Relevance and Importance of Online Learning
Online learning properly developed offers tremendous benefits for students. In relation to the course I have developed in particular, it offers remedial students the ability to gain understanding of key concepts to prepare for college-level work as well as offering non-traditional students the ability to refresh themselves on key concepts quickly. In addition, short mini-courses like this allow students to take a quick refresher if they need additional support while working through college-level courses. While this type of support is not the best fit for every student, I believe it can help a great many students to succeed in college without feeling like they are being labeled as “the dumb kid,” which study after study has shown simply is not effective.
Learning Theories
While an online learning environment can be effectively developed using any learning theory (or theories), I tend to think in terms of constructivist/constructionist or connectivist theories. For this course in particular, I tended mostly toward connectivist ideas. Connectivism “is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.” Since this course was focused on remediation–making connections that students have missed or forgotten–the first two modules focus on connecting familiar concepts with order of operations. With that background then, the course moves on to methods often associated with behaviorism, explaining the material and practicing problems. After demonstrating understanding of the concept, then, the last module connects the newly learned concept with other concepts that will build on the new understanding.
Implementation
Having previously developed a detailed 3-column table (3CT) and Understanding by Design (UbD) template, developing the actual course was mostly a matter of locating appropriate resources, writing the introductory and connecting text. I also added the last connecting module, which wasn’t in the initial 3CT OR UbD template. Future areas for improvement would be to include an introductory video and possibly introductory and/or connecting videos to add some more direct, personal connection to students.
Lessons Learned
While developing this course, I was struck in particular by the importance of robust preparation. Having already put in several hours developing the 3CT and UbD made developing the course itself dramatically easier than it would have been otherwise. However, the inverse of that was also interesting. Even with all that preparation, it was not until after the course was taking shape that I noticed some areas that needed improvement. I’m confident as well that teaching the course will require constant re-evaluation and revision of the course. If online learning is to effective, it will be because of many hours of preparation, evaluation, and research.
References
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Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.
International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning,
2(1).
http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm
Because of that, the course takes a little extra time looking at the concept from different angles with some fun analogies and exercises. Then, having established the need for order of operations, the next module goes into explaining order of operations on a more technical level–the way students have likely heard it before–before moving on to sets of practice problems so the student can try and self-assess.