ESSENTIAL
POINTS ABOUT
OPEN
and DISTANCE LEARNING
In ‘today’s’ world, teachers and students are
experiencing and getting benefits from technology very closely. So, the
awareness of the importance of online/distance education is increasing. To be
able to join that virtual world, both students and teachers need to be aware of
several factors such as how to be effective learner/teacher with the help of
effective skills and abilities, how to describe and improve engagement, and
also need to be aware of the effective use of flipped learning. With the help
of such essential points about distance education, students and teachers have the
opportunity to be effective in their teaching or learning process. In order to
that, these essentials of distance education are mentioned in various different
aspect in our weekly discussions.
In week three, the chapter ‘’Distance Language Teaching with
Technology’’ by Cynthia
White was discussed. The topic was mainly about distance language, teaching and
technology.
First of all, Ahsen and I mentioned how
students can be their own course producers and how they can shape their own
learnings with the consideration of their learning needs. Firstly, we
established that students have to improve their self-regulation skills and have
autonomy to manage their own learning process. Students have to know what they
need and what kind of a way they have to follow to achieve their goal.
In addition, we discussed about the differences
between online education and face-to-face education, and decided that teachers
has an important role to provide an effective learning environment. It is more
challenging to keep students motivated and engaged for a long time. So,
teachers have to focus on how to create an interactive, communicative, and
collaborative learning environment. In order to that, to reflect the needs and
desires of students, teachers need to improve their self-awareness and
proficiency skills. With the help of improved proficiency skills, teachers can
be aware of how to engage and motivate the students with various types of technological
tools and educational platforms in online education process. Moreover, we
mentioned that self-awareness and proficiency skills improvement help teachers
to observe and evaluate the lacknesses of their own teaching style and
strategies and give them opportunity to create a more effective and enjoyable
learning environment for students. In this way, the motivation of students
increase, and they learn actively and successfully.
We also discussed about how to assess students
in online educational process and deduced that online learning is based on
technology, so teachers should get benefit from technological platforms to assess
their students. For example, a porfolio or journal demanded at the end of the
term can be changed with an online presentation or discussion session for the
assessment. In the discussion, we also pointed that creating a friendly
environment as a teacher is important to be able to understand the needs and
demands of students to be a facilitator for students and to guide them to the
right path in their learning process. Also, with the help of the guidance, providing
the engagement of students and also managing the classroom environment become
much easier for teachers during both face-to-face and online educational
process.
In
week four, the chapter ‘’Creating a Sense of Presence
in Online Teaching: How to "Be There" for Distance Learners’’ by
Rosemary M. Lehman and Simone C. O. Conceicao was discussed. The topic was
mainly about forms of presence in online environment. First of all,
Ahsen and I made the definition of presence with a few key words such as cooperation, involvement,
consciousness, awareness, interaction, reflection. We discussed on the sentence
‘’… presence is a result of the dynamic interplay of thought, emotion and
behavior in the online environment.’’ Then, we handled what thought, emotion
and behavior refer in the sentence. As we inferred, thought perspective is
basically the feeling of being connected to the learning community of students,
so in this way, students can find the purpose in their learning process.
Secondly, we indicated that emotional perspective is related to intrinsic
motivation which helps students to make a progress effectively in their own
learning process. Lastly, we indicated that behavioral perspective can be seen
as being able to know and manage the way of learning and to know what to do for
gaining awareness. Getting feedback and trying to engage and being active
during the class are some of the ways of providing effective learning process.
After those three
perspectives, we emphasized the importance of creating social context, online
communication opportunities and interactive lessons are the key factors in
terms of social presence to provide a successful course design for learners. It
means students should be in the center of their own learning process.
As another point, we talked
about how teachers can recognize
the presence in virtual space. We decided that online education is more
challenging than face-to-face education because of the connection and
interaction problems. For example, teachers can easily reflect on their
students and make comments on their behaviors or learnings in face-to-face learning,
but it is harder to provide such guidance environment for students in online
education. It is not only hard for teachers but also hard for students to feel
connected in online environment. If students have a problem in the class, it is
easier to having a contact with teacher in person in face-to-face educational
environment.
Moreover, as a highlighted issue in the chapter, we discussed about the
meanings of being there and being together with others. We covered that being
there refers to being in the classroom environment (physically or virtually as
a location) and being together with others is about being active socially and
mentally during the learning process.
