Skip to main content

Learning 2.0

What do you think is the future of education?
ELearning?... Classroom Learning?... or Blended Learning?

All of the above have their supporters and detractors. Without taking any sides, I think each methodology has it's pros and cons. What is effective depends on the type of course, background of students, and access to technology infrastructure. However, there is a trend that points towards the growing popularity of eLearning, and not without reason. A professor in UK has abolished classroom lectures and has replaced them with podcasts, forums, email, and the like. Read more about it here.

Having taught technical courses from the last three years, I have some observations on the process of teaching & learning.

The process has various components:

  • Presentation of facts
  • Resolution of queries and doubts
  • Ensuring that the facts are retained (through questions and repitition)
  • Promoting a better understanding through discussions and thought provoking questions
  • Promoting even deeper understanding by encouraging reflection by the students (by writing )
  • Helping students understand practical applications of the concepts (through assignments and lab sessions)
  • Testing the student's understanding (through tests and quizzes)
  • Encouraging innovation in students
Maximum time in classroom sessions is taken by the first component; "presentation of facts". Is a classroom session really needed for just presenting facts? I do not think so. Granted that a classroom session helps students with their queries immediately, and it helps students stay focussed, but it is a very small advantage as compared with various other disadvantages.
  • In a classroom session the faculty has to go at a pace which is an average of the learning speeds of all the students. This is still too fast for those who need more time, and is frustratingly slow for the quick learners.
  • Not all queries can always be resolved immediately. If a course has to be taught over let's say 10 weeks, then every class has to have an agenda, because the faculty has to complete a certain portion of the course in the given time. Every class does have buffer time for answering questions, but it does not allow an unlimited number of questions. Very often while teaching I have had to stop a discussion and ask the students to meet me later to get their doubts answered, because we were running short of time.
  • Students usually do not get time to reflect over what is being taught immediately in class. The reflection has to happen later on, and questions that arise are usually answered electronically by the faculty anyways.
  • Because technology moves at such a rapid pace, the faculty may not have an answer to a particular question (the faculty's knowledge is slightly outdated). In such cases the discussion has to be deffered either to the next class or it has to be done electronically.

The primary use of real time sessions should not be to present facts, but to support the learning process of students. These sessions should focus on answering doubts, having discussions, exploring the nuances of the topic, various pros and cons, potential applications, and other similar efforts. This is an area where the faculty can contribute his experience and knowledge which will help students take their learning to the next level.

So to ask the question again. Is traditional classroom learning the best method of imparting education? Probably not. Asynchronous, collaborative, networked, experiential learning, using technological aid can be far more effective. Sorry for making that a bit complex, but I could not think of a word that correctly captures the essense of the previous sentance.

How do we go beyond traditional learning? Are there best practices? Do we have proven methodologies?

We probably don't because this is such a nascent area. Partly as a result of my observations but majorly from the observations and findings of instructors who have tried to go beyond traditional techniques, I have created a list of tools that can be used for learning.

  • Learning Management System
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
  • VideoCasts
  • Screencasts
  • Video-conferencing
  • Online quizzes
  • Learning Journal
  • e-portfolio
I would love to hear real life experiences from educators who have used these tools.

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commenting your code

Comments are an integral part of any program, even though they do not contribute to the logic. Appropriate comments add to the maintainability of a software. I have heard developers complain about not remembering the logic of some code they wrote a few months back. Can you imagine how difficult it can be to understand programs written by others, when we sometimes find it hard to understand our own code. It is a nightmare to maintain programs that are not appropriately commented. Java classes should contain comments at various levels. There are two types of comments; implementation comments and documentation comments. Implementation comments usually explain design desicisions, or a particularly intricate peice of code. If you find the need to make a lot of implementation comments, then it may signal overly complex code. Documentation comments usually describe the API of a program, they are meant for developers who are going to use your classes. All classes, methods and variables ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Inheritance vs. composition depending on how much is same and how much differs

I am reading the excellent Django book right now. In the 4th chapter on Django templates , there is an example of includes and inheritance in Django templates. Without going into details about Django templates, the include is very similar to composition where we can include the text of another template for evaluation. Inheritance in Django templates works in a way similar to object inheritance. Django templates can specify certain blocks which can be redefined in subtemplates. The subtemplates use the rest of the parent template as is. Now we have all learned that inheritance is used when we have a is-a relationship between classes, and composition is used when we have a contains-a relationship. This is absolutely right, but while reading about Django templates, I just realized another pattern in these relationships. This is really simple and perhaps many of you may have already have had this insight... We use inheritance when we want to allow reuse of the bulk of one object in other ...
3 comments
Read more

Planning a User Guide - Part 3/5 - Co-ordinate the Team

Photo by  Helloquence  on  Unsplash This is the third post in a series of five posts on how to plan a user guide. In the first post , I wrote about how to conduct an audience analysis and the second post discussed how to define the overall scope of the manual. Once the overall scope of the user guide is defined, the next step is to coordinate the team that will work on creating the manual. A typical team will consist of the following roles. Many of these roles will be fulfilled by freelancers since they are one-off or intermittent work engagements. At the end of the article, I have provided a list of websites where you can find good freelancers. Creative Artist You'll need to work with a creative artist to design the cover page and any other images for the user guide. Most small to mid-sized companies don't have a dedicated creative artist on their rolls. But that's not a problem. There are several freelancing websites where you can work with great creative ...
Post a Comment
Read more