Day 2 - terry anderson & the Theory of Online Learning:
We can learn a lot from Terry Anderson's Theory of Online Learning. He explains that effective learning environments should contain four overlapping components. These four lenses, community-centered, knowledge-centered, learner-centered, and assessment-centered learning are outlined below.
Learner-Centered contexts meet the needs of the individual learner, teacher, institution, and the larger society that provides support for the student. A teacher must understand the students’ prerequisite knowledge, including misconceptions that the learner starts with in their construction of new knowledge. Learner-centered activities use diagnostic tools and activities to help the teacher understand the students’ knowledge base. Creating successful learner-centered environments can present challenges for educators because assessing student preconditions and cultural contexts is difficult. Effective online teachers strive to make learners feel comfortable in the learning environment, while increasing their Internet and technical skills.
Knowledge-Centered contexts are important to learning, regardless of whether the context is online or campus based. However, the Internet provides opportunities for learners to gather almost limitless knowledge resources, benefiting from exposure to thousands of formats and contexts. The limitations of having access to an endless amount of resources can be overwhelming and it is the teacher’s duty to provide scaffolding for the students pre-existing knowledge. Learning is about making connections (Siemen’s Connectivism) with ideas, facts, people, and communities. Students need to be able to locate the knowledge that they require and use it to create meaningful connections to society.
Effective learning environments also need to be Assessment-Centered. This includes formative and summative evaluation that serve to motivate, inform, and provide feedback to learners and teachers. Online learning provides many opportunities for assessment opportunities that involve influence and expertise of peers, external experts, and the teacher. Encouraging students to reflectively assess their own learning is key to assessment-centered learning. The challenge associated with assessment-centered learning environments is understanding what is most usefully assessed rather than what can be assessed most easily. The enhanced communication capacity of online learning provides good opportunities to create assessment-centered activities that are workplace based (designed for the real world); also constructed collaboratively and infused with opportunity for self-assessment.
Community-Centered learning is a critical component in online learning designs. Here we find Vygotsky’s (2000) notions of “social cognition” relevant as we consider how students can work together in an online learning context to collaboratively create new knowledge. Characteristics of participants in online learning communities can share a sense of belonging, trust, expectation of learning, and commitment to participate in and contribute to the community. Problems associated with this community-centered learning include a possible lack of attention and participation, economic restraints, and resistance from institutions due to the competition that virtual learning communities create for them. Furthermore, participation in a community of learners almost always places constraints upon the learners independence and temporal freedom, which is the main reason students choose online learning environments.
Anderson states that all of the above contexts of online learning environments have potential opportunities and barriers that are important considerations in online learning environments. He uses the four contexts to enhance his explanation of interaction in online learning as well.
Learner-Centered contexts meet the needs of the individual learner, teacher, institution, and the larger society that provides support for the student. A teacher must understand the students’ prerequisite knowledge, including misconceptions that the learner starts with in their construction of new knowledge. Learner-centered activities use diagnostic tools and activities to help the teacher understand the students’ knowledge base. Creating successful learner-centered environments can present challenges for educators because assessing student preconditions and cultural contexts is difficult. Effective online teachers strive to make learners feel comfortable in the learning environment, while increasing their Internet and technical skills.
Knowledge-Centered contexts are important to learning, regardless of whether the context is online or campus based. However, the Internet provides opportunities for learners to gather almost limitless knowledge resources, benefiting from exposure to thousands of formats and contexts. The limitations of having access to an endless amount of resources can be overwhelming and it is the teacher’s duty to provide scaffolding for the students pre-existing knowledge. Learning is about making connections (Siemen’s Connectivism) with ideas, facts, people, and communities. Students need to be able to locate the knowledge that they require and use it to create meaningful connections to society.
Effective learning environments also need to be Assessment-Centered. This includes formative and summative evaluation that serve to motivate, inform, and provide feedback to learners and teachers. Online learning provides many opportunities for assessment opportunities that involve influence and expertise of peers, external experts, and the teacher. Encouraging students to reflectively assess their own learning is key to assessment-centered learning. The challenge associated with assessment-centered learning environments is understanding what is most usefully assessed rather than what can be assessed most easily. The enhanced communication capacity of online learning provides good opportunities to create assessment-centered activities that are workplace based (designed for the real world); also constructed collaboratively and infused with opportunity for self-assessment.
Community-Centered learning is a critical component in online learning designs. Here we find Vygotsky’s (2000) notions of “social cognition” relevant as we consider how students can work together in an online learning context to collaboratively create new knowledge. Characteristics of participants in online learning communities can share a sense of belonging, trust, expectation of learning, and commitment to participate in and contribute to the community. Problems associated with this community-centered learning include a possible lack of attention and participation, economic restraints, and resistance from institutions due to the competition that virtual learning communities create for them. Furthermore, participation in a community of learners almost always places constraints upon the learners independence and temporal freedom, which is the main reason students choose online learning environments.
Anderson states that all of the above contexts of online learning environments have potential opportunities and barriers that are important considerations in online learning environments. He uses the four contexts to enhance his explanation of interaction in online learning as well.