Then, we highlighted the basic differences in terms of presence between
online and face-to-face education. The differences are the connection between
teacher-students and between students, also because every student has different
location while connecting to the virtual classes, it can be hard for them to feeling
fine mentally and physically (the crowd at home, too cold or too hot temperature,
the internet problems etc.) As another difference, it is harder to recognize
the situation of ‘being there and being together with others’ of students in
virtual classes. To make it clear, students can join the class in time, but may
not be there as a listener. In virtual classes, teacher may not know if
students there even physically if they do not be willing to turn on their
cameras or microphones. As the last point, we talked about our experiences in
terms of students’ presence during the teacher practicum. Unfortunately, both
of us stated that there was not enough awareness or reflection from both
teachers and students about student presence because the focus was not the
students but the teaching process for teachers.
In
week five, as the first chapter, ‘’What
is student engagement in online learning … and how do I know when it is
there?’’ was discussed by Ahsen and me.
The topic was mainly about student engagement in online learning process. First
of all, we handled the interaction issue in online learning. We stated that
interaction is kind of challenging in online education because cameras and
microphones are the only mediums for teachers to reach their students. If students
are not willing to turn on the mediums, they cannot have enough interaction
with each other. We also discussed about how to create interactive environment
for students in online education; creating open-ended and discussion-based
questions and topics can help teachers to engage students. We mentioned the
types of interaction. We stated that student-instructor interaction is
important because in this way, teacher have a chance to observe students
closely and to know what the needs of their students. Also, students have a
chance to get feedback and reflection for their learnings. Learner-learner interaction
is also effective for pair learning. Sometimes, students know better the
intentions of each other and knowledge about any topic they feel lack. Speaking
the same ‘language’ encourage students to collaborate with each other in their
learning process. We also mentioned that learner-learner interaction provide
much more engagement and more effective for students in online education, but
teachers struggle on and cannot be effective enough to create activities and
discussion environment for learner-learner interaction. To increase
learner-learner interaction, we said that with the help of authentic materials
should be motivated and take the attention of them to communicate and
collaborate. Then, we talked about two
engagements ‘behavioral engagement’ and ‘cognitive engagement’. We learned that
behavioral engagement is about all the physical actions students do to
participate to classes such as turning on computer, turning on camera and
microphone, or opening the sources to join to classes while cognitive engagement
is being in the learning process mentally and actively. To provide cognitive
engagement, teachers should adopt a student-centered modal with
peer-collaboration, group works, authentic materials etc. Also, teachers should
have a facilitator role and be responsible with showing the ways to learn for
students which is an opposite style from traditional education in online or
face-to-face learning environment. To provide a student-centered environment,
inquiry-based, simulation-based, or peer-based learning modals which increase
discussion and critical thinking skills, collaboration and communication skills
can be prefered by teacher. We stated that creating such a learning environment
is not effective and enjoyable for only students but also for teachers. Lastly,
we discussed about the ‘signs’ of engagement, and we stated that if students
are active, have some ideas for discussions and answers for questions.
In week five, ‘’Fake Engagement: Fake or Real Engagement – Looks can be Deceiving’’ was discussed by Ahsen and
me as the second chapter. The topic was mainly
online learner engagement; what engagement and fake engagement are, the reasons
of fake engagement, and the reasons why some students abstain from fake engagement.
Firstly, to start the discussion, we talked about the possible ways of taking
the attention of students and keep them focused on the tasks. We stated that
creating interactive classroom environment with the help of different
technological platforms, materials, and sources and focusing on how to develop
the inquiry and critical thinking skills of students are important to be able
to provide engagement for teachers. Then, we discussed about the meaning of engagement
and its relation with motivation. We said that engagement does not come out
without motivation. Because motivation is the intention to learn, it is the
first step of engagement. Motivation triggers the learning process of students.
After having motivation, engagement as the action part can be observed in
students with the help of their active participation to their own learning
processes.
In addition to that, we touch on the meaning of authentic engagement. In
our opinion, the contents teachers provide for students should be interesting
for them, and make them willing to get the input. If students find something to
experience, they become engaged authentically. After engagement, we mentioned
the key point in the chapter which was ‘learning-by-doing’. We defined
learning-by-doing as student activeness and engagement generally. If students
try to experience, explore, and investigate for their learning process, they
will be engaged and learn by doing in this way. Some technological platforms
such as Voki and Storybird can help students to have fun while learning, and
learning-by-doing can be provided in this way. Providing learning-by-doing
process is easier in online environment in terms of accessing the platforms,
sources, and tools while it is easier in face-to-face environment in terms of
classroom management, assessing the learning process, and keeping the attention
of students, we said.
