My final submission for the current portion of my course required a brief summary of one of the chapters of our course text book. We are utilizing Palloff & Pratt’s (2003) “The Virtual Student”.
I chose to go straight to the last chapter, “Becoming Truly Learner Focused – Best Practices in Online Learning,” hoping to get some solid concrete examples of best practices. I’m not sure it truly does hold what I was hoping to get out of the chapter or the course, but it’s a start. I would be curious to see what others think of how to be Truly Learner Focused. Does this mean stepping into and embracing elearning 2.0?
My submission:
To become facilitators and instructors in online learning environments we must become more familiar to the needs of our students and that is drastically changing moment by moment as technology constantly changes. We must understand our students at a much deeper level then perhaps ever before. Palloff & Pratt (2003, p.124) point out that as facilitators we need to more clearly understand who our students are, how they learn, and how we can best support them and promote involvement. Surely the more familiar we become with our students’ learning styles, preferences, needs, and aspirations then the more we can truly assist them in their educational endeavours and create learner-centred environments.
Palloff & Pratt look to Maryellen Weinmer’s (2002, p. xvi) work regarding several key changes that we need to address to foster these environments. The balance of power needs to change from the instructor “pushing” information to the students “pulling” the information that they need and require from a variety of resources. The facilitator becomes more of a “guide on the side” (Palloff & Pratt, 2003, p. 125) assisting the students in finding and evaluating the sites they visit and the content that they are reading and researching.
Secondly the function of content needs to be changed. This concept centres on the idea that the students need the opportunity to work collaboratively to formulate knowledge and meaning, rather than just providing facts and information that they have memorized or retained (Palloff & Pratt, 2003. pg. 126). Important to note here is the idea that students need to learn from one another and that this collaboration of ideas, concepts, discussions, and so forth will in essence become the true content of the course material.
The next key element is that the role of the teacher needs to change. The teacher/facilitator should no longer be the key content expert (Palloff & Pratt, 2003, p.126). Students do need/want an instructor who is knowledgeable, however to promote a learner-centred environment the main breadth of knowledge should emerge from the students expertise, experience and research. The eLearning Guild e-book “834 Tips for Successful Online Instruction” (2005, pg. 5) suggests that the facilitator should subscribe to newsletters (blogs, rss feeds, etc) that are geared toward online designers and developers; stay connected with other professionals in the field. Make sure to have some first-hand experience regarding online courses and more specifically the topic you are facilitating. Be prepared to receive and immediately respond to vast amounts of email from your students. As a “guide” to the course you will need to respond to these emails that will be seeking your input and feedback.
The fourth key element is that the responsibility for learning needs to change. Time and time again as students we are told that we will get out of a course all that which we put into it (Pallof & Pratt, 2003. pg. 127). Palloff & Pratt continue to say that “students will need to be encouraged and empowered to take charge of the formation of the learning community, to interact with on another and to receive feedback on how will this is occurring.” Simply stated students need to become comfortable learning from one another rather then purely from the teacher or a text book. This concept begins to lead us towards Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). These environments are web base systems that allow learners to mange their own learning. Wikipedia.com (May 16, 2007) describes these as a system that will provide support for the learner to set there own learning goals, manage their learning (both content and process), and communicate with others in the process of learning thereby achieving their learning goals. PLEs are still emerging and growing as the next phase and application of elearning.
Finally the last element to change is the purpose and processes of evaluation. If the course has very specific outcomes and objectives then it is appropriate to base the evaluation on determining if these have been mastered by the student. More accurately for a learner-centred course is the ability of the student at the end of the course work to be able to apply the knowledge that they have gained and demonstrate the ability to use newly developed skills as addressed in the course to new efforts.
As technology grows/develops daily and as new concepts or ideas emerge on elearning, such as PLE’s, the best practices on how to use these tools to provide your students with the optimum learning experience will continue to change as well. As mentioned above from eLearning Guild ebook, one of the best practices that we as facilitators can do is to stay in constant contact with our students to know what they need of us. But we also need to stay in constant contact with our peers, by newsletters, blogs, sites, and rss feeds in this manner stay abreast of new developments in an ever changing learning community so that we can best support our students.
References
History of personal learning environments. (2007, May 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:56, May 16, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_personal_learning_environments&oldid=131090813
Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2003). The Virtual Student. A Profile and Guide to Working with Online Learners. San Francisco: Jossey Bass
The eLearning Guild. (2005). 834 Tips for Successful Online Instruction. Santa Rosa, California: The eLearning Guild.
Weimer. M. Learner-Centred Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.