TBers,
For those of you teaching online (or considering it), this is a worthwhile
post to read. It is from the Tomorrow's Professor Listserv hosted by
Stanford University. If you are teaching online now, or considering it in
the near future and have questions about good pedagogy (or androgogy) please
don't hesitate to contact me. I make a good cup of coffee and would love to
talk to you about it.
Cheers,
Jim Greenberg
***** Post pasted below ******
We posit that readiness for online learning has less to do with students'
knowledge of technology and digital dexterity and more to do with their
knowledge of how to learn and their motivation to engage fully in the
process. Therefore, we submit that the introduction of online experiences
for students should be consciously engineered to best capitalize on their
readiness for independent learning, and that the progression into the online
learning environment be intentionally built into the undergraduate
curriculum rather than simply offering students an open menu of
face-to-face, hybrid, or fully online courses.
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Folks:
The posting below looks at the non-technical factors necessary for effective
online learning. It is by Roxanne Cullen & Michael Harris of Ferris State
University, in Big Rapids, Michigan. and is #46 in a series of selected
excerpts from the NT&LF newsletter reproduced here as part of our "Shared
Mission Partnership." NT&LF has a wealth of information on all aspects of
teaching and learning. If you are not already a subscriber, you can check it
out at [http://www.ntlf.com/] The on-line edition of the Forum--like the
printed version - offers subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share
new ways of helping students reach the highest levels of learning. National
Teaching and Learning Forum Newsletter, Volume 18, Number 5, September
2009.© Copyright 1996-2009. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc. All
rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
[log in to unmask]
UP NEXT: The Best of Both Worlds: Infusing Liberal Learning into a Business
Curriculum
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
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Online Learning: More Than Technical Savvy
Too often student convenience or institutional profitability drives the
decisions regarding what courses become part of the online curriculum and
what prerequisites, if any, prepare students for the experience
rather than goals for student learning. The notion that students emerging
from the K-12 system today, the generation dubbed the millenials, have such
technologically savvy that they can handle the rigors of fully
online learning is unfounded. Admittedly, today's students are, as Julie
Evans of the Project Tomorrow Speak Up Survey on education and technology
puts it, digitally "native" while their teachers, parents, and the rest of
us appear to them as "immigrants" in their technology- rich world. She
writes that students are functioning as a "digital advance team for the rest
of us, adopting and adapting new technologies for increasing productivity
beyond our expectations" (5). She calls on K-12 educators to rethink their
hesitancy to embrace technology because of its potential as a means of
promoting cheating, and to begin to consider new forms of learning and
assessment in this digital era.
Evans' views are based on data collected over the past six years reporting
on the responses of over 1.5 million students, teachers, parents, and
administrators about their use of technology. The interesting question that
this raises, however, in relation to online learning is why it is, then,
that adult learners, the "immigrants" of the technological world, tend to
perform better in fully online learning environments than their younger,
"native" counterparts?
Tweet, Yes, But Think?
We posit that readiness for online learning has less to do with students'
knowledge of technology and digital dexterity and more to do with their
knowledge of how to learn and their motivation to engage fully in the
process. Therefore, we submit that the introduction of online experiences
for students should be consciously engineered to best capitalize on their
readiness for independent learning, and that the progression into the online
learning environment be intentionally built into the undergraduate
curriculum rather than simply offering students an open menu of
face-to-face, hybrid, or fully online courses.
The model of curriculum revision we envision is based on types of learning
rather than on units of knowledge, with the goal being to integrate
different types of learning as appropriate to the readiness of the learner.
Placing types of learning at the center of curriculum review rather than
types of knowledge (for example, hours of general education as opposed to
hours in the major) provides new insight to the task of revising
curricula. A variety of learning opportunities enriches any curriculum by
accommodating individual learners and approaching learning outcomes from
multiple perspectives.
Miller & Seller (1990) define three types of learning according to the role
of the learner. The first is transmissive, sometimes called assimilative
learning, which assumes knowledge is content, a transferrable commodity to
be gained by demonstration, telling, and modeling. Transmissive learning is
the hallmark of the instructional paradigm. The second type, transactional
learning, assumes knowledge is constructed by learners and is characterized
by experiential activities, student-to- student collaboration, and acts of
discovery through active learning and team-based projects. In this
learner-centered approach, the educator is designer, one who facilitates
learning. The third type, transformative learning, asks the learner to
assess new knowledge in relation to existing knowledge, requiring
considerable reflection upon the assumptions and biases that the learner has
accepted as part of his or her existing knowledge.
