Session 6: Instructional Methods for e-Learning

"The more the distance education teacher knows about the individual students within the whole class, the more elegant the application of education tools to the learning situation" (text, p. 169). This stood out to me because knowing who your participants and how they learn are vital. Learning styles is definitely a key component to consider when designing a course for e-Learning. It is important to know my strengths as an instructor so I can convey the information in the best format possible, but knowing my learning style is not the only consideration. It will be important to know how the participants learn best and somehow fuse it with my own learning style. It said in the text that an e-learning course will need to be engaging. One way to keep the participants engaged is to play upon their strengths in how they learn best.

My three main learning styles, based on the Multiple Intelligence Quiz, was musical, kinesthetic, and visual learning. For this course, visual learning would probably work best. With the use of demonstrations through online resources, e-mailing PowerPoint presentations, or uploading videos, the information can be easily delivered through a visual means. Learning musically might not be as effective. The participants might not respond to the genre of music that is being used. I personally enjoy music but don't think it would be a good fit for an e-Learning course. Bringing in kinesthetic learning would be a challenge to incorporate in an e-learning course. I would really need to know the specific resources that I wanted the learners to use. A lot of research on different resources will be needed as well as exploration. Kinesthetic learning might be tedious for some learners. I would have to make sure that the reason for the activity is meaningful and relates directly to the content of information.

Student characteristics/attributes are important to consider. That is why a survey would be beneficial to see what learning style fits the majority of students, the prior knowledge of the technology, and the reasons for taking the course. Then I would plan accordingly. "When an instructor accounts for the background and prior knowledge of students, the learning setting is more successful" (text, p. 168). I want the students to be confident in taking the course. I know how frustrating it can be when one is unfamiliar with a certain technology that is required or their reasons for taking the course are not being met. As the instructor, I don't want to discourage them from taking the course based on uncertainty or neglect. Knowing the students and building their confidence will help to establish a relationship between the instructor and student, promoting a true learning community.

Establishing classroom management seems to be the most difficult when designing an e-Learning course. It is important that the instructor is organized when preparing all the information for the students. A syllabus with student expectations and general information is needed right away. E-mailing this might not be enough for the class. Just like Dr. Baek did during the first week, I would go over the syllabus and answer questions students may have through synchronous learning. This is not just for a help session, but it shows students that the instructor is there for them on a more personal level rather than just typing an e-mail. A dependable CMS such as Blackboard would help in facilitating the learning. I would also back this information on a class website. This keeps the information in one area where the students and the instructor can refer back to. To make this course more student-centered rather than teacher-centered, it will be important for the instructor to provide the information needed to succeed in the course but even more important to allow the student to learn through exploration. The design of the activities will need to be ones in which the students takes on the most responsibility for obtaining information.

For my course, I was thinking about having students learn more about the Interwrite and how to incorporate it into their own classrooms. A learning objective that I would include is to have the students demonstrate their understanding of how to use the different features on Interwrite. Exploration would be a great activity for this, where an "I do, you do" strategy would target both visual and kinesthetic learners. Through the use of video capturing like Camtasia, I would record how to use the different features. Then the participants would not only watch how it is done, but actually practice themselves on their own computer. To demonstrate their understanding, they could also use some type of video capturing resource to show a feature that would best be used in the classroom. The student could then e-mail their video to the class as well as the instructor and build a library of ideas for students to share and use in their own classroom. This will definitely make the course more meaningful when they can take something back to their own practices.