for grading... Assign individuals or small groups to play the role of teacher and of moderator for portions of the course. Close and purge moribund conferences in stages... Adopt a flexible approach toward curriculum integration on global networks.
  •  
    Love the step child reference!
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  •  
    Have I not struggled with this throughout this course?!
  •  
    Joy and I talked about this in discussions. I am now struggling with making a project mgr. aware of this at work. The vendor training online was boring so lets deliver it all in person. Junk is Junk online or in person!
  •  
    That body language we mentioned in discussions this week in ETAP687
  •  
    MERLOT-Teaching at internet distance
  •  
    module 4 merlot
ian august

Review of Weimer, Learning-Centered Teaching - 0 views

  • Chapter two examines the effects of too much teacher control and its adverse effects on student motivation, confidence, and enthusiasm for learning. Students are more likely to become self-regulated learners when some of the conditions of their learning are more in their control. Weimer does not advocate abandoning our professional responsibility and letting students determine course content or whether they will do assignments; instead she recommends that teachers establish parameters within which their students will select options. Increasing the decisions students can make about assignments and activities more fully engages them in the course and its content. Among Weimer’s suggestions are providing a variety of assignments to demonstrate learning the course outcomes (students choose a combination), negotiating policies about class participation, and letting students choose which material the teacher will review in class the period before a major test. 
  • . The function of content in a learner-centered course changes from covering content to using content
  • describes the changed role of the teacher in a learner-centered classroom from sage on stage to guide on the side
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • When the teacher dominates the learning, students take shallow approaches to learning.
  • 1.  Teachers do learning tasks less. Assign to students some of the tasks of organizing the content, giving examples, summarizing discussions, solving problems, and drawing diagrams, charts, and graphs.            2.  Teachers do less telling; students do more discovering. Give a quiz on your syllabus and policies without going over it first. Let students discover information in assigned readings without presenting it first or summarizing it later.  3.  Teachers do more design work. Design activities and assignments that move students to new skill levels, motivate engagement in the course content by doing the work of practitioners in the discipline, and that develop self-awareness of their learning of the content. 4.   Faculty do more modeling. Demonstrate how a skilled learner (the teacher) continues to learn. Show them drafts of your articles, notes on your own reading in professional journals; talk aloud as you solve a problem, thereby revealing  and modeling your thinking process. 5.  Faculty do more to get students learning from and with each other. Create work for small groups to do in class. 6.  Faculty work to create climates for learning. Create a climate that promotes interaction, autonomy, and responsibility (more in chapter five). 7.  Faculty do more with feedback. In addition to assigning grades, use other means of providing frequent feedback (more in chapter six).
  • focuses on student responsibility for learning and how to promote it.
  • transforming passive students into autonomous learners
  • The more structured we make the environment, the more structure students need
  • The more motivation we provide, the less they find within themselves. The more responsibility for learning we try to assume, the less they accept on their own. The more control we exert, the more restive their response. We end up with students who have little commitment to and almost no respect for learning and who cannot function without structure and imposed control. (p. 98)
  • The more we decide for students, the more they expect us to decide.
  • eimer explains several strategies for creating a climate that produces self-regulated intrinsically motivated learners: 
  • The instructor should “make the content relevant, demonstrate its power to answer questions, and otherwise show its apparent intrigue.” Make the student responsible for learning decisions by relying on logical consequences of action and inaction, rather than punishment. For example, to deal with lateness, present important material or assignments early in the period that you do not repeat, rather than deduct attendance points for lateness. Do not summarize chapters if students have not read them. If they arrive unprepared, put the unread material on a test; give frequent tests. Be consistent in administering policies. If your syllabus says late homework is not accepted, never accept late homework despite the heart-wrenching excuse offered by the student. Involve students in a discussion of creating a climate that promotes learning. Have this discussion early in the semester. Weimer’s suggestion for starting the discussion is to have students complete sentence stems such as “In the best class I ever had, teachers . . .” “In the best class I ever had, students . . .” “I learn best when . . .” “I feel most confident as a learner when . . .” (p. 108) Obtain feedback on the classroom climate occasionally and revisit the discussion of policies and procedures. Employ practices that “encourage students to encounter themselves as learners” (p. 111). Explain the purposes and benefits of assignments and projects; tell students what problems they might run into in doing the assignments and suggest remedies. Help them with time management. With group projects, provide guidance in managing the project, handling group dynamics, and assigning individual responsibilities.
  • helps us deal with the fact that almost all students will resist their teacher’s learning-centered approaches. Most of the learner-centered strategies recommended in this book change what students have become accustomed to. Understanding the reasons will help teachers deal with the inevitable student resistance when they present learner-centered practices and policies that withdraw the support students have become dependent upon during their first twelve years of schooling. The good news is that most students see the benefits of learner-centered approaches and benefit from them.
  • , why do students resist it? Based on her research, Weimer lists four reasons: Learner-centered approaches are more work. When the teacher does not summarize the important points in the chapter, the students will have to read it for themselves. When the teacher asks small groups to produce five applications of a concept, rather than supply it in a handout, the students have to do more work. Learner-centered approaches are more threatening. Students who lack confidence in themselves as learners become filled with anxiety at the prospect of becoming responsible for decisions that might be wrong. Students who are not used to questions with no single, authority-approved right answer are fearful of being wrong. Learner-centered approaches involve losses. The strategies recommended in this book are designed to move students to higher stages of self-directedness and higher stages of intellectual development. Moving from one stage to another requires a loss of certainty and the comfort that certainty brings. Learner-centered approaches may be beyond students. Some students’ lack of self-confidence or intellectual immaturity may prevent their accepting responsibility for their own learning.
  • overcome student resistance to learner-centered approache
  • The communication is frequent and explicit The communication encourages and positively reinforces The communication solicits feedback from students The communication resists their resistance.
  • developmental approach to transforming passive dependent learners into self-confident autonomous learners. Learners become self-directed in stages, not in one sin
  • moment of transformatio
alexandra m. pickett

