I believe that the biggest misconception about online courses is the notion that students are there to receive instruction, but I have to admit that I am not done processing these ideas so please post your comments.
There is a concept that floats around but does not seem to stick, that in online environments there are no instructors and students, only facilitators and learners. This means that individuals do not receive instruction passively but need to actively engage in learning.
Most online courses are based on the inquiry method, which entails providing guidelines and tools to “go get the knowledge, process it, and apply it in some form,” so that peers may comment on the work, the facilitator may stir the learner towards more nuanced ideas making sure the learner does not go on a tangent, or miss the boat altogether. At the end of the term individuals may very well feel they learned it all on their own.
Despite this seemingly odd way to think about online courses, Learning Centered Instruction used in many online courses is a pedagogical method believed to be very effective. Its premises include inquiry-based activities in technologically rich environments that place the individual as the captain at the helm of his or her own education.
To most people this notion seems unfair and it is not unusual to think: “Why do we pay a ton of money if they are not ‘teaching us?’” Well, I am finding out that teaching, as the act of imparting knowledge by those who know to those who don’t know yet, is no longer such a terrific way to learn. This method was awesome when few people had the knowledge and the books and had to pass it on to other people so that knowledge may spread from one to many. That is no longer the state of affairs.
Technological advances with computers and the Internet make it possible for almost everyone to access good, reliable, useful, interesting information, so the game has changed. Instructors or facilitators still need to be content experts, but the students may have access to the same information or better information is they are Google savvy. The role of the facilitator then is to guide the learner so that the learner may achieve the course objectives using the tools, resources, and feedback from the content expert. This includes sharing knowledge and resources among other learners in the class.
Can we envision the facilitator as a sea expert of sorts, who being on shore cannot navigate the vessel but can only give asynchronous instructions to the learner at the helm on how to successfully maneuver the ship in the vast sea of information, while pointing at the desired port of destiny?
In this unique voyage, will learners discover and learn by personalizing the information, problem solving, and investigating what is particularly interesting to them, and in the end be satisfied with online courses? After all, and unlike “Washington Crossing the Delaware Sea.” Instructors in asynchronous communication and virtual environments cannot jump in the same boat with all hands and ask them to row synchronously to arrive at the same port together.
~ Carol
