I’m pretty sure this Anderson reading was the first one I was ever assigned in my MET studies, so it’s nice to go back and read it nine courses later. The reading resonates more strongly this time as well because Bransford, Brown and Cocking’s How People Learn is a central text in ETEC 533, the other course I am currently taking. My pdf of Anderson tells me that on May 18th, 2013, I’d highlighted “Researchers have attempted to quantify students’ proficiency and comfort with online environments through use of survey instruments that measure learners’ Internet efficacy (Kirby & Boak, 1987)” (Anderson, 2008, p.48), wondering how this Kirby and Boak would have studied the Internet 8 years before it existed.
I had taken a Statistics course that was more distance learning (coincidentally, from Anderson’s Athabasca University the same year he wrote this, 2008), and had done my French teaching qualification through the ETFO, the public teacher’s union in Ontario, before I started MET. MET, however, has made such a thorough and indelible impression of online learning that I now remember little of those experiences.
Under the heading “Learner-Centred”, Anderson distinguishes between “catering to the whims and peculiarities of each particular learner” and “awareness of the unique cognitive structures and understandings that learners bring” (p. 47). Being familiar now with Bransford et al., I have a deeper understanding of their idea of bringing a student’s misconception (especially in science and math) and acknowledging it in the process of correcting it to provide a basis for further learning. One MET example was in this course, where I was unfamiliar with blogging though it was assumed we had all blogged before, and my unfamiliarity sent me into a tailspin of confusion in week 2 when we posted incomprehensible code and I thought I was supposed to engage in discussions about it.
Under “Knowledge-Centred”, Anderson asserts that “Each discipline or field of study contains a world view that provides unique ways of understanding and talking about knowledge” (p. 49). To “discipline or field”, I would add medium, because learning on the Internet also provides different ways of understanding and talking about knowledge when compared to a face-to-face classroom situation, as Anderson mentions. For example, though I heard Constructivism mentioned earlier in Teacher’s College, I’ve become very familiar with its tenets here in MET, and I don’t think I can separate these ideas from the Prezis and Powtoons in which I’ve experienced them.
Assessment-centred learning is very big in the Toronto District School Board, where on any given unit in any given subject, we are supposed to post “Learning Goals” and student co-constructed “Success Criteria” on the board. The learning goals come directly from the curriculum. I think it’s more difficult in online learning than in a physical classroom space for a teacher to just point that out to a student and say “remember what we’re learning; whether you are showing that you know this or not is what determines your grade”.
Community-based learning here online is, of course, much different than in a classroom. Who is challenging the teacher and who is ingratiating (not the terminology we would use among our peers in a classroom!) themselves to the teacher is much more obvious in a classroom, and has a larger role in group dynamics. I wrote in one of my early MET posts that the idea of online community is a bit of an illusion to me; I can’t remember the names of my colleagues — even ones with whom I worked and video- conferenced with last term — in an online course, whereas I still remember most of my classmates in Teacher’s College 7 years ago. I went for beer after class with those people, and learned a bit about their personal lives; I heard the tone in their voices and saw the expressions on their faces as they reacted to those things, and without such interaction, I feel interpersonal relations are pretty shallow, though I’ve certainly interacted with some colleagues in MET who I’m sure I could be friends with in real life if the situation ever presented itself. The upside of this lack of real, personal interaction online is that we focus more on our work!
References:
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bransford, J., Brown, A. L., Cocking, R. R., & National Research Council (U.S.). (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.