Want to Improve the Classroom? Use e-Learning.
Weighing in on the side of blended learning, Dr. Caroline Haythornthwaite of the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, states that e-Learning may be at its best when used as a tonic to the traditional classroom.
“Compared to the more traditional educational paradigm – the broadcast model, where knowledge is delivered from professor to student from on-high – e-learning turns teaching and learning into a shared endeavor.”
Citing a shift in dynamics between her online and brick-and-mortar classes, Haythornthwaite sees that online teaching offers more immediate and engaging interactions with the students:
“With the online classes, I interact with my students more frequently, dropping into asynchronous discussion daily for a half-hour or an hour. With my traditional classes, I might see them once a week for three hours. If there’s a news article I want my online students to read, I can post it and discussion can begin right away. With my classroom students, if I e-mail them an article on Tuesday and we meet for class on Friday, that’s one of many things we might discuss. The impact isn’t quite as immediate.”
In online instruction the roles of student and teacher are modified. The teacher moves from pundit to facilitator and the student is urged to assume a greater active role in his or her tuition.
“Since there’s an emphasis on more learner-centric activities than traditional lecture-based classroom learning, the teacher is more of a facilitator in an online classroom. Not only does that enhance the collaborative nature of online learning, it also motivates students to be much more engaged and to take more responsibility for what they’re learning.”
Haythornthwaite doubts that e-Learning will (or should) replace traditional classroom instruction, asserting instead that it is best used as a complement to lecture and demonstration. Noting the move to open source course materials at places like MIT, Haythornthwaite says:
“No one stopped going to class when all that material was posted. It simply changed the delivery method and broadened the scope of knowledge available.”
References.
Haythornthwaite’s Blog (includes many research papers)
E-Learning can have positive effect on classroom learning, scholar says
Cutting Class – Online vs. Classroom Learning