The Digital Citizen - My Sojourn in the World of Web 2.0 by Irene Watts-Politza - 3 views

  • “You are interacting with one single individual at all times.  There is no ‘class’ …”
    • Lisa Martin
       
      Thinking about this really helped me redesign my course profile :-)
  • “Design a course with the student perspective, one who has never taken an online course before” (Pickett, What Works?).
    • Lisa Martin
       
      Great advice! I have a hard time sometimes with this, because there's part of me that also wants to design it for someone who not only hasn't taken an online course, but perhaps isn't very tech savvy :-)
  • I must find a balance, however, in order to complete the necessary tasks well so I can savor the doing of those that have salience.
    • Lisa Martin
       
      I need to find balance myself. I think the only reason the way I'm doing things right now is ok is because I live alone. I will eventually have a family, and I want to be an online instructor...I will certainly need to figure this out!
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • I realized that the online environment is actually a type of classroom; is that why course language includes such terms as “area”, and “room”?
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      e u r e k a ! ! !
  • The resulting ah ha moments became the core of my entry …
  • One activity that I am especially excited to observe is the students tweeting from their placements when they make a course- to- practice connection.
    • Lisa Martin
       
      great idea!
    • Maria Guadron
       
      AWESOME idea! Love it.
  • How am I simultaneously learning how to be an online student and instructor?
    • Lisa Martin
       
      Great way to think about it
  • Something that has been proven to work is frequent, immediate instructor feedback.
    • Lisa Martin
       
      This is a HUGE difference I notice between Alex and other instructors. She has definitely built her social presence with me this way. Her podcast on my learning activities was an eye opener for me. It made me feel so good that she had ACTUALLY looked at my work! I have often wondered if other teachers REALLY did that.
  • Aug 04 2012
  • Reflecting on the online course design process, I realize I have made a tremendous transition from first-time student to instructor in the space of one semester. What I have learned about myself is that I have an affinity for designing in the online environment. 
  • I am technology-proficient.
  • While I am not yet a full technophile, I am surely no longer a technophobe!
  •   I so deeply enjoyed the reading and studying portion of this course … it opened a new world of theory to me, made more exciting by the historic proximity of the leading researchers in the field. 
  • I kept telling myself, “You need the experience if you want to be an instructional designer!”
  • So, reflection has proven its worth yet again:  reflecting on my work in designing EED406 thus far is proof that research-based best practice works.
  • discussion is the heart of online learning. 
  • students’ learning is demonstrated through the vehicle of discussion.  
  • blog posts are personalized records of learning, thinking, and being. 
  • It is not about what the instructor wants to hear, it is about hearing the student’s articulation of what is being learned that is essential to evaluating the content of a blog post.
  • Through trying to be “fearless” about using technology, as Alex advises, I have come to learn that confidence is something that one must exercise in all spheres of the online environment.
  • we can not help but to teach when we learn and to learn when we teach.
  • “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” This is certainly true of discussion forum.  We learn with and for each other: as  you learn, I learn. 
  • (Think Twitter, Irene!) 
  • It causes me to reflect on the similarities between online and physical communities, something I had not thought of before.  Could it be that we really are, slowly and steadily, growing into a genuine community?
  • I am a student whose understanding of connectivism and heutagogy is being developed experientially through taking this course.
  • Teaching presence also involves anticipating students’ needs based on monitoring progress and being ready to find that perfect something to support the student’s learning.
  • I have spent my academic life I believing that I have to ‘go it alone’, since I walked home from school alone the first day of first grade.  Strangely, this course, in which I spend so much time alone, is teaching me that I don’t. 
  • complaints, above, I think about the layout of the course; if it’s too many clicks away or the explanations aren’t clear, students become anxious, lose interest, and possibly
  • I just finished what may be my last discussion post for ETAP640. As I went through the post process, I was cognizant of each step: read your classmates’ posts; respond to something that resonates within you; teach (us) something by locating and sharing resources that support your thinking;  include the thinking and experiences of classmates; offer your opinion on what you are sharing; cite your resources for the benefit of all; tag your resources logically.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      hi irene!
  •  
    Student Reflections @wattspoi on "Heutagogy & its Implications for Evaluative Feedback" http://t.co/xiuWsCsD #lrnchat #edchat
Maria Guadron

Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy - 0 views

  • 1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles 1984:12).
  • 1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles 1984:12).
  •  
    Malcolm Knowles and andragogy
Melissa Pietricola

News: The Evidence on Online Education - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning," the report says.
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      benefits to online learning as students spent more time on task than students in the face to face environment.
  • differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages
  • This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      What is meant by an open-source learning management system??
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • open-source learning management systems
  •  
    This summarizes the key findings of the report "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning".
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