ESSENTIAL QUESTION: HOW DO
LEARNING THEORIES MANIFEST THEMSELVES IN ONLINE COURSES?
What
theorie(s) fits best with online teaching and learning? They are Behaviorism, Cognitive and
Constructivist Theory. To have a successful online course there needs to be
communication, active learning, collaboration and the learner “needs to be
actively involved with the teacher and peers in creating knowledge” (Harasim,
pg.60) which is known as the Constructivist Theory. The course should provide a
“Zone Proximal Development”, which gives students the opportunity to learn, get
assistance from the teacher and move towards “retaining and building prior
knowledge to complete the work independently” (Harasim, 68). Courses should
have certain types of rewards set up for students. This is very minimum to the
requirements following a theory, but students respond well to positive
feedback, a reward for completing their work, whether it’s a grade,
acknowledgement or a badge. With this, teachers can see an improvement in
students behaviors and drive for attending the course and completing the work.
During
the Behaviorism Theory, Skinner, talked about the “teaching machine” and how it
provided immediate feedback for the students. With my own philosophy, I will
always give immediate feedback to my students. I think it’s important for
students to see their progress, understand how they are learning, set goals and
change the process of how I teach depending on my students success. As
teachers, we do this all the time in the classroom. We walk around, observe,
give informal and formal assessments, we listen to our students and give as
much assistance as possible. With an online course, feedback is extremely
important. Students need much more “support and feedback in the online
environment than in a traditional course. This is because the potential threat
that students feel alienated is quite high in the Virtual Classroom”
(ion). These are some strategies to
integrate in an online course (Kelly);
1.
Be timely with
your feedback – “if
you don’t start off at the beginning giving them feedback that has meaning for
them, the quality of their work slips.”
2.
Start
with a positive message – This is the same as writing comments on a report
card. State a positive message first then move into the areas that need
improvement when giving feedback.
3.
Help
students relate the course to every day life
4.
Use
rubrics
Consider various
formats for feedback – Most of the feedback is done through a text format. My
favorite feedback suggestion is the audio feedback Students can look at their
work and listen to the feedback from the instructor. Also, it’s noted to be
faster when giving feedback, “Voice feedback reduces the amount of time that it
takes to respond to the students [because] most teachers, can talk faster than
they can type.”
When
I take an online course, I am able to understand the course much better after
reading all of the learning objectives and the standards. In my classroom, I
always have the learning objectives for each lesson written on the board. The
students understand what they are going to learn and know the expectations for
the class. With online courses and learning, students should be informed with
the objective. The students should be able to recall “prior knowledge” (Harasim, pg.51)
and build onto the current information. The instructor should provide an
example that students can follow, to understand all of the expectations for the
assignment. Students should have an opportunity to collaborate with their peers
and demonstrate their learning. The teacher should be available to provide
support and feedback if needed. The instructor should complete assessments
throughout the course, repeat with a different process, or change the procedure
to make sure all students are understanding the content and are successful.
References
Harasim, L. (2012). Learning theory and online technologies.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Communication
in Online Courses: Strategies for Providing Feedback. (n.d.). Retrieved January
23, 2015, from
http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/communication/feedback.asp
Kelly, R. (2014). Feedback
Strategies for Online Courses. Faculty Focus. Retrieved January 21, 2015, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/feedback-strategies-online-courses/
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI also like to have objectives laid out. I like your suggestion of audio feedback. I struggle with students looking at their feedback. They simply turn in work and think that is enough. I am always looking for new ideas for feedback.
-Matthew
I agree that support and feedback in a distance learning course is so important. It goes back to that dialogue that is needed between teacher and learner or learner and other learners. I've been thinking about learning objectives and how they always come from the teacher; how can students also "construct" learning objectives and does that impact how they are assessed? It's almost a higher-order learning ability to be able to set your own learning objectives. As I was thinking about the learning theories and constructivist learning theory, that's what came to mind; if a learner is constructing knowledge, skills, and experiences, can they construct learning objectives as well, or does the learner still only be evaluated by the learning objectives set forth by the teacher. This happens to me all the time in my work, there are so many "by products" of a lesson that students experience and yet that is not captured in a meaningful way for evaluation. It's definitely something for me to think about in my practice.
ReplyDeleteYou touched on two key points for me immediate feedback and learning objectives. I think it is great that you always try to give your students immediate feedback. As a 3rd grade teacher I tried to do this as much as possible. You mentioned you like giving feedback in the form of audio, what tool do you use to do this? I also think it's good that you post your learning objectives for students to see. I think it's so important for students to know what and why the are learning a concept. I am the type of person who needs to see value in something or I don't pay too close of attention (valued purpose). If I don't see value in what I am learning I usually check out (mentally). I try to keep this in mind for when I am teaching concepts in my class to my students.
ReplyDeleteI liked the suggestion for feedback as audio. I haven't done this with my students. If I were to have a virtual classroom, I would definitely use audio and text feedback. Screencast would probably be the easiest tool to use.
DeleteI absolutely agree with you about feedbacks. Feedbacks are an important component of helping students recognize what they understand and what their misconceptions are. In addition, feedbacks help teachers recognize students' weaknesses and/or strengths. Also, I like your idea about the different ways of providing feedbacks to students. By creating a audio form of feedbacks, students could keep track of their feedbacks and later reflect on what they learned and experienced.
ReplyDelete