Terry Andreson of Athabasca University talks about online learning
The Role of Interaction in Online Learning:
Interaction has always been valued in distance education. Anderson states that there are six components of interaction in online learning. They are explained briefly below. Anderson's Figure of Educational Interaction shows the connections between each component.
Student-Student Interaction is a key component in online learning environments. Modern constructivist and connectivist theorists stress the value of peer-to-peer interaction in investigating and developing multiple perspectives. Student-led teams and collaborative learning are “reciprocal teaching” and help to develop communities of learning.
Student-Content Interaction is a major component of formal education and online learning. The Web provides a host of opportunities including interactive content that responds to student behaviour and has attributes that allow for customization of content to support the individual needs of each unique learner.
Student-Teacher Interaction is supported in online learning in a variety of formats that include communication in text, audio, and video.The flow of communication in online courses is much less teacher-centered than in traditional classrooms; this can support the emergence of greater learner commitment and participation.
Teacher-Content focuses on the teacher’s creation of content: learning objects as well as units of study, complete courses, and associated learning activities. Teacher-content interaction allows teachers tomonitor, construct, and update course content resources and activities.
Teacher-Teacher Interaction allows teachers to develop professionally and support one another through communities. These interactions encourage teachers to take advantage of knowledge growth and discovery, in their own subject area and within the scholarly community of teachers.
Content-Content Interaction is a new mode of educational interaction in which content is programmed to interact with other automated information sources to constantly update.
These six modes of interaction along with the lenses of learning, are key to creating solid online learning contexts . Anderson uses them to create her Model of E-Learning.
Model of E-Learning
Anderson proposes a model of E-learning (top of page) which illustrates the two major actors: learners and teachers and their interactions with each other and with the content. Learners can interact directly with the content they find and any way they choose. However, they may choose to have their learning sequenced and directed through the assistance of the teacher. These multi-component learning environments allow for the learning of social skills, collaboration, and the development of personal relationships among participants. The community however, binds learners in time, and thus forces group-paced learning which can cause frustrations for learners.
Anderson concludes that online learning, like all forms of learning, should always be knowledge-, community-, assessment-, and learner-centered. She argues that online learning will enhance the critical function of interaction in education, in multiple formats and styles, among all participants. However, we must also be aware of the barriers and limitations associated within learning environments.
Interaction has always been valued in distance education. Anderson states that there are six components of interaction in online learning. They are explained briefly below. Anderson's Figure of Educational Interaction shows the connections between each component.
Student-Student Interaction is a key component in online learning environments. Modern constructivist and connectivist theorists stress the value of peer-to-peer interaction in investigating and developing multiple perspectives. Student-led teams and collaborative learning are “reciprocal teaching” and help to develop communities of learning.
Student-Content Interaction is a major component of formal education and online learning. The Web provides a host of opportunities including interactive content that responds to student behaviour and has attributes that allow for customization of content to support the individual needs of each unique learner.
Student-Teacher Interaction is supported in online learning in a variety of formats that include communication in text, audio, and video.The flow of communication in online courses is much less teacher-centered than in traditional classrooms; this can support the emergence of greater learner commitment and participation.
Teacher-Content focuses on the teacher’s creation of content: learning objects as well as units of study, complete courses, and associated learning activities. Teacher-content interaction allows teachers tomonitor, construct, and update course content resources and activities.
Teacher-Teacher Interaction allows teachers to develop professionally and support one another through communities. These interactions encourage teachers to take advantage of knowledge growth and discovery, in their own subject area and within the scholarly community of teachers.
Content-Content Interaction is a new mode of educational interaction in which content is programmed to interact with other automated information sources to constantly update.
These six modes of interaction along with the lenses of learning, are key to creating solid online learning contexts . Anderson uses them to create her Model of E-Learning.
Model of E-Learning
Anderson proposes a model of E-learning (top of page) which illustrates the two major actors: learners and teachers and their interactions with each other and with the content. Learners can interact directly with the content they find and any way they choose. However, they may choose to have their learning sequenced and directed through the assistance of the teacher. These multi-component learning environments allow for the learning of social skills, collaboration, and the development of personal relationships among participants. The community however, binds learners in time, and thus forces group-paced learning which can cause frustrations for learners.
Anderson concludes that online learning, like all forms of learning, should always be knowledge-, community-, assessment-, and learner-centered. She argues that online learning will enhance the critical function of interaction in education, in multiple formats and styles, among all participants. However, we must also be aware of the barriers and limitations associated within learning environments.
Professor Terry Anderson from Athabasca University holds his keynote speech at the Next Generation Learning Conference 2012, NGL 2012. The topic is Social networking in distance education programming. His research interests focus on interaction and social media in distance education contexts.
thought questions:
1. List and discuss the 4 lenses Terry Anderson's theory is based on.
2. What is the role of interaction in online learning?
2. What is the role of interaction in online learning?
key words:
1. Assessment-centered learning
2. Multi-component learning environments
3. Learner-centered environments
4. Student-Content Interaction
2. Multi-component learning environments
3. Learner-centered environments
4. Student-Content Interaction
references:
Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (2nd Edition, pp. 45-74). Athabasca: Athabasca University. Retrieved from: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120146
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