The Learning Paradigm in Online Courses - 2 views
-
1995 Change magazine
-
“A paradigm shift is taking hold in American higher education. In its briefest form, the paradigm that has governed our colleges is this: A college is an institution that exists to provide instruction. Subtly but profoundly we are shifting to a new paradigm: A college is an institution that exists to produce learning. This shift changes everything. It is both needed and wanted.”
- ...9 more annotations...
-
The Learning Paradigm (as opposed to the Instruction Paradigm), emphasizes the students’ active role in learning and the purpose of that learning, which can be strong motivators for students. The challenge for instructors is to cede some control of learning to the students.
-
“Rather than feeling responsible for delivering material, instructors need to be responsible for monitoring the students’ progress, giving feedback, and intervening when the students have problems,”
-
the instructor’s role is to guide students in the right direction rather than simply delivering the content.
-
And with the wealth of resources available online, the instructor is no longer the only source of knowledge.
-
In addition to giving students control of their own learning, the Learning Paradigm puts learning in a broader context than a single course does, helping students understand the purpose of the learning beyond the course itself and how they might be able to apply their knowledge to the learning at hand.
-
it’s important for instructors to set expectations and take measures to prepare them to learn in courses that embrace the Learning Paradigm.
-
Having students work together on a paper that each student could more easily do individually is not an effective way to do cooperative learning.
-
offers the following example of an effective way to foster positive interdependence: Have a group of three create a collaborative wiki in which each student contributes a section that he or she then needs to link to the other two students’ contributions. Such an assignment requires each student to teach the other group members his or her content and learn their content.
-
Barr, R.B., & Tagg, J. (1995). From teaching to learning—a new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, 27(6),13-25.
-
Interesting topic. Going from teaching to learning as a goal will require that areas students can learn vary widely as do the goals of why a student is trying to learns, their goals. See another paradigm from England. http://www.textbooksfree.org/Teacher's%20Internet%20Library.htm