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Educational Technology - Online Communities in Teaching

When teaching online, it is important to understand that students will struggle with motivation, moreso than in person. Not havng that face to face communication, or a teacher to take the intiative can make a student nervous or lose interest fast. Not to mention ever present forgetfulness if the tasks aren't right in front of you. Life is already busy, not having scheduled time for school can push it to the backburner. But there are things we can do to assist students with motivation.

One method of promoting an online class is the ever present Discussion Board. A forum where students are given a prompt and told to discuss with one another. Some would say this is a poor substitute for in class discussion, but with the right prompt and encouragement to speak to other classmates, it can be a good soundboard (University, U.S.). In personal recommendation, Discussion Boards shouldn't just be for students to talk to one another, but to get real feedback from the teacher. Asking for help can be difficult, especially one on one. Having a group discussion where the teacher participates may lead to students being more willing to ask and answer questions.

Brown University insists on 'focusing student attention' as a way of motivation. What this means is engaging students in the work with a specific objective in order to increase engagement, and explaining what students should be looking out for. A proposed method of this is using 'anticipation guides'. Anticipation guides are notes a student takes before reviewing content, of 3-5 questions they believe they can answer after. Then when done, they will be able to answer their self made questions with the material they reviewed.

Another suggestion by Brown is giving targeted feedback on smaller assignments. Keep in mind, feedback and grading should not be the same. On smaller, foundational assignments, teachers can focus on helping students improve upon their work by Describing, Evalutating, and Suggesting (Brown). Describe what you as a reader see, evaluate how the work either meets or does not meet expectation and where, and suggest advice for improvement.

My personal favorite strategy is Feedback. As a student, being able to hear my teacher's thoughts about my work and where I need to focus my efforts on improving, really helps. I feel that without this kind of feedback, students often will stress and worry about everything, rather than what they really need to improve upon, because it can often be hard to self evaluate. Even with peer reviewing other students work, you can never be sure if another student is also struggling with these subjects, or perhaps they are trying to be polite about someone's work. Having expert evaluation is so valuable in knowing where to focus our efforts.



                                                                        Sources Cited

The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Asynchronous Strategies for Inclusive Teaching. Asynchronous Strategies for Inclusive Teaching | Sheridan Center | Brown University. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/asynchronous-strategies-inclusive-teaching#:~:text=Instructors%20and%20teaching%20assistants%20can%20contribute%20to%20students'%20sense%20of,a%20group%20virtual%20office%20hour.

University, U. S. (n.d.). Facilitate interaction and build learning community: Teach. Utah State University. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.usu.edu/teach/help-topics/online-teaching-orientation/facilitate-interaction-and-build-learning-community

Educational Technology - Theories of Online Learning

Now adays, learning online is commonplace, especially increasing during the pandemic. However it is important to remember that online learning is still fairly new, only really coming into play the last twenty or so years. With this decently new territory, comes theories of how students learn online. We will be discussing three of those theories today. The first theory, or model, is Connectivism. Developed by George Siemens, Connectivism is the model that believes knowledge and how it is taught, grows and changes based on communication networks. Think Twitter and how you might see a news story on there. Perhaps you saw the news because of a journalist you like, giving more information or even their opinion on it. Then you learn that knowledge from their percpective, and might even learn more about it interacting with other people who know about the news. This impacts the students in a way that it is actually easier to obtain information and get a full narrative, but it is influenced by the perspective of others rather than a completely unbiased and factual basis. (Picciano)

The next theory is Online Collaborative Learning, or OCL. This model was designed by Linda Harasim. Like Connectivism, this theory follows the idea that communication online and establishing a network actually improves a student's learning online. However, in OCL, there are "three phases of knowledge" through discussion in a group (Picciano). Idea Generating, or brainstorming, Idea Organizing, where ideas are compared, debated, and analyzed, and Intellectual Convergence, where students either agree or disagree on the topics. This is usually through structured assignments with a teacher present, while Connectivism is more free reign.

Finally there is Community of Inquiry of CoI. CoI is based on the idea of three distinct “presences”. These being cognitive, social, and teaching. CoI infers that a blended course is best for students, allowing for cognitive or indepented learning, the "social" aspect of group discussion, and of course teaching in a strutcured enviornment (Picciano). To be honest, CoI is kind of what we are doing right now in Educational Technology. 

Speaking of our Educational Technology Class, we are an Asynchronous class. This means that we access learning materials at a rate we feel comfortable with, and we interact with each other, the class, over a period of time (IT Learning). This is shown through our discussion boards. Anyone can access it at any time to join in a discussion. This is in opposition to Synchronous learning, like how we would all go to school and take the same forty five minute classes in high school. We are all gathered at the same time and interacting with one another (IT Learning). In some cases, people may even do a hybrid of Asynchronous and Synchronous learning.

With Online Learning, there are many different benefits and costs. For example during the pandemic we all had to go on lockdown, but we tried to continue our schooling. During this period of time, students cited that a lack of communication and an increase in workload was hurting their studies. Not to mention technical difficulties, and the risk of a "leave it and forget it" mindset. Meanwhile, teachers complained of an increase in cheating (Korolkov). However this kind of learning also came with a few perks, like being able to work at their own pace, and from the comfort of their own home. There was no time limit on learning if the student could do it independently. It also actually increased communications with teachers, having to rely on email to get more information (Korolkov).



                                                                   Sources Cited

        Korolkov, A., Germanov, G., Langueva, O., Shevyakova, A., & Poskrebysheva, N. (2020, November 6). Advantages and disadvantages of distance learning on students' and teachers' of the Physical Culture Faculty Opinion. BIO Web of Conferences. Retrieved February 4, 2023, from https://www.bio-conferences.org/articles/bioconf/full_html/2020/10/bioconf_pes2020_00058/bioconf_pes2020_00058.html

        Picciano, A. G. (2016, November 30). Theories and frameworks for online education: Seeking an integrated model. Online Learning. Retrieved February 4, 2023, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1154117 

What is synchronous and asynchronous learning? IT Teaching Resources. (2021, February 9). Retrieved February 4, 2023, from https://teachingresources.stanford.edu/resources/what-is-synchronous-and-asynchronous-learning/#:~:text=Synchronous%20learning%20refers%20to%20instructors,each%20other%20over%20longer%20periods.