Minding Student Learning in Virtual
Learning Scenarios
How Mindful Should Teachers be?
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post
178
Since I confess myself as an
inquisitive educator, some time ago, I started toying with the idea of getting
rid of paper exams from my university courses at Universidad Latina (Costa
Rica), but how? I had a lengthy conversation with my school director, Mr. Maynor
Segura, about this assessment concern that was troubling my way of seeing
student evaluation in higher education. In Mr. Segura’s office I simply asked
him if the university summative evaluation on course outlines was written on
stone or if I could modify the way that exams were administered in time as well
as other course assignments to have the chance of grading learners on a weekly
basis through small projects or segmented tests and learning tasks. I was told
by the ELT Program Director that there was no problem at all in making those
changes, and that was colossal news for me. From a mindfulness stance, grading
students on single exams is just a way that does not provoke deep learning, and
that is the one fault with this way of student grading in college; it is like
if we are training them to fail in their deep learning and making them rely on
surface learning as a survival mechanism.
Summatively assessing students is
always something to be mindful of; but finding a suitable way to help them
develop deep learning is a much more mindful act in education. Though Moodle is
not exactly the perfect CMS (Content Management System) I wish I had to work
with my learners, it is the one we have at the university that can help us work
on summative assessment mindfully if combined with additional and vital
ingredients to create the right learning virtual environment for higher
education learners. If used creatively within its array of possible learning
options, this multimedia learning resource can be of extensive use,
thought-provoking, and helpful for learner assessment. On account of Moodle,
many positive things can be stated to trigger student deep learning and,
consequently, many different kinds of tasks can be employed to host
hierarchical, critical thinking skills. Anyhow, no matter what multimedia
learning resource a teacher gets to use, it must be kept in mind and
well-explained to students what the instructor’s social and teaching presence
roles are and what sort of cognitive presence is demanded from the pupil to
successfully profit from their online experience in a Moodle virtual ambience.
Not knowing the possibilities I have
by using Moodle, from a mere empirical point of view, I started using Google Sites
as my unanimous choice to work with student deep learning (critical thinking). PBL,
something I was introduced to while studying through the University of Oregon
distant education program, came to help me design and develop learning tasks
for students on a Google Sites environment. And though Google Sites is a good
option to create a wiki where learners can visualize learning projects, Moodle
can do that much easier especially because it allows the instructor to create
many different kinds of learning exercises. With some basic instructional
design training and the Moodle guide for novice users, educators can create
robust learning exercises in various Moodle scenarios: from assignments, chats, databases, forums,
lessons, and glossaries to quizzes, Scorm packages, wikis, and so
on. And if you spice all these kinds of Moodle scenarios up with some PBL
orientation, the product can be much more rewarding for the instructor and for
the learners; assessment can be fun and highly fulfilling for the students and
no need to have paper tests any more to see how much students are really
achieving from a surface learning viewpoint.
How can Moodle be improved to account
for real deep learning and fulfill students’ expectations in the creation of
their own knowledge? Let’s be mindful for some time and think of how much we
have learned in the field of education that can assist us in the design and
development of learning tasks for our students. First thing that pops up in my
mind is Bloom’s Taxonomy since I want to create activities that can accommodate
different levels of difficulty in terms of critical and hierarchical thinking.
Second thing that comes into my mind is the right encasements for a PBL
(Project-Based Learning) task that can have students produce a deliverable that
suits the learning objectives in the course outline and that can help them
construct their own knowledge. Finally, pupil training on the usage of the
platform is a must. If learners are not trained, they are bound to fail.
Training is indeed important, so take advantage of the F2F contact with them
during class time.
To sum up, any kind of multimedia
learning resource that can come into our design and development of virtual
lessons needs to be considered from all angles to envision what can happen and
unscrupulously leave learners to their own fate. A mindful professional with a
bit of instructional design over his/her shoulders will find the right way of
working with students to help them build their knowledge, achieve course
learning goals, assist them when having trouble with the CMS/Moodle, walk them
through PBL tasks that summatively aids the teacher to evaluate the accomplishment
of course objective, etc.
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