Harvard researchers: frequent tests increase retention in online learning — from elearningindustry.com by Andrew Winner
Excerpt:
A pair of researchers at Harvard University think they’ve got part of the answer. In a study run by Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology, they found that interspersing short quizzes into online learning course can dramatically increase student retention of material.
Excerpt:
From DSC:
THIS is what it could look like if students OWNED their own learning and could pursue their own passions! — A powerful piece! Well worth your time if you are involved with — or concerned about — education in any way, shape, or form.
The video starts off with this troubling/deep assertion by a student (which I’m sure varies in actuality across the board):
From DSC:
A few radical — but powerful ideas — to help students OWN their own learning (something that they will need for the rest of their lives):
A couple of questions kept running through the back of my mind:
With that said, this is a very powerful piece — well worth your time to check out.
Instructional design: from “packaging” to “scaffolding” — from c4lpt.co.uk by Jane Hart
Excerpt:
In my recent posts, The changing role of L&D: from “packaging” to “scaffolding” plus “social capability building” and Towards the Connected L&D Department I wrote about the need to move from a focus on “packaging” training to “scaffolding” learning, and I said I would talk more about what “scaffolding” looks like. For me, this is the key way for workplace learning professionals to move the learning industry into the future. In this post I’m going to look at “instructional scaffolding” but in subsequent posts, I will consider “scaffolding performance support & team collaboration” in the workplace as well as “scaffolding professional learning“.
From DSC:
Some very frustrated reflections after reading:
Excerpt:
Right now, boys are falling out of the kindergarten through 12th grade educational pipeline in ways that we can hardly imagine.
This situation continues to remind me of the oil spill in the Gulf (2010), where valuable resources spilled into the water untapped — later causing some serious issues:
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From DSC:
What are we doing?!!! We’ve watched the dropout rates grow — it doesn’t seem we’ve changed our strategies nearly enough! But the point that gets lost in this is that we will all pay for these broken strategies — and for generations to come! It’s time to seriously move towards identifying and implementing some new goals.
What should the new goals look like? Here’s my take on at least a portion of a new vision for K-12 — and collegiate — education:
ASTD TechKnowledge 2013 Conference Backchannel: Curated Resources — from David Kelly
Excerpt:
I am a huge proponent of backchannel learning. There are many conferences I would love to be able to attend, but my budget can only accommodate one or two each year. The backchannel is an excellent resource for learning from a conference or event that you are unable to attend in-person.
Also see David’s posting:
How NOT to design a MOOC: The disaster at Coursera and how to fix it — from onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com by Debbie Morrison
Excerpt/update:
Note: I’m also enrolled in Coursera’s E-learning and Digital Cultures, with University of Edinburgh, which is so far excellent. What I wrote in this post is exclusive to the course Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application. I also completed Introduction to Sociology, through Coursera last year which was quite good.
Update: This course is now ‘suspended’. Participants received this email February 2, at 4:17 pm (PST). “We want all students to have the highest quality learning experience. For this reason, we are temporarily suspending the “Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application” course in order to make improvements. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. We will inform you when the course will be reoffered.”
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From DSC:
There will be many more disasters I’m sure. But as with learning, failure is to be expected (some would say mandatory) and learning is messy. This is especially true when technological change and innovation are moving at ever-increasing speeds.
The questions that comes to my mind after reading this are:
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Mayer & Clark – 10 brilliant design rules for e-learning — from Donald Clark
Excerpt:
Richard Mayer and Ruth Clark are among the foremost researchers in the empirical testing of media and media mix hypotheses in online learning. Their e-Learning and the Science of Instruction (2003) covers seven design principles; multimedia, contiguity, modality, redundancy, coherence, personalisation, and practice opportunities. Clear explanations are given about the risks of ignoring these principles – with support from worked examples and case study challenges. It should be a compulsory text for online learning designers.
Excerpt:
Description:
Enter up to three (3) screencast videos. Videos will be assigned a category based on the information you provide (so please be as detailed as possible!). Categories are: Education (videos with a focus on teaching and/or schools, at any level); Tutorial/Training (videos with a focus on training or tutorial content); Sales and Marketing (videos made to sell or persuade); and Wildcard (videos that don’t fit in the previous categories).
Don’t throw the baby out with the multiple-choice bath water — from elearninguncovered.com by Diane Elkins
Excerpt:
Multiple-choice questions are often maligned by instructional designers. I’ve heard the following at conferences.
From DSC:
I understand that Mr. George Lucas is going to express his generosity in donating the $4.05 billion from the sale of Lucasfilm to education.
Here’s a question/idea that I’d like to put forth to Mr. Lucas (or to the United States Department of Education, or to another interested/committed party):
Would you consider using the $4+ billion gift to build an “Online Learning Dream Team?”
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Original image credit (before purchased/edited by DSC)
yobro10 / 123RF Stock Photo
From DSC:
What do you think? What other “players” — technologies, vendors, skillsets, etc. — should be on this team?
Writing multiple choice questions for higher order thinking — from theelearningcoach.com by Connie Malamed
Excerpt:
One of the biggest criticisms of multiple choice questions is that they only test factual knowledge. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can also use multiple choice questions to assess higher-order thinking.
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Also see:
