The Active Learning College Classroom

and Online Communities

Description:  Current brain research holds implications for enhancing the quality of learning in online environments.

Abstract:

The vast body of research concerning the success of online instructional environments seems to indicate that that there is no significant difference in the numbers of students who complete online coursework and those who complete in-class courses and yet online instructional environments are frequently under attack for their seemingly oversimplified and nonengaging strategies that leave learners feeling isolated and under motivated. Responsibility for student engagement resides primarily with the learner and as such can contribute to a less than optimum learning environment. Through a shared responsibility for engagement in learning opportunities and outcomes, faculty can enhance the quality of the overall learning experience. This faculty case study presents a window into several options for managing active learning strategies that enhance the quality of online learning experiences. Current brain research will be addressed as well as the implications this research holds for enhancing the quality of learning in online environments.

Significant Brain Research principles that guide online learning materials preparation:

Brain-researched learning environments provide rich, stimulating environments – color, hyper-texture, sound, and graphical "teaching architecture" should include displays created by students as well as the professor so students have connection and ownership of the learning environment. Students benefit greatly from predictable space in online learning environments with clear and redundant support for what purpose each course space serves. Student jump quickly to the conclusion that there is something wrong with their computer or they are missing a plug-in when they encounter space that is not completely and definitively explained. Creating spaces for students to add their own comments, content, web-links, reactions, sounds and images or other supportive display must be carefully integrated into the whole course in order to minimize confusion, without compromising the power of undiscovered directions that student-led learning may activate.

Technical considerations such as sufficient server space, enabling tools to provide alternative access for diverse learners, support plug-ins that meet cross-platform and application-based challenges and access speed issues are as significant to consider as the planning and development of human interactions to achieve a rich learning atmosphere. Java, javascript, VBscript, DHTML, CGI and Perl, XML and other database languages aid in the creation of interactive webisodes of learning that target and review concepts for individual study. Mulitmedia using FLASH, Toolbook, Hyperstudio and most commonly PowerPoint allow learners to revisit concepts and review their learning as new concepts are introduced as many times as the learner wishes. The power of these tools for gaining learner attention, focusing attention on the point of learning readiness and providing instant learner feedback systems can not be over emphasized. What is essential for learner transfer is the appropriateness of the task to the target skill or knowledge and not as so often happens, the ease of availability. Requiring students to view 20 static PowerPoint’s for a participation grade because the publisher provided them does little to enhance transfer of learning, but one web-based application of java that reviews key concepts that are common stumbling points, with targeted instantaneous learner feedback and remediation can ease the entire class into the next learning segment while honoring differences in levels of readiness among the learners.

Places for group learning – breakout spaces, alcoves, and round-table groupings to facilitate social learning and stimulate the social brain and the need for turning breakout spaces into living rooms for conversation are underutilized in many online learning environments. Students are often assigned to stagnant, random, alphabetically organized teams at the beginning of the course. Other courses avoid any student-student interaction altogether. After attending as many presentations as I could in the knowledgeable development of online learning environments by experts who are currently conducting successful online courses I can attest to the fact that the most common comment made by my colleagues at the beginning of their presentations and sometimes reiterated repeatedly throughout their presentation is the advice to disable any chat or white-board component before the class ensues. Valuable active learning is lost when synchronous communication is disabled. Students who are excited by their learning in your course will often communicate with each other through email and in person. Using that power to bring on board other learners and harnessing the power of student-student interactions under your guidance multiplies your teaching success while simplifying your teaching efforts. A in every other aspect of instruction, a quality plan at the outset reaps long-lasting benefits for your learners. Deeper reflection, quality outcomes and synergistic learning are lost when these vital communication elements are not considered. Options include teaming for short term as well as long term projects, cycling team members, organizing teams based on a common view, background, or social context. Debates, single question teams, email tag-teams, research scavenger hunt teams and voluntary groups to study an issue in-depth are very effective structures for online learning. Create space. They will come.

Linking indoor and outdoor places – movement, engaging the motor cortex linked to the cerebral cortex, for oxygenation is perhaps the most challenging brain research principle to support in online learning environments. Providing links to ergonomically sound computing information, asking participants to post/share their favorite computer chair exercise, and assigning out of class interactions with the larger community, such as interviewing, observing or interacting with members of the business community are a few suggestions for meeting this learning need. Requiring some volunteer time, community service, or action such as editorial or political letter writing can be helpful, but it is difficult to require group activities that provide support to linking online learning with the larger community context. I had some success requiring students in a multimodality course on Teaching Diverse Populations to eat at an ethnically diverse restaurant in the community and then co-lead a forum for the class in their interactions and observations, but course evaluations indicated that students felt this should have been an option among several other ways to complete the assignment goals. Sharing an online web cast, guest speaker or other synchronous activity does not innately provide for movement, but it does give the opportunity for everyone to take a simultaneous stretch break, lead each other in a brief exercise and support the understanding that this is an important habit to incorporate for enhanced learning.

