Keeping in mind your own experiences as a teacher and as a student, consider what Anderson means when he describes the attributes of learning in terms of being learner-, knowledge-, assessment- and community-centred. To what extent have you experienced on-line or mixed-mode courses that achieved this kind of learning environment? How might you use the learning technologies tools you have at your disposal to help you to create meaningful interactions?
My experience with on-line and mixed-mode courses is fairly limited. During my teaching internship four years ago I supervised a class that was taking an online Java programming course, the courses that I teach now are somewhat mixed-mode, and in the past few days I’ve had the experience of tutoring a student who is taking a distance education course in Visual Basic who is currently on unit 10 of 18 in a course that ends on Friday.
Learner Centered
Anderson states that “learner-centred contexts must also meet the needs of the teacher, the institution, and of the larger society that provides support for the student, the institution, and often for a group or class of students, as well as for the particular needs of individual learners (p. 47).” I have found that in the case of the programming courses that the student has been the center of his or her own learning, but not in a good way. The courses both offered a suggested timeline, but they were both also self-paced. All assignments and quizzes could be submitted up until 2 weeks before the final exam in an 18-week semester. This type of course may work in a university setting in which the student should have more responsibility for their own learning, however, in a province-wide high-school setting I feel that some responsibility should be put on the instructor to ensure that students are on task and completing assignments in a timely manner. If assignments are not being submitted a teacher at the cooperating school should be notified. That being said, if there is only one online instructor/course for an entire province, this might be a daunting, if not impossible, task. That is the needs of the teacher, institution and larger society aren’t being met.
Knowledge Centered
In terms of being knowledge centered, “the Net provides expanded opportunities for learners to plunge ever deeper into knowledge resources, providing a near limitless means . . . [t]his provision of resources, however, can be overwhelming, and the skillful e-teacher needs to provide the big-picture scaffolding upon which students can grow their own knowledge and discipline-centred discoveries (Anderson, p. 49).”
This quote made me realize that the way I research has definitely changed throughout my university career. When I started in 1996 I don’t think UNB even had an online journal collection. Research was done in the stacks and then a trip to the photocopier. My references tended to be few but well read. By the end of my BEd many years later, I rarely ever entered the library and did all my research online. I found the sources electronically and then skimmed the abstracts for those few perfect articles, and once found skimmed through them and picked out relevant quotes. And this is the process that I use for most of my papers. The number of references in my essays seems to have increased 10-fold since those early trips to the stacks. I wonder though, if this plunge into the “ever deeper into knowledge resources (Anderson, p. 49)” is increasing the depth of our knowledge or just giving us a broader view of the surface?
I think it would be interesting to see how the number of references has changed in the world of academia. Has the number of references that professors use gone up over the past decade? If so, what are the demographics? Have they increased primarily in a new generation of academics or is the increase across the board? How many references should be in a paper? How many do professors, teachers, or instructors expect from their students in a 10 – 15 page paper?
Assessment Centered
Reading through the section on assessment, nothing really struck me as being only applicable to online learning. For example, “formative evaluation and summative assessment that serve to motivate, inform, and provide feedback to both learners and teachers (Anderson, p. 49),”are assessments that should be encouraged in online and f2f learning environments. I do feel though, that the Internet is providing us with a plethora of knowledge that is available in seconds through various search engines. For this reason, I see the advantage to “provide coherent explanations; generate plans for problem solution; implement solution strategies; and monitor and adjust their activities (Anderson p. 50)” rather than memorization and regurgitation of facts. At the same time, I do encourage the use of memorization for certain things. For example, if you were on the operating table having life-saving surgery, I doubt very much that you’d like the doctor to pause and say “hold on, I’ll just Google that!”. Of course, I would also hope the same doctor had experience as well as just the facts.
Community Centered
I’m not sure I agree with Anderson when he states that “the major motivation for enrolment in distance education is not physical access per se, but the temporal freedom that allows students to move through a course of studies at a time and pace of their
choice (Anderson p. 52).” This is likely the case in some situations, but in many courses such as those offered in the MET program there are many due dates, and group work and presentations, just like a f2f environment.
However I do agree with Anderson in that “the flexibility of virtual communities allows for more universal participation, but a single environment that responds to all students’ needs does not exist (p. 52).” I remember one of the greatest difficulties I had in a f2f environment was being nervous and unable to put together a coherent response in class. However, writing to a forum gives me more time to reflect and collect my thoughts. It also allows for those who may normally be to shy to speak in class voice their opinion. As for the second half of the above quote, I have not yet been in a f2f classroom that responded to the individual needs of an entire class.