You may have heard of online courses and
are not sure what content or learning would occur in that setting. The open courses are a form of distance
education for students who cannot otherwise participate in the face-to-face
setting (Beldarrain, 2006, p. 139). One
of my colleagues at work shared with me that he often uses open courses to
enhance his learning experiences. He
searches for opportunities to gain education in areas of interest to him, as
well as supplements his professional knowledge with material provided from
these sources.
In looking for open courses, I explored
the Yale and Harvard Open Course sites.
I was excited to find several topics of interest to me; among them
history and music. Although they were
basically videos of lectures, the professors were knowledgeable and
engaging. As part of the music course, I
thoroughly enjoyed the guest artists and conductors who shared their expertise
and ability to enhance the lecture material.
As an online learner, I was able to navigate past undesired subjects as
well as subjects with which I was already familiar.
There are several theories of distance
education. Charles Wedemeyer indicated
that the essence of distance education was the independence of the student, and
preferred using the term independent
study (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 43). Obviously, this is the Theory of Independent
Study with specific characteristics emphasizing not only the independence of
learners, but also the adoption of technology to implement that
independence.
Two components of learning that I found
lacking in the Yale and Harvard courses I reviewed were the communication
between instructor and learner (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek,
2012, p. 90), and any activity to engage the learner in a different way than a
lecture format (p. 92). Some of the
courses on economics, statistics, and mathematics contained activities and
problem-solving exercises which would give the learners a more direct and
purposeful experience in the course.
Some of the courses offered extra reading materials and a syllabus. Most contained an index of subtopics for the
learner to select from.
It was delightful to explore the learning
experiences in these two sites, and to know that learners from all over the
world can benefit from this education through the web and technology used for
delivery. In my exploration of this
venue, I found a link to a global community of open courseware which may be of
interest to those who wish to focus on this type of distance learning: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/about-ocw/.
References:
Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education
trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and
collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2),139–153.
Harvard Open Courses: Open Learning
Initiative. Retrieved from
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative
Open Yale Courses: A free open website
offering a number of introductory courses taught by Yale University professors. Retrieved from
http://oyc.yale.edu/
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M.,
& Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of
distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
No comments:
Post a Comment