Week 16 Blog

Reflection on Online Instruction, Personal Theory of Online Learning, and Future Direction of Online Learning.

It has been a great experience to interact with my peers and instructor to learn new social media like twitter for the first time along with other online tools. I strongly believe I have gone through a process which helped me to understand about online learning/teaching more deeply than before I took this course, to relate online learning/teaching to my personal online learning theory, and to develop a coherent understanding of my personal identity as an instructional designer/an instructor to design an online course. Active engagement through peer discussions and constructive feedbacks process in this course were critical and effective in constructing knowledge through developing clear understanding of both benefits and challenges of online learning and teaching.

I have realized that teaching online is not the same as teaching face-to-face. Some of my peers had different view and I completely respect that. Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000) suggested that learning occurs through the interaction of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence within a community of inquiry that is composed of teachers and students. My understanding through literature search is that social presence is the most critical element that is missing in online learning if we compare it with face-to-face learning. The most important barrier for effective online learning is the challenge of bringing social presence in online class. Jones, Warren and Roberson (2009) noted, “…when learning moves from face-to-face to online, the intimacy and rapport is reduced” (p. 270). So, it is important to bring social presence into an online setting to help building interpersonal relationships as learners who do not meet face-to-face. And technologies such as asynchronous and synchronous discussions meetings help bringing social presence in online learning environment.

In addition to social presence, research shows teaching presence is a significant determinate of student satisfaction, perceived learning, and sense of community (Garrison, 2006). The attitude, practice, and expectations of both learners and teachers need to be fundamentally different in an online context compare to face-to-face. Designing instruction that encourage peer-learning/peer-instruction is a significant consideration in online learning. I have experienced the importance of peer-learning since I got in to this program. Without peer-instruction I would not have been successful in this program. Boud et al. (1999) refer to peer-learning as the use of teaching and learning strategies in which students learn with and from each other without intervention of a teacher. It is essential to design peer-instruction activities appropriately that encourages students to deepen their understanding of contents, take ownership of their own learning, enhance meta-cognitive skills, and increase motivation (Topping, 2003).

The potential of online learning lies in four factors: accessibility, flexibility, interactivity, and collaboration. Online learning environment provides flexible time for learners to think and reflect where as in face-to-face students have to response quick. Shy students engage actively in online where everybody feels comfortable to participate. In a study on improving historical knowledge and cognition through Second Life avatar role play, Warren and Wakefield (2010) stated that “LTCA theory helped to augment student learning experience through more active communication and increased content sharing among students to build a social learning community” (p. 563). McKinley and Champagne (2013) found that online discussion has the potential to increase critical thinking skills, leading to activity success. The key challenges of online learning are copyright, quality assurance, and personalized learning in social constructivism. In online learning instructor has limitation to observe learners’ body language and facial expressions to draw attentions and engage learner.

From a learning psychology perspective, individual or personalized learning (Polanyi, 1964) needs to be balanced with the social dimensions of learning. My personal theory of learning aligns more with social constructivism which is well supported by research. The goal of instruction is not to ensure that learners know the facts but rather they interpret information in a meaningful way by using discourse. According to Jonassen (1991) constructivist learning environments are most effective for advance level knowledge acquisition in the process of negotiation and dialogue. Learners learn to articulate their own understanding by discussing with peers and instructors. The strategies utilized by constructivists include situating tasks in real world contexts. Use of cognitive apprenticeships, collaborative learning, social negotiation are good example of social constructivism methods. It is necessary to provide the environment of community, collaboration, and content for successful online learning.

Educators have the opportunity to allow learners from around the world to access education globally for all due to the rapid development of mobile apps and evolution of wireless technologies. There is great potential for mobile learning in developing countries, but careful planning is required for mobile learning to be successful (Muir, 2013; Traxler, 2013). Vavoula and Sharples (2009) state that “mobile learning is a social rather than technical phenomenon of people on the move, constructing spontaneous learning contexts and advancing through everyday life by negotiating knowledge and meanings through interactions with settings, people and technology”. A mobile learning task can use augmentation which may involve learners using the text function on their phones to create a chain story in groups, which is then uploaded to a blog, with comments from other groups, classes. This adds a level of ‘functional improvement’ and enhancement: the stories can easily be shared with an audience beyond the classroom, inviting interactions that would otherwise not be as easy to achieve. I believe mobile learning will expand rapidly in future.

Reference

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical Inquiry in a Text-based Environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. Internet and Higher Education 2(2-3), 87-105.

McKinley, J. and Champagne, D.J. (2013). Promoting school based cohorts in distance/onloine learning. Creative Education, 4(8A), 9-11.

Searls, D.B. (2012). Ten Simple Rules for Online Learning. PLOS Computational Biology, 8(9), e1002631. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002631

Warren, S.J. and Wakefield, J.S. (2010). Learning and teaching as communicative actions: Social media as educational tool. Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 3, 17-39.