Open Course, Yale, Harvard, Oh My…

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.

Using Technology to Create a Collaborative Training Environment at a Distance

Dilemma:  how does the Instructional Designer accommodate staff who are spread out through many locations and are unable to come together for meetings, collaboration and document sharing?  Which technology tools will work best to enhance training workshops?  Tools that are highly participatory and promote collaboration, networking, and sharing have extraordinary potential for education and learner-engaging functions (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 129).

In the organization for which I am a training specialist in the Education Department, we utilize WebEx meetings for staff who cannot attend an onsite meeting.  This tool allows participants to enter the meeting and provide feedback to a presentation or discussion that is occurring onsite.  All that is required for the participant is a computer with web access, as well as a phone by which to interact in the meeting.  The meeting documents are shared, and the meetings are recorded for those who are unable to ‘be present’ in real time.   

One challenge that can be met with a different tool is the participants’ sharing of documents and screen shots with one another.  All of the staff can create an account with Dropbox to submit and review each others’ material.  I have found Dropbox to be useful in various committee work as well as church service planning. 

Beldarrain indicates that technology enables learners to access education at any time and from any place (2006, p. 139).  There is especially a need in the workplace to allow individuals to collaborate within time and place constraints.  This is a need that can be met by tools that create a learning community where members can build expertise, develop problem-solving skills, and foster a sense of connectedness between the members of a group (p. 150).

References: 

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2),139–153.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Defining Distance Learning

Distance learning took a while to enter my life.  I attended a traditional K-12 private school, and went on to attend a four-year traditional college.  The college was distant from my home in Seattle – all the way to Iowa – but involved face-to-face classroom and lab environments.  For my first couple of employers, I was asked to provide on the job training to several coworkers.  This education was all provided in face-to-face environments.  Any certification courses that I attended were completed at a specific location; again, face-to-face.

When I was employed in a larger healthcare organization (not until early 2000), I completed online modules for compliance training and in 2008 became instrumental in administering the learning management system.  Somehow, I didn’t associate these courses with distance learning as they were provided at a specific location, plus, the concept of distance learning was not in my vocabulary.

In the video presentation, Distance Education:  The New Generation, Simonson mentions correspondence study and European open universities as part of the history of distance learning (Laureate).  Although I did not experience either of these environments, the value of these trends and services is great in the evolution resulting in today’s online learning advances.

Currently, I am the administrator of the learning management system at a large healthcare organization.  I appreciate the accuracy of the education that can be delivered in this system as well as the convenience that it is instantly available once it is in the system (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008, p. 70).

What I have come to conclude is that distance learning is an environment of collaborative and interactive learning among instructor, students and technology that can be accessed at any time from anywhere. 

I would like to share a quote that speaks to the benefit of distance education:  “Distance education provides the opportunity to widen intellectual horizons, as well as the chance to improve and update professional knowledge.  Further, it stresses individuality of learning and flexibility in both the time and place of study.”  (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 39).  My challenge is and continues to be to deliver not just information, but learning that emphasizes knowledge building and problem solving skills in the learners (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008, p. 74).

References: 

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–6 7.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer) (n.d. b). “Distance Education: The Next Generation.” [Multimedia program].

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Not so joyful start to my Distance Education course

Well, I totally missed the application assignment when it was due.  Thanks to one of my fellow colleagues, I received an email reminder that I was missing information for my classmates to complete their assignments.  Boy, this won't happen again :(  My apologies to everyone for the tardiness of this blog.

Final Leg! Learning Theories Reflection Paper

As I began the course on Learning Theories and Instruction, I was mistakenly under the impression that I already knew the basics, and that this course would just enhance the information that I already had acquired through my undergrad studies in Elementary Education.  Plus, the department I work in is the Education Department, so I felt as though I had gained some further insight in the projects and teaching in which I have been involved.  As I read in week two, the “nurturance of learning and cognitive growth must be a long-term enterprise,” (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009, p. 46), and I continually find this to be true in my pursuit of this Masters degree. To reflect more accurately the journey that I have taken, I looked back through my discussion postings and tried to consolidate my thoughts though these eight weeks.

In growing older and acquiring more experience, I have come to the realization that not everyone thinks or learns as I do.  What I found striking while traveling through this subject matter is that there is much more complexity in how people learn than what I understood at the beginning of the course.  This includes how I perceived my learning to occur.

