Active learning can be achieved by proving prompt feedback ensuring students participate in discussion boards and reflect on what the have learned. While some do not like the idea of games in the classroom, there are many resources that can help instructors to reach a consensus on how to ensure everyone participate.
Students need to use the key concepts in active learning to recieve the knowledge they are looking for. These concepts are participation, reflecting, listening and writing.
I find the rubric is so helpful for the student they can visualize what they need to incorperate and what is expected. The instructor can concentrate on activve learning.
Active learning is the key difference to the basic on line course. The instructor must buy into this in order to reach the level of succes we all want.
The several different ways to increase active learning were clearly defined and workable. F2F instruction allows the instructor to use several of these techniques without even thinking of it. We need to be mindful to incorporate the active learning environment in the online class.
Engagement in the course materials must be promoted and encouraged at the outset by the online instructor, to keep the engagement of students
I have been doing blended classes for over 10 years now but within it we have taken very few group activities that we do in the classroom and placed it in the blended course. This lesson has encourage me to do more with that.
Even though online learning has been around for a couple of decades there are still some instructors who still believe their purpose is to dispense pearls of wisdom which are to be picked up by the students. Moving the process to one of active learning and a more participatory educational experience is not something they support. I saw this a lot in the early days and in many did not accept online learning as a viable option nor an option that possessed quality outcomes. Another issue with the online environment is students cannot see the instructor’s body language and voice inflection which could lead to misunderstanding. Despite the fact I have been involved in online learning for almost 20 years I still find it a bit strange that I have never seen my students and/or faculty members and they are simply an avatar on a webpage.
The online environment also attempts to create an atmosphere of discussion through message boards but it still has shortcomings. Therefore, I believe it is important to provide supplemental engagement through videos, news articles, and simulations. Another challenge is the feedback from the instructor to the student. Nothing is worse than receiving “good job” and a grade. Many students would be happy with that response but for those who really want to learn it is of little value. The instructor needs to take quality time to fully review and critique the work so the student can apply that feedback in future assignments. Rubrics are very useful, but they need to be supplemented with comments in papers, possibly video feedback, and a live web-ex with students to go over the assignments. I have learned more from a 10-minute video conference than static feedback on multiple papers.
In active learning there is a shift from techer-centered to student-centered learning. Engagement strategies include a relevance to student lives, inspirational notes,good boundries, high standards, good exampels of work, and targeted feedback. When doing online lectuers, periodic breaks are effective.Initial assessments shoudl not be graded with self-assessments and peer-assessments coming later in the class. Rubrics are very helpful in grading assignments.
