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

My HSQLDB schema inspection story

This is a simple story of my need to inspect the schema of an HSQLDB database for a participar FOREIGN KEY, and the interesting things I had to do to actually inspect it. I am using an HSQLDB 1.8 database in one of my web applications. The application has been developed using the Play framework , which by default uses JPA and Hibernate . A few days back, I wanted to inspect the schema which Hibernate had created for one of my model objects. I started the HSQLDB database on my local machine, and then started the database manager with the following command java -cp ./hsqldb-1.8.0.7.jar org.hsqldb.util.DatabaseManagerSwing When I tried the view the schema of my table, it showed me the columns and column types on that table, but it did not show me columns were FOREIGN KEYs. Image 1: Table schema as shown by HSQLDB's database manager I decided to search on StackOverflow and find out how I could view the full schema of the table in question. I got a few hints, and they all pointed to
Post a Comment
Read more

Fuctional Programming Principles in Scala - Getting Started

Sometime back I registered for the Functional Programming Principles in Scala , on Coursera. I have been meaning to learn Scala from a while, but have been putting it on the back burner because of other commitments. But  when I saw this course being offered by Martin Odersky, on Coursera , I just had to enroll in it. This course is a 7 week course. I will blog my learning experience and notes here for the next seven weeks (well actually six, since the course started on Sept 18th). The first step was to install the required tools: JDK - Since this is my work machine, I already have a couple of JDK's installed SBT - SBT is the Scala Build Tool. Even though I have not looked into it in detail, it seems like a replacement for Maven. I am sure we will use it for several things, however upto now I only know about two uses for it - to submit assignments (which must be a feature added by the course team), and to start the Scala console. Installed sbt from here , and added the path
1 comment
Read more

Five Reasons Why Your Product Needs an Awesome User Guide

Photo Credit: Peter Merholz ( Creative Commons 2.0 SA License ) A user guide is essentially a book-length document containing instructions for installing, using or troubleshooting a hardware or software product. A user guide can be very brief - for example, only 10 or 20 pages or it can be a full-length book of 200 pages or more. -- prismnet.com As engineers, we give a lot of importance to product design, architecture, code quality, and UX. However, when it comes to the user manual, we often only manage to pay lip service. This is not good. A usable manual is as important as usable software because it is the first line of help for the user and the first line of customer service for the organization. Any organization that prides itself on great customer service must have an awesome user manual for the product. In the spirit of listicles - here are at least five reasons why you should have an awesome user manual! Enhance User Satisfaction In my fourteen years as a
Post a Comment
Read more