Beware – Major Problems With Online Learning
When it comes to online learning, practice certainly makes perfect. In a classroom environment lecturing is an effective teaching medium, but this is not the case in the online world. Hearing a lecture leads to effective note-taking, and note-taking is a process that forces information into your long term memory. But as all educators know through practice, note-taking on material read out of the classroom environment is very ineffective as a learning tool. Therefore, lecture notes do not translate into productive online learning. The student simply glosses over the online lecture notes, much as a student would if she were reading a textbook. Most of the material is lost, and the notes are often only read in a cramming environment, or saved for the tests.
SOLUTIONS FOR THE DISTANCE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
So what is the solution for effective online learning? It’s very simple really, the solution is activities. If you are teaching grammar, first provide the instructions, then provide specific examples where the student must institute the correct rules. Follow this with common mistakes made with this problem. If you are teaching a math course, provide specific problems with your lecture notes, then return the problems with specific revisions. Practice makes perfect, and this is much more true of the online world where direct contact with the instructor is harder to come by.
Another effective tool is digital communication methods. Running a blog for the course where the teacher can instantly update questions, or answer questions in the feedback area is a great example. Instant messaging services work great as a distance learning replacement for office hours. Email is always an effective way to communicate with students. Communication that is accessible is an important component to efficient distance learning. Just because face to face communication does not occur does not mean communication is impossible. A blog is a great tool because it allows the teacher to post lecture notes, and to instantly post new information that relates to frequently asked questions about the subject matter. In the feedback section it also allows for student interaction.
Student interaction is another area that is easily translatable to the online environment and online learning. Forcing students to participate in discussion board conversations through blackboard or other tools, like say blog feedback, will bring issues to the surface that would not otherwise become available. Often problems that the students didn’t even know they had will be raised this way.
KEYS TO SUCCESS
The key to successful online learning and distance education is three-fold, proper use of technological tools, real-time problem solving and activities relating to the subject matter above and beyond lecture notes and consistent communication. These are all important components of the modern educational world, and are easily translated to the online and distance learning environment.
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