When we started to talk about fake engagement, we discussed the ways of
fake engagement like bodily display behaviors and work-related actions and also
the most popular ways such as head nodding, saying ‘yes’ regularly to show that
we are there and listening, drawing or writing on notebook something unrelated
to the lessons we take. It is also mentioned that pretending as engaged in
online educational environment is much easier because even students join the
classes, if they do not turn on their cameras and microphones, it is nearly
impossible to be recognized by teachers while having fake engagement. When the
topic came to why and when students fake their engagement, we handled the
reasons of fake engagement such as physical conditions like being in a gloomy,
too hot or too cold classroom, teaching style of teachers like reading
straightly from the books or presentations without any interaction with
students which forces students to stay passive and mentally away from class. Also,
we mentioned the other reasons such as content and other attentional priorities
such as family issues, other assignments and exams to have. We think that to be
able recognize fake engagement, teachers need to create a friendly environment
and know their students well to be aware of the differences or fake behaviors
on them. Last but not least, we highlighted the topic why some students abstain
from fake engagement. The reasons were titled as social expectations/norms and to
please the teacher. We talked that students specially when they have group
works, they feel responsible among the others and try not to bother them. So,
to be respectful and consider to the others, they avoid fake engagement. Also, some
students consider the feelings of their teachers towards them. To seem as
successful and respectful, they try to avoid fake engagement as well.
In week six, the chapter ‘’A systematic review of research on flipped language classrooms: theoretical foundations, learning activities, tools, research topics and findings’’ was discussed by Ahsen and me. The topic was mainly about flipped learning classes. First of all, we mentioned that flipped classroom provides the ideal learning/teaching roles for teacher and students. With the help of flipped learning, teacher has the facilitator role and provide effective sources and materials for students, and students become able to manage their own learning process with increased self-regulation and autonomy. We also compared flipped learning with PPP format and stated that they are similar because of their stages. In present stage, teacher provides the material and source for students to get the input, in practice stage, students do some tasks to cover the topic, and in product stage, they handle the topic together collaboratively and interactively. We discussed some disadvantages of flipped learning. Firstly, the characteristics of students effect the process because some students may be irresponsible to complete the individual pre-learning and during-learning stages, so it effects the after-learning stage, or some students may be shy and hesitate to reflect their learnings to the others in after-learning stage. Secondly, because of the lack of proficiency skills of teachers, the activities, materials, and sources may fall into repetition, so it may be boring for students, and they may lose their attention and motivation towards the lessons. Thirdly, it is more time consuming for teachers to create such an effective process regularly. Last but not least, because flipped learning is related with technology, it may be hard to access to the devices or even to the internet for non-urban areas. On the other hand, as the advantages of flipped learning, we mentioned that it helps students to improve their autonomy because they learn how to learn individually and manage their own learning, they also learn how to manage the time and keep their own pace to learn. We stated that flipped learning is not only effective for young learner but also effective for the adults because it helps students to be engaged and motivated with the help of various game-based or interactive material and activity options, and collaborative studying environment. We also highlighted the benefit of flipped learning for language classrooms. Flipped learning provides the time for students to ‘learn by doing’. Language learning requires practice as much as possible, so because students complete the learning theoratical point individually, they have more time together to practice and share the knowledge they acquire in classroom environment collaboratively.
As we mentioned during the discussions, there are several essentials factors to be able to provide an effective teaching/learning process. Teachers need to be aware of their own proficiency skills and improve themselves in order to manage the interactiove and collaborative learning process of students, to provide them authentic learning sources,materials,and ways, and also be aware of their activeness,motivation, and engagements. Also, students need to be aware of how to manage their own learnings.
REFERENCE:
White, C (2017, June 30) Distance Language Teaching with Technology in
The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning, Wiley
Blackwell (p. 134-149) https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118914069
Lehman, R. M, Conceiçâo S. C. O, (2010) The Role of Presence in Online
Environment in Creating a sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be
There” for Distance Learners, Jossey-Bass (p. 1-12). Wiley
Mercer S., Talbot K.R, Wang I. K. (2020) Fake or Real Engagement- Looks
can be Deceiving. Student Engagement in the Language Classroom (v.11, p.
122-136, 11) https://doi.org/10.21832/9781788923613
Kennedy, G. (2020). What is student engagement in online learning … and
how do I know when it is there? The University of Melbourne https://melbournecshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/3362125/student-engagement-online-learning_final.pdf
Zou, D., Luo, S., Xie, H., & Hwang, G. J. (2020). A systematic
review of research on flipped language classrooms: theoretical foundations,
learning activities, tools, research topics and findings. Computer Assisted
Language Learning, 1–27. Routledge https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2020.1839502
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