Good Article

From Distance Education Report -with blogs and the tools, this is part of what I am trying to create:

A Learner-Centered, Emotionally Engaging Approach to Online Learning
July 15, 2009

Learning research indicates that people learn better in the presence of some emotional connection—to the content or to other people. Creating this emotional connection is particularly challenging in the online classroom, where most communication is asynchronous and lacks many of the emotional cues of the face-to-face environment. Nevertheless, it is possible to do, with a learner-centered approach to teaching and a mastery of the technology that supports it, says Rick Van Sant, associate professor of education at Ferris State University.

“One of the things we know about learning is that learning with emotion is a far deeper experience than learning without emotion,” Van Sant says. Citing recent research (see reference below), Van Sant notes that a little bit of stress and the corresponding release of cortisol makes “neural connections grow thicker, stronger, faster.” However, too much cortisol degrades memory performance.

Creating an emotionally stimulating environment is something good face-to-face instructors do intuitively. “We live and thrive on the positive feedback from students. Students shape our behavior all the time. When technology is mediating between the learners and me, I lose the capacity to read my audience, engage my audience, and alter my style and cadence. I have no capacity on that kind of intuitive level [in the online classroom]. It all has to be intentional and cognitive,” Van Sant says.

Emotional potential of technology
Technology provides access to a vast array of content that has the potential to resonate emotionally with students. One site that Van Sant uses in his courses is Technology, Entertainment, Design (http://www.ted.org/), which features top presenters talking on a wide range of topics.

“I can watch the world’s best presenters, speakers, and thinkers and bring them into my classroom. I can challenge my students with that information. I can ask questions. I can engage them in discussion with their own small community of learners about just what [the presentation] meant for them. The goal is to produce some emotional response, and probably seventy percent come back and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never known stuff like this existed,’ ‘That was the most amazing presentation,’ or ‘This person made the topic come so alive for me.’ But it’s not foolproof. There are always students in the online environment who you just can’t get to. It doesn’t matter if they’re watching the best videos in the world or if I’m writing them directly or if the assignment is about reflection. Whatever it is, they’re guarding themselves and they’re guarding their emotional connection to learning.”

Even though the content may be emotionally engaging, the discussion it generates may not be.

“One of the biggest barriers to online learning is our inability to respond in the moment, unless we happen to be on live chat or video, which is really rare in most of the online learning world,” Van Sant says.

That moment after viewing some emotionally engaging content passes quickly. In a typical online learning environment, students react and post to a discussion board or blog and wait for a response. “I think it’s one of the downsides of asynchronous learning. You lose that opportunity for the teachable moment,” Van Sant says.

“There are many positive aspects to online learning, such as thoughtful reflection. One of the things I see, the students who do not often volunteer or engage in on-the-fly discussion in a face-to-face classroom will turn around in an online environment and become significant discussants. Not that they’re lazy in the classroom; they just don’t process information on the fly quite like somebody else.”

Despite the limitations of asynchronous communication, it still can create an emotional connection that supports learning. For example, collaborating on a wiki can be just the thing to motivate and engage students.

Teachers need new pedogogies
Another obstacle to creating emotionally engaging learning environments is that many online instructors are not technologists. “They’re teachers, they know their subjects, but they don’t necessarily do a good job from a pedagogy standpoint,” Van Sant says.

Many online instructors take a teacher-centered approach to pedagogy, posting PowerPoint presentations, notes, readings, assignments, and tests and quizzes and “tell students to go forth and learn,” Van Sant says. “Really good online teachers have taken up the challenge to learn about the various tools.”

“The classroom must be a learning community. In an online environment, you must be sure you are using the tools to make that happen. And these are the blogs, wikis, Web 2.0 tools and social bookmarks, and the discussion boards. The interactivity creates communities. When that happens, you’ve got far greater potential of engaging that otherwise somewhat unengaged student,” Van Sant says.

Instructors who seek to create learner-centered online courses often read the work of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences and think that for every lesson they’ve got to create eight different kinds of assignments to reach the learning style preferences of all their students. But Van Sant assures them they need not go overboard in accommodating all learning styles.

“The goal isn’t to cater to all eight individual multiple intelligences. It’s about providing, over the range of a course, the opportunity for people to learn and express their learning within their strengths and not always have to operate within their deficits. To do that, you need variety. You need redundancy. You need multiplicity. You need different ways of sharing and knowing. … What happens here is working in a much richer environment. It is a challenge for us to understand that in this rich environment we’ve got to become masters of that domain.”

Contact Rick Van Sant at rickvansant@ferris.edu.
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Copyright © 2009 Magna Publications.

Meeting with the Instructors

I met with the various instructors today to review the hybrid HS ITV courses. I will admit to just a little trepidation trying to prepare for the meeting, after all I was not quite sure how everyone would take to moodle and to the set up, and to the use of blogs, goanimate, etc... but everybody seemed very open to the whole set up (wow, thanks).

Interestingly enough as I went through the classes with people even I was reasonably satisfied with the creation, though I did note some spots that needed some brushing up, and I will do that over the coming hours,days, etc...

People did ask for some information, and I am going to drop it in the blog for people access:

Milgram Video - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5695875352844691386&ei=Uni-Sf_WL5HEqQLXt-mLBw&hl=en

Intellicom - video clip sight http://www.intelecomonline.net

There are also some "tutorials" that I will list:

Go animate: http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=df2368q3_17gcpk5vg5

Information on Blogs: http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=df2368q3_9xxfq4zcz


Again please comment and share as the class goes on.

OK - Here we go

I am starting this blog as a way to follow our HS hybrid courses. I have taught them for the last two years and now others will be teaching these courses using this model (2 days of class, 2 days off). I have used many of the materials that I have used in the past, and also added some new ones.

My philosphy in creating the course is to provide students with didactic material for"self study", then assign the students, projects, exercises, etc which they will complete and then discuss during the two days of class. Students will also keep a weekly blog, and complete reflective writing assignments in the blog. Students will also be required to discuss in class whatt hey have written in the blog during class. Blogs will have guiding questions to help students "know what to write about".

In all the guiding concepts here focus on creating a learning environment where students study material (the didactic stuff). Engage in individual and group activites, report on what they discover and learn during those activities, reflect on their learning, discuss their relfections. Students are also active in the learning process, and are part of the learning process.

My hope is that this will provide students with an interesting and valuable experience, where they will learn, by reading, study, doing, reflecting, discussing, and teaching.

Comments welcome and desired.