eLearning Two Step: An Overview Of Instruction

An eLearning Two Step Overview Of Instruction

Many online education programs have been characterized as “one step ahead for technology and two steps back for pedagogy”. As we all know, online learning is still often highly didactic – lots of readings, lots of videos explaining what learners should do, few opportunities for interaction with instructors, little interactive content and less designed, deliberate and moderated communication and collaboration with other learners. This may fine for self-paced learning, but, increasingly as teacher professional development moves online (everywhere), I’d argue that online learning for teachers should model the same instructional methods with which teachers are expected to teach students. We can begin, in the first of this two-part article, with an eLearning two step overview of “instruction”.

Step 1: Broad Models Of Instruction

There are generally 3 broad classifications of instruction:

1. Direct instructional models.
   They involve transmission of information, concepts, skills, and procedures from instructor to student, in typically a one-way communication channel.
2. Cognitive models.
   They are more dialectical, involving inductive reasoning and teaching via analogy and learner discovery.
3. Social models.
   They involve collaborative learning, cooperative learning, and more interpersonal types of interactions that maximize learning from and with one another.

The last two models -cognitive and social- can be organized under the rubric of “learner-centered instruction”. Learner-centered instruction in turn originates from constructivist learning theory. Constructivism’s main tenets can be summarized in the following 6 principles:

1. Learners bring unique prior knowledge, experience, and beliefs to a learning situation.
2. Knowledge is constructed uniquely and individually, in multiple ways, through a variety of authentic tools, resources, experiences, and contexts.
3. Learning is both an active and reflective process.
4. Learning is a developmental process of accommodation, assimilation, or rejection to construct new conceptual structures, meaningful representations, or new mental models.
5. Social interaction introduces multiple perspectives through reflection, collaboration, negotiation, and shared meaning.
6. Learning is internally controlled and mediated by the learner (Dimock, Burns, Heath & Burniske, 2001).

Step Two: Types Of Learner-Centered Instruction

Though we often generally know learner-centered instruction when we see it, it is often poorly defined. Furthermore, it is not a "flat" definition or single instructional approach, but rather a taxonomy and a family of instructional approaches in which learning goals and content drive how information is organized, understood, presented, and assessed.

The following table outlines the main instructional approaches that form part of learner-centered instruction.

Figure 1: Types and Characteristics of Learner-centered Instruction (Burns, 2011). (All references for learner-centered approaches below are listed on pp.152-154).

Cui Bono? (Or, Who The Heck Cares?!) 

It’s important to spend time on and unpack the broad concept of instruction and in particular, learner-centered instruction, for 3 reasons:

• First, the type of instruction we want to embody in our eLearning courses will obviously drive the design of the online course or program and selection of technologies.
• Second, understanding and instantiating learner-centered practices can contribute to our online students’ learning. Research on learning and achievement comes down on the side of a more learner-centered versus direct instruction approach (Burns, 2011).
• Third, learners’ perceptions of the quality of online courses are highly correlated with the type of instruction and communication the online instructor embodies (Aragon & Johnson, 2008).

If we want to put to rest the perception of online learning as one step ahead for technology and two steps back for pedagogy, we need to spend more time and effort on teaching and learning and less on the technology.

Part 2 of this article will explore what learner-centered instruction looks like “in action” in an online program.

---

While hardly a two-step, the first photo above is a traditional Panamanian dance and was taken by the author in December, 2014. The embedded photo, entitled Brownsville, Texas. Charro Days fiesta. Dancing the jarabe tapatia at Triple L Club dance, is a copyright free image from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540. The "Jarabe Tapatia" is better known as "The Mexican Hat Dance".

References:

• Aragon, S. R. & Johnson, E. S. (2008). Factors influencing completion and non-completion of community college online courses. The American Journal of Distance Education, 22 (3):146-158.
• Burns, M. (2011). Distance education for teacher training: Modes, Models, and Methods. Retrieved from http://go.edc.org/07xd
• Dimock, K.V., Burns, M., Heath, M. & Burniske, J. (2001, December). Applying technology to restructuring learning: How teachers use computers in technology assisted constructivist learning environments. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED448977.pdf
• Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. (1988). Learning together and alone. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.