What I remember from my college days is that the focus was on cognitive and behavior theories of learning.  Wow, there are so many more theories to integrate into instruction!  My personal learning experience is not just memorizing the facts, but involves social constructivism, as well as connectivism (Ertmer & Newby, 1993) (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2008).  I especially appreciated the self-direction and internal motivation qualities of the Adult Learning theory (Conlan, Grabowski, & Smith, 2003) as it relates to my personal learning process.

I will again mention the term complexity in regarding the connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation.  Just the volume of subject matter and research in each category suggests complexity, but then the teacher has to consider the learner as well.  One perspective that struck a chord with me in week five was no one theory trumps another in the teaching and learning experience (Fenwick & Tennant, 2004, p. 55).  In week six our focus was on learning styles, and we read that unless the instruction is one-on-one, the provision of material needs to be comprehensive to meet the styles of as many learners as possible (Gilbert & Swanier, 2008, p. 30).  Another facet to the learner is the multiple intelligences theory.  I encourage the reader to explore this theory by searching for Howard Gardner as his thoughts and research are fascinating.

The learning in this course has been most valuable in furthering my instructional design career.  The depictions of learning with the use of technology were so inspiring on the Edutopia website (http://www.edutopia.org).  This is another resource I would recommend the reader to explore further.  I can peruse the writings and ideas that have been provided in the various blogs and other resources to accomplish using available technology and information to maximize the learner experience.  In this way I can hopefully use technology in meaning-making training (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2008).

The plethora of resources coupled with the knowledge and guidance of the professor are invaluable in my learning experience at Walden University.  And I can’t neglect the fact that without the expertise and insight shared by my peers in this journey, the learning would not be as complete.  I am thankful for the material that I have gained, and look forward to using it in the future, as I’m sure I did not obtain the fullness of information that it contains in the eight weeks of this leg of my journey.

References: 

Conlan, J., Grabowski, S., & Smith, K. (2003). Adult learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4),50-71.

Foley, G. (Ed.). (2004). Dimensions of adult learning: Adult education and training in a global era. McGraw-Hill Education. Chapter 4, "Understanding Adult Learners" by Tara Fenwick and Mark Tennant.

Gilbert, J., & Swanier, C. (2008). Learning styles: How do they fluctuate? Institute for Learning Styles Journal [Vol. l].

Kim, B. (2001). Social constructivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.

Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning Theories and Instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York:  Pearson.

Journeying through learning theories with Walden University

The journey through learning theories began early January, 2013.  It is my second course with the goal of having a Master's degree in Instructional Design and Technology.  At the end of seven weeks into the course, I now have the pleasure of looking back to week one, thereby seeing where the readings, blog postings and video resources have altered my initial view on what my preferences might be.

In the first week, the focus was on behaviorial, cognitive and constructive theories (Ertmer & Newby, 1993).  My discussion posting stated, "I relate more with the behaviorist philosophy, but agree with the constructivist blending of the styles as well." Ensuing weeks provided information on social learning, connectivism and adult learning.  We reviewed several articles out of the University of Georgia that provided consistent information about most of the theories and how they might be implemented into instructional opportunities.  The insight provided was quite valuable, and if you have access to them (and have the interest in theory) I would strongly recommend that you review the content.

One tidbit of wisdom I gained was that different theories fit with various developmental seasons regarding our own learning styles.  A younger learner might benefit more from behaviorist principles (providing response to behavior), while the cognitive theories a little later in development obviously focus on how the mind can be further stimulated to process and retain information.  We move on to more social interaction in our formal learning, and end up in an adult learning world where our motivation is rooted more internally.

But wait, you might be wondering where technology fits in all of these learning theories?  Each week, there were different resources we were encouraged to use, including this blog and a RSS feed.  The spotlight in the seventh week was emerging capability available for instructional environments.  I was pleasantly encouraged by the fact that the technology that was portrayed was functional and readily obtainable for teaching and learning.

Some examples of these trends were found in the Horizon Report, another interesting resource for teaching.  Mobiles, Cloud Computing, Geo-Everything, the Personal Web, Semantic-Aware Applications and Smart Objects were the focus of this report.  Please use your own web-searching ability and look up some of these opportunities.  The short titles do not reveal the extensive branches that make up these technological resources.  My classmates expressed several ideas for use of these trends, and I will definitely use them for research and adult learning enhancements.

I have listed a couple of the sources we could access through the University.  I encourage all of you to use these marvelous tools to enrich and accessorize your journey.

References:

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4),50-71.

Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009). The Horizon Report (2009 ed.). Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.