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I have long argued that the solution to the problem of motivation lies in providing students with subjects they want to study and become proficient in. To my mind, this article to some degree validates that argument. The authors conclude, "Distance learners learn with different goal profiles that are associated with different learning patterns... distance learners who endorsed both mastery and performance-approach goals engaged in deep learning using adaptive strategies consistently throughout an academic year. (They) remained interested in learning and had confidence in their learning abilities across three different survey points over the year."

This, to me, signifies the success of a cMOOC: "Our study also shows that top ten nodes with the highest in-degree were primarily hashtags. This suggests that people were connecting around thematic markers of common interest, referring to them and making them popular. In fact, thematic analysis of the same dataset confirms that the learners were more focused on the topics of interest, rather than those suggested by course facilitators, and that those topics emerged quickly in the course, and were maintained by the groups of people that adopted them." Fascinating paper; if you're interested in cMOOCs don't miss it.

wo Things to do in Learning nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/06/25 Icon This is an interesting way to view two separate approaches to learning. The first begins with "responding to challenges" that would be faced by a student or learner; the other is to "present challenges". In the first, the provider furnishes resources, services and other "useful stuff", while in the second it creates experiences and "impactful challenges". "This is," says nick shackleton-jones, "really a simplified version of the diagram set out in 'The Tragedy of L&D'. It is presented here as two options because this is how it often comes up in conversation." Interestingly, neither aligns with the concept of 'courses' as we currently define them. "'Courses' - in the sense of 'content-dumping' (either online or as part of an event) do not feature in either activity... At the very foundation lies the false assumption is that learning professionals are tasked with stuffing information into people's heads. And that is not how learning works."

Tacit Knowledge Acquisition and Dissemination in Distance Learning Annel Ketcha, Jokull Johannesson, Paul Bocij, The European Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 2015/12/28 Icon This is quite a good discussion of the concept of tacit knowledge, how it evolved since its original description in Polanyi, and focusing on the the "organisational view supporting the articulation of tacit knowledge" by people like Nonaka and Takeuchi. Tacit knowledge is "is that part of knowledge that is widely embodied in individuals but not able to be readily expressed." In more recent years, one objective of e-learning in organizations has been to disseminate tacit knowledge across the organization, but as the authors note, this use is contentious. "Many researchers argue that means to share tacit knowledge cited by the previous schools are no longer suitable in the current digital era." Maybe so. Or maybe - as I think - all knowledge is tacit knowledge. Either way, the discussions of tacit knowledge in the field are premature. "A major gap in tacit knowledge in e-learning research is the lack of empirical evaluation of tacit knowledge and its flow among online learners and tutors." Image: Nonaka and Takeuchi (1997) (from here) (more).old