Guidebook Chapter 6 – Learning and Learners
The students are the core to successful distance learning experiences. Quality learning experiences of students not only depend on the efforts and preparation of the instructors, but also are largely determined by the efforts and preparation of the distance learner. (Simonson, et all (2009), p 180)
When looking at how to teach online or e-courses from the instructor’s point it is quite easy. We have instructional designers and curriculum specialists that help organize and plan out the courses for the educators and then teach them how to use the different technologies that they will be expected to use during the course. The question then arises, what about the students? Who is going to help the students learn how to become successful online learners? This is where MBC Group is different. We plan on not only helping teach the teachers, but teach the learners how to be effective and successful online learners.
According to different studies, the piece that most online learners miss from a traditional classroom setting when they move into an online setting is the face-to-face contact. It isn’t that they need to physically see the other students and the instructor, but the ability to get to know the different students and instructor within the course. We want to change this. We will encourage our students to not only use the discussion boards and blogs for topics related to the courses they are taking but to also talk about their experiences within the course and about themselves. By doing this, we believe that the students will be able to learn more about each other and it will close the gap between the traditional face-to-face classrooms and the online classrooms.
As Stodel and MacDonald recommend from their studies, we plan to implement several of their suggestions on how to help e-learners (Stodel and MacDonald (2006) p 17-19). We plan on creating environments that are more spontaneous so they are not so cold and calculated like some learners thought. We will also first help give the new e-learners some tips and trick on how to become effective online learners. Most importantly we will set up all our courses to first outline the expectations for the students in the course and the instructors in the course and post them where they can be referred back to at any time the student or instructor needs to. We believe that by doing this it will make both the learner and the instructor more aware of what they should expect out of each other. Finally, we want to first learn from our learners on how they feel they can best learn and try to adapt part of our courses to meet the needs of the current learners within the course.
As discussed by Carliner in his article Ten Tips for Getting Learners to Take E-Courses, if we want to encourage our learners to take these courses over traditional courses, we must give them some assistance and guidance. We propose having an advisor help the learners select the courses that will be the most useful and applicable to their situations. We believe that this will help the students see how what they are learning is relevant to their lives. However, we will not only provide counseling for what courses to take, but also technical support to help students with problems with hardware or software problems they may be experiencing. We will also set up a program so that students will receive a certificate showing that they have completed the course and a certification program where after finishing a series of courses, the student will receive recognition that they have completed an approved program. By doing these things and having the management be the ones that hand out these certificates, the students will see that the management believes in what they are doing and wants others to strive for these same accomplishments.
The overwhelming factor that we must all remember is that each person is unique and the way that they learn best is unique. What we must do is try to make the learning experiences for each one of our students unique but without reinventing it and creating a course that is special for each student. We want to take each course and change it slightly once we learn more about our students in order to make it fit into each of their lives. We want our learners to apply what they are learning in each course into their lives. By doing this, we believe they will be better able to understand why we are teaching them different topics and how they apply to their personal lives. What we all have to remember is that “online learning only enhances a focus on the learner as an individual within a community of learning if individual differences are acknowledged and addressed in the design of learner support services” (Anderson and Elloumi (2004) p 383).
References
Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. (2004).Theory and Practice of Online Learning, Canada: Athabasca University. Please note, this book can be retrieved athttp://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/.
Arnold, Lydia (2008). Experiential work-integrated online learning: Insights from an established UK higher education program. Innovate Online, 4 (3), Retrieved October 9, 2008, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=494
Carliner, S (2008, January). Ten tips for getting learners to take e-courses. Retrieved October 9, 2008, from Learning Circuits Web site: http://www.learningcircuits.org/0108_carliner.htm
Lambert, J. & Cuper, P. (2008). Multimedia technologies and familiar spaces: 21st-century teaching for 21st-century learners. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 8(3). Retrieved on October 8, 2008, from http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss3/currentpractice/article1.cfm
Simonson, M, Smaldino, S, Albright, M, & Zvacek, S (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education: Fourth edition. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Stodel, E., Thompson, T., & MacDonald, C. (2006) Learners’ perspectives on what is missing from online learning: Interpretations through the community of inquiry framework. The International Review of Research in Open Distance Learning [Online] 7(3). Retrieved on October 10, 2008 fromhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/325/744