This week I have been roughly planning my three formal posts for Part B, Assignment 1; and feeling like I wanted to discuss my responses with other students. Then, I read Miranda's "Pros and cons of online education", and realised that possibly everyone was feeling this way. Miranda posed some very relevant questions- one of which was: I wonder if people will always seek to meet when enrolled in massive online courses? My initial response was "yes", people will naturally want to meet face-to-face - or at least - utilise a similar medium for this purpose (E.G. Collaborate, Zoom). But, was this really the case? Do all students feel the need to connect face-to-face? I have found this course somewhat chaotic, with many concepts and theories presented in a non-intuitive order (from my perspective only). I have completed other courses, where I haven't had trouble following the learning; and in these courses, I haven't felt a strong need to connect face-to-face. Perhaps one of the learnings of this course is that students need to develop the skill to articulate their thoughts and interact more directly through the written word, because interacting face-to-face may not always be an option. This raises the question of how students with different learning styles/preferences cope with networked learning. I imagine that students with a strong read/write learning preference would be comfortable in the networked learning environment; however, if this style of learning is the future, every student will need to develop the skills to take part. Otherwise, they may limit their opportunity to learn. In my last course, I chose to concentrate on examining how students with different learning styles/preferences can adapt to the online environment. The VARK Model, chosen because of it popularity in the Higher Education sector, has four learning styles (Fleming,1995): Visual (V) - prefers to absorb information in graphic form (diagrams, charts, images). They also use colour and layout to understand and learn. Auditory (A) - prefers to have things explained verbally, rather than read and explore things by themselves Read/Write (R) - prefers to absorb knowledge by reading about it and making notes, lists and reflections. Kinesthetic (K) - prefers to actively “do” things to learn. They enjoy practical learning activities (group work, role play, discussion, debate). * Multimodal (MM) - possess a strong preference for two or more of the four learning styles By understanding the influence of learning styles/preferences you can: - adapt your learning style to match the course activities - modify the learning activities to match your style. Ideally, learners need to be aware of other learning styles/preferences so as to develop a mixed method approach. This approach can help learners to adapt to different learning experiences and increase participation levels (Bhagat, Vyas, & Singh, 2015). I think our group is attempting to do this - adapt to the learning environment. Each week, the posts reveal a little more about the participants; and the sharing of similar experiences by participants is beginning to build a sense of connection. What do you all think? References Bhagat, A., Vyas, R., & Singh, T. (2015). Students awareness of learning styles and their perceptions to a mixed method approach for learning. International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research, 5(suppl 1), 58-65. doi:10.4103/2229- 516x.162281 Fleming, N.D. (1995). I'm different, not dumb. Modes of presentation(VARK) in the tertiary classroom. In Proceedings of the 1995 Annual Conference of the Higher Education and Research Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). 18, 308- 313. Pros and cons of online education. (2016). Global Education Matters. Retrieved from http://www.globaledmatters.com/pros-and-cons-of-online-education/ VARK. (2016). The VARK Questionnaire. Retrieved from http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/ Click on this link to take the quiz (Vark Learning, 2016):
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