How to improve e-learning?

How do you think student-teacher collaboration can be improved in e-learning?

What can be added to improve e-learning?

 

I think elearning would be greatly enhanced by the drastic reduction of spammers on DL discussion boards.

 

Hi Kizmet,

I'm not spamming the discussion boards. I need your suggestions on how to improve this. Please be kind enough to answer the above two questions. Thanks!

 

If you explained who you are and why you are asking such questions then you might get a better response. Otherwise you just look like a spammer/troll.

 

Sorry I might have introduce myself earlier. I am an undergraduate of Uni.Westminster, UK. For my bachelors i'm doing a research on e-learning and need to get some information on that. So please be kind enough to provide your idea on the above questions.

Thanks.

 

I would start with Wikipedia's entry on e-learning. As I tell my students, you should not use Wikipedia as a reference, but they are a good place to start, because the topics are refereed by persons having an interest in the topic. You will generally find excellent references at Wikipedia topic sites.

E-learning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As you will come to discover, there is not a monolithic approach to e-learning, which can range from e-mailing in your assignments to an online university with no contact with other students or the professor all the way to real time (synchronous) attendance at ongoing live classrooms. In between this, you will find other modalities such as seeing canned lectures, attendance in e-mail/forum classrooms with some interaction, team projects, hybrid modalities where classes start and end live, but are conducted online, etc.

e-learning can have one of two approaches. The traditional approach is known as pedagogical learning, that is the teacher telling the students what they need to know. An adrogogical approach (adult centered) is when the student is allowed to discover for himself what is worthy to know, given the appropriate information.

Student teacher interaction may be irrelevant in some forms of e-learning. I have taken traditional classes and online classes, and have taught online classes. I can honestly say that even an androgogical minimal contact asynchronous program can be very good up until the point at which interaction with peers or the professor is needed, and that usually occurs at dissertation time or in statistics courses :yup:

I hope that I have given you some food for thought.

 

Thanks rmm0484 for the reply!! Great start for the thread!! Learned a lot from your post..

 

When I researched on e-learning techniques I found about Virtual Classrooms. Do you think Virtual Classrooms provide the students with necessary interaction with the lecturers? Or do you think it needs improvement? If improvement needed when what needs to be added to improve the interaction?

 

The most common complaint we hear from students is how mechanical the communication with the instructor can be at times. The expectation is that the student logs in to some discussion at least twice per week and must post at least two comments each time, etc. The instructor poses a question and the students respond minimally and then get out. The impression is that students are not really interested, just trying to meet minimal expectations (not degreeinfo students, of course). If I were an instructor (which I am not) I would consider having each student start their own threaded journal for a course. Clearly they should be journaling on the material, their impressions, how the material relates to that of other courses/assignments, how it relates to their jobs, etc. The instructor and other students could post comments but the journalling work is your responsibility. It seems like the instructor would get a better sense of the student and their work by watching the progression of their thinking rather than simply counting the number of comments the student makes.

 

Wow, I didn't realize this was the "do my homework for me" site.

 

Stick around, kid! You ain't seen nothin' yet!

 

What can be done to improve student-teacher collaboration? Face to face meetings with actual knowledge transfer going on. That's it, nothing else.

E-learning will never be as valuable as having your ass in the seat with the professor bloviating in front of you. Does e-learning work for some? Sure, I bet if they are honest they would rather be in a B&M college.

Is e-learning a method of learning? Yes. Inferior and different but you can learn that way. Is it a way for wayward adults to go and get a much needed credential? Absolutely. Can you learn how to be an Engineer, Scientist or MD online. No. But you can sure as shit get a liberal arts or humanities degree like every other person out there.

Put that in your homework.

 

yea Kizmet, as you said it is feeling like mechanical to students.That's why they get bored and tend to get out by minimal effort. Therefore can you suggest any method which will enhance the degree of concentration on students to studies on e-learning?

 

Can you guys suggest any features that needs to include in order to improve the student-lecturer interaction? Is there any other suggestions for this?

 

Do you have any suggestions to make on student-lecturer interaction?

 

Even though the time zone differences would make it difficult, I believe video conferencing would make a huge difference in the quality of education delivered via online classes. For example, once a week, at say 4PM on a Saturday, students and instructor should get together in a video conference. This time frame would be difficult, but not impossible, for people to manage. The professor could give a lecture and the students could ask questions afterward. This F2F interaction is what is missing in online classes. Otherwise, online classes are superior in many ways.

Online schools avoid this because their selling point is convenience and F2F meetings would not be convenient. However, they would improve the quality considerably.

 

I've taken 3 courses that included such components. It was helpful at times, but it also could drag on, just like in a traditional setting. It didn't really feel like face-to-face, though.

I don't think you can effectively replicate the in-person social elements in an online environment, so this makes the video conferencing seem like a cheap imitation of a face-to-face class, at least to me.

It would be very helpful for quantitative and language courses, as auditory and visual presentations are often very helpful in such courses, but I still think it's significantly different when compared to face-to-face.

 

Interesting. I say that because I'm in Advanced Statistics 712 right now and I wish I could have some F2F time with a prof. I can figure this stuff out, but I am missing live help in this one circumstance. It seems like it would make things easier. Fortunately, Liberty has videos for each section that really do help a lot, they are far from perfect, but they help.

Stepan, did you go to your intensive at Liberty? How was it? I found it difficult and tiring, but it was fun and I learned a lot. Super nice profs and students.

 

That's a great idea SurfDoctor! Ok I have seen many students answer questionnaires for different modules. Do you think questionnaires needs any improvement? If so what are they? If you think it need to be replaced what do you propose?

 

thanks surfdoctor!! When i'm researching i found there's no way of having group activities in current e-learning systems? What do you think about that? What are your recommendations or how they can be improved?