"A growing appreciation for the porous boundaries between the classroom and life experience, along with the power of social learning, authentic audiences, and integrative contexts, has created not only promising changes in learning but also disruptive moments in teaching. "
"Games, simulations, and virtual worlds provide educators with an opportunity to engage learners in an immersive and interactive environment that requires knowledge, decision making, and information management skills. However, the use of immersive learning environments can be controversial; their association with play and fun is often considered noneducational. Even so, games, simulations, and virtual worlds are gaining increased cultural acceptance. Research suggests that these environments can play a significant role in facilitating learning through engagement, group participation, immediate feedback, and providing real-world contexts."
In team-based learning, students work in groups on outcome-based or problem-based assignments. Assessing the work produced by teams, however, presents a significant challenge, and this difficulty is especially prominent in online environments. Developing and implementing a transparent assessment process that both supports and recognizes individual and group learning can generate a powerful combination of interdependency and peer cooperation. Online assessment tools that evaluate both individual and group effort support this dynamic, fostering the reliance on community that is becoming an increasingly important feature of the online academic landscape.
Successful online students share their secrets on how they have succeeded in the online environment. The pointers in this article will also help those instructors who are new to online teaching.