Entryways, webcorridors and welcoming public places containing symbols of the school community’s larger purpose provides coherency and meaning that increases motivation. In these places, tools for online learning success, for connection to the University’s testing, placement, computer labs and other relevant resources are a welcoming and useful addition that enables success. Assigning students roles in developing, accumulating and arranging these resources help them buy into the value of these tools as well as provide entry points for team development activities. Asking teams to develop team colors, symbols, slogans, creeds, mottos, legends or other team culture tools increases identity within and among teams and builds enthusiasm for difficult assignments. Regularly preparing for and requesting team culture sharing adds to the momentum. Researching and sharing publicly these important elements of the preexisting larger University life strengthens the role and attachment to the institution of the online course students as well. Going beyond sloganism to illustrate how these values and ideals are exemplified in your course and by students regularly strengthens the link between the online course and the University community as well as between each of the participants.

Changing displays – changing the environment, interacting with the environment stimulates brain development. Provide display areas that allow for stage set type constructions to further push the envelope with regard to environmental change. While students in online coursework need consistency and familiarity, change within context is helpful to bring new perspectives to already learned material as new concepts are introduced. Leave the structure and opening portals intact, but allow for student-led change and for inviting new questions and challenges as the course progresses. Recognizing accomplishments, opening with a bright and cheerful announcement or encouragement or recognizing a holiday with a set of relevant weblinks are ways to revitalize without causing confusing change. Have all needed resources available and archive past educational resources that proved useful in enhancing learning in close proximity to encourage rapid development of ideas generated in a learning episode. Not everything needs to be posted prior to the beginning of a course. IF a course is truly inquiry-based, then some arenas explored by some students and student teams in one semester may never be entered into in other semesters. This is an argument for computer-rich workspaces all integrated and not segregated. Multiple functions and cross-fertilization of ideas are primary goal.

Flexibility – a common principle in the past continues to be relevant. Many dimensions of flexibility of place are reflected in other principles. While the initial syllabus is a contract between the students and professor, appropriate changes and adaptations should be considered as new opportunities arise within a course to lead into valuable learning experiences. While the truly interactive, student-driven syllabus has yet to be invented, professors are generally flexible in terms of delivery, outcome and evaluation issues. Defining what elements are vital to the integrity of a course assist up front in molding what the course will become as the students engage more actively in their participation. Flexibility enhances brain stimulation because it leans on the links from previously learned material to drive instruction into student-identified areas of weakness or readiness to learn, which aids in the near transfer of learning to other relevant areas.

Active/passive places – students need places for reflection and retreat away from others for intrapersonal intelligence as well as places for active engagement for interpersonal intelligence. Assignment, participation or other course credit is appropriate for meeting this need. Permitting credit for the development and maintenance of digitized personal thinking space and rubrics for evaluating as well as supporting journaling activities that provide for privacy while encouraging deep thinking are some ways in which we need to rethink course grading. Security becomes a significant issue when we encourage students to keep a journal on-line. Likewise, some sense of privacy needs to exist for group or team whiteboard space. We would not dream of tape recording a group’s planning session for an in-class presentation, but essentially that is what occurs with the whiteboard file from a team’s online meeting. Comments that build camaraderie between team members may not be useful or appropriate for the professor’s eyes. At the same time, a college atmosphere needs to be maintained in all course interactions for students to feel secure in what will be expected and permitted from their course work. We need to spell out specifically what will be evaluated and what will be treated with regard for privacy at the beginning of the course and those ethical values need to be reiterated throughout the course and honored by all involved. Securing student confidence in the relative privacy of online communication tools can be difficult and may also be misleading. Some research on the digital divide indicates that cultural issues come into play in helping students feel confident about interpersonal interaction in online learning environments. This is certainly an issue to consider when addressing intrapersonal course supports. Alerting administration to your policies is also essential to ensure support when the inevitable difficulty arises.

Personalized space – the concept of home base needs to be emphasized more than the obligatory curse embedded introductory web page; this speaks to the principle of uniqueness; the need to allow learners to express their self-identity, personalize their special places, and places to express territorial behaviors. Encouraging self-expression in personalized course websites, team pages, and allowing latitude in how students choose to share about themselves is important to build this sense of personalized space.

The community-at-large as the optimal learning environment – Inviting guest speakers to white-board forums and permitting students to introduce outside experts into the community of learners aids in the transfer of learning from course specifics to the real world of work and learning in a lifelong arena. Delineating specific directions for accessing internal search tools and University-based research options may be time-consuming and challenging to develop because of firewalls, password protections, the need for University or course ID’s and the maze of connections from one resource to another that may require multiple steps to accomplish, but it is well-worth the effort to understand, document and explain the pathways for accessing these research tools in how it enables students to develop and implement strategies for enhancing their own learning environment with targeted resources. As information expands and search tools become more refined, students need to target their time and attention ever more efficiently to harness the power of the optimal learning environment. One of our most powerful roles as online instructors is teaching and enabling skills that were once the domain of research librarians.

A booklet of strategies for implementation and a rubric for assessing online learning environments for brain compatibility will be made available after 7/31/02 by sending requests to phaun@hcc.cc.fl.us