Building Toward Androgogy
While these three types of learning cannot be fully integrated as they arise
from opposing philosophies of learning, it is possible to build a curriculum
that progressively shifts from transmissive or instructional-based pedagogy
to the transactive and transformational learning that characterizes the
active learning pedagogy of the learner-centered paradigm. This conception
is consistent with the shift that Knowles (1984) identified between teaching
children (pedagogy) and teaching adults (androgogy), defining pedagogy as
the art and science of teaching and androgogy as the art and science of
helping others learn. Androgogy assumes that adults are self-directed
learners and that their life experiences affect their learning both in
regard to preconceptions as well as resources for future learning. Adults
also have a strong sense of immediacy and require relevance to motivate
their learning. Traditional-aged college students are in a transitional
phase between pedagogy and androgogy, for while in some respects they can be
considered adult learners, unlike the adult learner who has a wealth of life
experience and workplace knowledge to draw upon, traditional-aged students
emerging from high school do not have a substantial network of previous
knowledge from which to draw (Harris & Cullen, 2009). In other words, there
is still a need for some transmissive learning opportunities, particularly
in light of the fact that less mature students tend to favor
surface learning and memorization.
New Scaffolding
We propose a model of curriculum review that attempts to infuse the three
learning types, progressively reducing the opportunities for transmissive
learning in favor of transactive and transformational experiences. In this
more holistic approach, curricula are organized according to broad concepts
and types of learning opportunities as opposed to a sequence of units of
knowledge. Redefining curriculum in terms of depth of knowledge as opposed
to information transfer holds the promise of transforming the undergraduate
curriculum into an educational experience that focuses on the student's
self-conscious attention to the process of learning, a curriculum that is
intentional and learner-centered.
Can online learning support this kind of learning? A considerable body of
research suggests that it can. Teaching online, whether web supported,
hybrid, or fully online supports a learner-centered approach for the
teacher. The teacher in the learner-centered class is a designer of learning
opportunities, one who sets the stage and then steps aside while the
students engage in knowledge constructing activities. Particularly in
asynchronous fully online delivery, the teacher has to assume the role of
designer and create the avenues for students to actively engage with course
material and their peers in order to learn, because there is no single point
of contact between students and teacher that allows for the teacher to
remain front and center, so to speak. Weigel's 2002 book, Deep Learning for
a Digital Age, offers a thorough examination of how online tools can be used
to foster constructivist pedagogy and learner- centered teaching, though he
does not advocate fully online courses for most institutions.
New Tools
The tools available for online learning lend themselves to community
building, sharing information, seeking information outside the confines of
the course. Simulations, group research projects, discussion forums, chat
and group functions, and wikis are the kinds of activities that foster deep
learning and transactive learning experiences. Online learning by its very
nature requires active participation on the part of the student and a great
degree of learner discipline, motivation, and control. All of these facets
of the online experience foster engagement, reflection, and create an
environment where deep learning is possible.
But we must also acknowledge that online learning, whether fully online or
blended/hybrid, presents challenges and even barriers for learners. While,
of course, the online venue itself does not preclude courses
designed around the memorization and regurgitation of facts, the tools that
are available for online teaching are just that: tools. It is their use that
makes a course learner-centered. For example, the assessment function can be
used in a traditional manner or it can be used to automatically generate
self tests for students in order for them to begin to regulate their own
learning. Discussions can fall flat face-to-face or online, but in the
online environment it is much easier for the teacher to get full
participation because of the ease of tracking and also the ease of privately
encouraging individuals who need help, which is not always
easy in the face-to-face format. Tools like wikis are great for
collaboration and the individual webpages for students foster
self-expression and engagement in the online community. The online
environment also makes it very easy for students to contribute material in
addition to that provided by the teacher, which presents opportunities to
examine the quality of information that is so readily available to them.
Some suggest that teachers in the online environment resist the temptation
to create a multitude of links for students and instead encourage students
to discover the information outside the course as an active learning
strategy.
If we are to revise curricula based on types of learning rather than types
of knowledge, the issue of online learning must be addressed as part of that
discussion, for the opportunities that online learning in its various
formats can offer the learning environments are too robust to be left to
chance. We need to keep in mind that not all students are ready for many
learner-centered practices, so learner-centered strategies need to be
introduced incrementally so that students are prepared for them. The same
holds true for online learning. We need to prepare our students to engage in
their learning using these tools, keeping in mind that independent learning
is a learned behavior that develops over time. Reviewing curriculum
comprehensively with a focus on types of learning holds the promise of
creating an undergraduate experience that is transformational and prepares
students for the challenges of today's workforce as well as a life of
continuous learning.
Contact
Roxanne Cullen, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Prakken 120
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
Telephone: (231) 591-2713
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
References
* Evans, Julie. 2009. "High-Tech Cheating? Students See It Differently."
Retrieved July 18, 2009,
from http://www.eschoolnews.com/
news/top-news/index.cfm?print&print&i=59609.
* Harris, Michael & Cullen, Roxanne. 2009. "A Model for Curricular
Revision: The Case of Engineering." Innovative Higher Education 34/1:51-63.
* Knowles, Malcolm S. 1984. Andragogy in Action. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
* Miller, John P. & Seller, Wayne. 1990. Curriculum: Perspectives and
Practice. Toronto: CoppClark Pitman.
* Weigel, Van B. 2002. Deep Learning for a Digital Age: Technology's
Untapped Potential to Enrich Higher Education. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
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