Teachers: Here’s How to Improve Online Learning
2020 has sparked debate among learning and development researchers, teachers, and parents alike about online learning’s effectiveness. No doubt it has caused a lot of frustration for parents whose children don’t seem to learn well online. But one simple fact remains: The evidence is overwhelming that online teaching can be just as effective as in-person teaching (see Tallent-Runnels et al. 2006 for one example). No study has ever concluded otherwise.
Over the past 70 years, there have been numerous studies conducted by entities ranging from the US Army to universities seeking to define the “best” way to conduct learning. But result after result shows no statistical learning difference, whether you’re teaching in a classroom, through video, in eLearning, via self-study, or other types of media. Each one claims to be the turning point in producing the most efficient learning outcomes, but each time they are relegated to the median.
What does make a difference in learning outcomes?
Planning with the right tools. Obviously, given identical material to be taught in an in-person environment and in an eLearning environment, we can plan and design the execution of a lesson in more and less effective ways. We can get superb and terrible results in either medium if we design the lesson correspondingly. But that’s where the mix up comes: It’s not about the delivery medium. It’s about how we use the factors that matter most to create an environment conducive to learning. Those factors can be applied to any medium of learning.
Regardless of what medium teachers find themselves having to use, there are still three other core components to employ:
1. Methods — How information is communicated
This is simply the method of communication. It could be text, or video, or pictures, or straight audio — or some unique combination.
2. Methods — How the teacher will help students learn
Methods are the techniques the teacher will use to integrate new knowledge with existing knowledge, or in other words, how we will make learning happen. Examples of methods include lecture, student writing assignments, vocabulary drills, flash cards, projects, music, and problem solving. The list of methods is extensive. Every teacher should have 100+ in their toolkit.
3. Architectures — How lessons will be organized, what kind of methods will be used, how much guidance will be offered, and the opportunities students will have to select their own resources
Teaching architectures are what most people are unfamiliar with in name, but in practice likely employ all the time in one combination or another. Think of architectures as the underlying foundation of teaching that will enable the modes and methods to be delivered in an effective way.
Before we talk about the architectures, we must drive home the three assumptions that are made about how individuals learn. This is important because each architecture has come about based on these assumptions. First is absorption, which emphasizes the transmission of information from teacher to learner. It’s the most common view. Secondly, there is behavioral, which emphasizes presenting learning in chunks, then providing the opportunity for learners to use what was learned and then receive immediate feedback. Third is constructive, which emphasizes setting up the learning environment such that students can construct their knowledge on top of their prior knowledge with varied resources, such as peers, learning resources, and teachers.
There are four architectures:
a. Receptive
Receptive is the most common form of instructional architecture, both in a classroom environment and in the corporate world. It emphasizes the absorption view of learning, which means that the teacher is the center of the lesson, transmitting information to the learners. Learners will not have much control over their learning resources nor in what order the content will be delivered. Examples of this style include lectures, instructional videos, and eLearning with a pre-determined sequence (Click Next, Click Next…). However, do not assume this is the least effective way to teach — no evidence supports that statement.
b. Directive
This architecture reflects the behavioral assumption. Lessons are characterized as starting from the most basic to more advanced, chunked in logical groups, and providing opportunity for learners to respond to questions and receive immediate corrective feedback.
c. Guided Discovery
Guided Discovery is characterized by problem-centered learning, giving students an opportunity to try and “fail forward”. It should also emphasize collaboration and problem solving, as learners are only instructed on the problem itself and the resources they will need to employ. Guidance will also be a primary instructional tool. An example of this architecture is:
-Rather than directly teaching the APA Style, the writing teacher provides a written 1-page paper that is not in APA Style, and students must use an APA Style guide to put the paper in the proper format.
d. Exploratory
Exploratory is most often found in eLearning courses because Exploratory allows the most learner control. This means the ability to set their own learning goals, determine what resources they wish to use to achieve the relevant knowledge and skills, and to monitor their learning outcomes.
In order to use Exploratory, learners must already possess relevant content knowledge; they must be able to self-regulate; they must have independent learning goals. Exploratory has different degrees of freedom: In some instances, the goal of a course may be defined (such as “Write a 30-page paper on the Fall of the Roman Empire”), but how the student gets there is wide open. In other instances, such as in a capstone project, the learners will be expected to develop their own end product goal and methods to get to it.
The role of the teacher in Exploratory is again one of guidance. They provide the rubric, the deadlines, and offer help along the learning journey. They may act as an arbiter of what’s acceptable and what isn’t in terms of what the final product can look like; what resources may be used; and to what extent collaboration is allowed.
Can architectures be combined?
Yes. In fact, most lessons and courses are blends. For example, a teacher using Zoom to teach may start her lesson with a problem (Guided Discovery). Students work alone or together to solve it for 30 minutes. Along the way, the teacher provides 1-minute drops of information, such as instructional videos to help the students along (Receptive). Toward the end of the lesson, they get a small block of instruction with questions and answers to wrap up (Directive).
In Summary:
Indeed, the opportunities are bountiful with a bit of planning to make the best of whichever learning environment you find yourself in. Regardless of which environment you must use, you can make it work by:
- Selecting your mode(s) of information transmission
- Selecting your methods of instruction
- Selecting your architecture
Hopefully, this doesn’t seem like a large departure from how you already conduct the design and development of your lessons. Instead, it defines more clearly what tools you have to work with and how students will go about accomplishing the learning objectives.
