The Challenge of Inactive Learning | Origin: EL120
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Fully Online Doesn’t Mean Inactive --> The Challenge of Inactive Learning
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
all styles of learning should be incorporated and it is the job of the instructor to integrate these different methods and tools.
Inactive learning occurs when students disengage from the learning process. This can happen for several reasons. Instructors must be prepared to connect with the students, observe them (or their online activity), and respond accordingly.
When students become inactive, educators can use several startgies to re-engage them. Additionally, educators can break a three hour lecture into several "chunks" of time that allow students to prepare, work in groups and then actively engage in the lesson. This prevents boredom and inactivity.
This module on the challenge of inactive learning highlighted how easily students can disengage when learning feels too passive or disconnected from their experiences. I’ve learned that it’s important to actively address this by creating opportunities for students to connect with the material in ways that feel relevant and meaningful to them. To combat inactive learning, I intend to incorporate more low-stakes check-ins, like quick reflections or polls, to keep students mentally engaged. I’ll also focus on designing lessons that balance delivering content with encouraging participation, so students feel motivated to engage rather than just passively absorb information.
The challenge of inactive learning is to reengage the students.
This course content has opened my eyes to the importance of watching for signs of disengagement of my online students. I am realizing that I need to increase my outreach to help me identify students who may be disengaged.
Strategies to mitigate inactive learners.
Feedback and communication will help to keep the student engaged.
Keep students engaged and interested in course content
Give students the opportunity to be engaged in the course by offering a variety of learning choices whenever possible.
It is important to Connect, Observe, and Respond (COR) to students during instruction.
As an asynchronous teacher, the instant feedback portion is a bit harder for me to wrap my head around. However, I do understand the need for effective, consistent feedback.
Understanding why a student has become inactive or disengaged is important. It is a skill to be an instructor who can read the room and adjust according to the tone. Watching for students that fall off and making sure that all students get the experience they need to learn. Life challenges can also affect the connections and attitudes a student will form about the course.
Instructors' primary purpose is not to teach but to facilitate learning. Integrally, critical observation can help identify students' disengaging and the immediate need to respond through one-on-one interaction to those who have disengaged in order to identify causes and potential remedies, including through changes to the instructional design.
Making and retaining contact with your students is vital in knowing how they think and what specifically interests them in the content. Designing instructional flow should continue throughout a course to keep every student engaged and active in their own learning process. Just because something worked for one student don't assume it will work for others. It's important to stay engaged, observant, and connected. Then respond and adapt.
I learned that we as educators should always be flexible and learn to adapt in our instruction. Every class will require different methods of teaching. Therefore, student feedback, engagement, disengagement, and participation can help us educators stay on top of things!
It is important to stay fully engaged in order to monitor the flow of the classroom.
While it is true that instructors cannot know the schema of every student, for completely asynchronous programs or ones that have a synchronous lecture with hands-on labs later, assumptions have to be made. Since the instruction is prerecorded and the materials are prepared, how would an instructor be able to connect, observe, respond and adjust? The material talked about the need for this in online and in-person classes as well as synchronous and asynchronous learning, but it did not give many examples for the latter.
Providing students the opportunity to engage with and manipulate the content helps them to understand the "why" of the learning as well as providing them a sense of competency that can be motivating. However, the same schemas will not work for all students, so instructors and designers must be flexible enough to switch schemas mid-stream when they see students disengaging.
