Methodologies for Assessing the Traditional Learner

Assessment may be defined as “any method used to better understand the current knowledge that a student possesses.” (Dietel and Knuth, 1991). Assessment can be as simple as a teacher’s subjective judgment of student performance or as complex as a standardized achievement test. The concept of “current knowledge” implies that what a student knows is always changing and therefore teachers are to make assessments about their students’ achievements repeatedly throughout the school year. The elements of technology-based materials and lessons introduced in this book have identical reasons for undergoing the scrutiny of formal evaluation as any other form of valid classroom assessment. The purposes of assessment are many, depending in large measure on the initiators of the evaluation. Administrators use assessment to set standards and policies, direct resources, establish goals, and monitor the quality of education. Learners gauge their progress, assess strengths and weaknesses, measure school accountability, and make informed educational and personal career decisions.

Methodologies for Assessing the Distance Learner

Traditional evaluations methodologies are not always sufficient to properly assess effective online instruction. There is a need for student evaluations specifically designed to provide online instructors with feedback about the effectiveness of their technology-based teaching practices. As more instructors move their courses into the online environment, the one consistent question remains, “How do I know that my distance students are learning?” Techniques to assess learner mastery of content material are as diverse as the various formats of distance courses. The traditional assessment strategies (e.g., multiple choice, true/false, essays, etc.) continue to remain an option in a virtual learning environment. They are easily administered through the various learning management systems (LMS) and nearly every LMS has a test module that supports online examinations. Once created, these objective tests can incorporate multimedia (i.e., video, audio) for a more visual assessment. Other assessment strategies commonly used in the traditional classroom can also be easily converted to the online environment such as online discussions (i.e., chat rooms and discussion boards) and submission of written papers, essays, or reports (via drop boxes). Additionally, more advanced distance educators are able to include simulations, activities, group projects, virtual case studies, collaborative presentations or reports, and role-playing.

Delivering Instruction to the Adult Learner

There is no commonly accepted definition of an adult learner. The best that most educators are able to do (and still feel relatively satisfied with the attempt) is to recognize certain characteristics commonly attributed to adults. For example, adult students characteristically engage is multiple roles that affect both the amount and quality of time they devote to learning. Too, adults typically bring more life experiences to the classroom than traditional students. Experiences often provide a rich source for grounding their learning and for building a basis for new knowledge. Sometimes, these experiences interfere with learning and must be set aside, replaced with new schemata for acting on novel situations. Many adults find that formal education (especially returning to school after years spent in pursuit of career goals) serves as an especially uneasy transition point in their lives. As adults move through a series of stages such as education, insecurity and uncertainty is commonplace. Adult students frequently have established educational goals (especially when compared to their traditional counterparts). They are more likely paying for their education, focused on off-campus activities, and are likely to be peers (age-wise) or even older than their instructors. Adult education constitutes those interested in teaching adult learners or who are already working with adults in an educational capacity and would like further certification and professional credentials. Studying adult education gives candidates further knowledge, training, skills, understanding and appreciation of adult education as its own unique area of practice and study. Although many of the philosophies, psychologies, and leadership traits for the adult educator are similar to those focused on the traditional learner, the history and sociology of adult learning is different. Topics particular to adult education include administration, curriculum development, learning and teaching methods and adult education as it relates to social change, current trends and global context. Those interested in focusing on adult education at whatever level find themselves as adult English as a second language (ESL) teachers, continuing education teachers and professors, or teachers of adults seeking a high-school diploma. Others provide General Educational Development (GED) preparation, literacy

Delivering Instruction to the Traditional Learner

The characterization of what constitutes a “good teacher” is probably as varied as the number of teachers in the classroom. Essential factors come into play, including the academic subject, the grade level and maturity of the learner, the preparation of the teacher, and others. Certain teachers are able to successfully impart even boring material while others render even the most appealing content unpalatable. Teacher preparation programs, for their part, pride themselves on transforming their charges into effective teachers by combining a firm grasp of subject knowledge with good teaching practice. This chapter offers the reader a look at the principles, practices and tools that make for an effective teacher of traditional students.

Visual-Based Resources for Teaching

Research has found that students learn better when they rely on the instructional strategy best suited to their own particular learning style (Fitzsimmons, 1996). While concrete learners depend on the text-based workbook for reinforcement, abstract learners find visual media more to their liking. Microsoft Power Point creates presentations suitable for the classroom by offering a multimedia environment for concepts and ideas important for understanding. It provides a suite of tools to create powerful slide shows incorporating bulleted lists and numbered text; multimedia clip art, pictures, sounds, and movies; links to teacher-validated web sites, programs, and documents; colorful charts and graphs; and, a choice of output options tailored to individual learning styles. Power Point offers an extensive fare of commands, options, and menus. With the advanced features of auto content wizard, hyperlinks, and printing alternatives, it also provides an array of all the tools necessary to build truly exciting and interactive instructional materials.

Text-Based Resources for Teaching

In 2001, Christopher-Gordon Publishers printed the book entitled, Teaching Digitally: a Guide for Integrating Technology into the Classroom Curriculum. This highly successful publication has already been incorporated into many undergraduate and graduate teacher-preparation courses in instructional technology. While the original Christopher-Gordon text is now out of print, the publisher agreed to restore all copyrights to the author allowing this book to incorporate an modernized version of this valuable hands-on guide to preparing technology-based materials. The features, commands, menu items, and screen shots have been updated to reflect the latest Microsoft Office 2007 package and included as three separate Primers for Text, Visual, and Web-based Materials at the end of this book.

Learning Theories and Andragogy

The adult learner is a relatively new phenomenon in the annals of educational practice. How can this be considering we have been teaching adults for almost as long as we have been teaching children? – longer if you believe in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. Still, any review of the educational literature on teaching and learning will show a preponderance of research and investigation concerning children and comparatively little specifics regarding adults.Andragogy. Until the 1960s, the models developed to teach children functioned equally for the teaching of adults. The first use of the term “andragogy” was attributed to Malcolm Knowles when, in 1968, he introduced the term androgogy (with an “o”) in the journal, Adult Leadership. His article was entitled “Androgogy, not Pedagogy!” and was followed promptly with a 1970 book in which he specifically defines the term as the “art and science of helping adults learn.” By the 1980s, Knowles’ thinking had changed considerably. In his text, Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy, he recognizes the considerable debate instigated by his 1970 thesis and begins to suggest andragogy as an alternative teaching and learning approach appropriate for adult learners. Furthermore,

The Technology Domain of the Distance Learner

Distance learning is a relatively recent innovation in education. Without question, it has taken root in higher education and is experiencing rapid growth as a modality for instruction. The potential impact of distance learning on education is only now being realized and includes innovative teaching strategies and learning styles based on several unique features of this media. Many educators accept teaching with technology as perhaps the most important instructional strategy to impact the classroom since the text book. The Taxonomy for the Technology Domain was originally introduced as a paper at the 2001 Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators Conference (PACTE, Oct 2001). It met the scrutiny of the international community during the 2004 IRMA (Information Resource Management Association) Conference. Ultimately, it found its way into publication as a standalone text book from the Idea Group International Publishers in 2005. The Taxonomy for the Technology Domain, like its predecessors in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, continues to develop. This chapter presents the latest in the theoretical underpinnings and investigative research into its practical application as an instructional strategy for distance learning.

Learning Theories and Pedagogy

There is little doubt that the most dominant form of instruction is pedagogy, also referred to as didactic, traditional, or teacher-guided instruction. The pedagogical model of instruction has been around for centuries. Young boys were received into schools (most often schools with religious purposes) that required them to be obedient, faithful, and efficient servants of the church (Knowles, 1984). From these beginning developed the practice of pedagogy which remains the dominant form of instruction for the traditional learner. Pedagogy is derived from the Greek word “peda,” meaning child and “agogos,” meaning “the study of.” Thus, pedagogy has been defined as the art and science of teaching children. In a pedagogical model, the teacher has responsibility for making decisions about the content to be learned, the methodology for delivering the instruction, the sequencing and presentation (i.e., when it will be learned), and ultimately, an assessment of whether or not the material has been learned. Pedagogy, by its definition and nature, places the student in a submissive/ receptive role rather than an active learning position, requiring unswerving compliance to the teacher’s directions. It is based on the assumption that the teacher knows best what the student should learn; the teacher assumes the position of “sage on the stage” and the result often is a teaching and learning environment that promotes dependency on the instructor. For the earliest years of educational psychology, teachers believed that the best way for their students to master content was through repetition, a principle derived from behavioral learning theory; a notion that dominated educational thinking since the time of Ivan Pavlov and his experiment with animals. Students should spend their time copying spelling words, reiterating historical dates and places, and proving and re-proving mathematical formulas until they ‘learned’ the information. Contemporary behaviorists viewed the environment as the single most important key to successful learning. Environmental factors provided the external stimuli to learning and the consequential behavior that resulted was deemed the response. Stimulus ? response (S ? R) became the formula for teaching in these early years of educational practice that found its place in educational practices up through the 1950’s.

Delivering Instruction to the Distance Learner

During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of alternatives to traditional higher education developed in the United States as a direct result of numerous social upheavals. National trends that included the rapidly rising costs of traditional education, curiosity with informal and nontraditional education, increasingly mobile populations, growth of career-oriented predilection, the quickening pace of new technologies (and, therefore, the need for learning new skills), and general public dissatisfaction with educational institutions brought about a mounting interest in distance learning.