My thoughts on Open and Distance Learning in the lights of articles

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Summary- Response Essay for Discussions and Articles

For weeks, I have discussed some terms that are important in open and distance education with my friend after reading articles that are given for the lecture of Open and Distance Learning. These terms are distance language teaching with technology, presence in online environment, engagement in the classroom, and lastly flipped classroom. All of these terms are important and needed to be known as a teacher. For this reason, in this paper, I will shortly summarize what we have covered in the lecture of Open and Distance Learning and what I have discussed with my friend according to the articles.

The first topic that we have covered in the lesson and I have discussed with my friend is distance education. Language teaching with technology or distance language teaching with technology is not a new term. It has expanded over the past two decades. Language learning and teaching is widespread around the world. Because of pandemic, as a learner we become more familiar with distance education though it is common around the world. When we think about distance education and language teaching with distance education, virtual learning environments come to our mind, such as second life. Distance education has some characteristics, such as synchronous, asynchronous learning, using various technology to facilitate learners and teachers. Also, distance education should include interaction, communication, collaboration, and collective activity. When we think about the characteristic of the learners in terms of social, cognitive, and psychological, learners should be patient, confident, and positive, they should be aware of the environment, should involve the meetings, and should be thinker. Additionally, when I think myself as an online teacher in the future, I know that I need to be technologically competent teacher. In my lessons, I should get help from learning management system (LMS) that store and track information to communicate and to inform my students. Moodle, Edmodo, Blackboard are one of the most well-known examples of LMS. To create enjoyable, productive lessons, to engage students in distance education, to create an environment that students can actively participate, I should benefit from web 2.0 tools. In the article web 2 tools are given as an example, such as padlet, kahoot, powtoon, prezi, quiver, mindmap, animaker. Thanks to the lecture that I have in university, I am familiar most of the web 2 tools and their usage. I think that the crucial part in distance education is as a teacher creating an environment that all students have fun, learn, and participate. As a teacher rethink practices, task design, assessment of learning, and teacher expertise are important issues in distance education. While designing a task motivation and technology should be considered by the teacher.

The second topic of article and discussion is presence in online education. Shortly, according to the article presence is being there and being together. When I think about presence in my classes as a student, I think that in some classes there is not any presence in the lesson. Teachers have high presence, but students do not have or have low presence in my distance classes. While teacher have presence than students should create their own strategy and awareness to be presence in online environment. Additionally, technology and being concentrate on the online lessons can be distractive for the students. At the beginning of the article there are two scenarios, and these scenarios are about the question that teacher and student have in their mind about online education and being presence. For this reason, both teacher and student should have mutual communication during the lesson. When I think about my own online lessons as a student, I see that most of the time I am not presence in my online lessons. As a name I am there, I join the lesson, but I do not participate or listen the teacher actively. In this sense presence is joining and participating the lesson actively. To give an example I think that to be presence or to have the feeling of presence, our online lessons should be like the communication that we have through facetime or video call with our family or friends. As it is said in the article to create presence in online lessons, we need to think, behave, and feel differently than we do in face-to-face environment. Therefore, teacher should select appropriate technology and design learning environment that help create a sense of presence. When there is a presence in online environment the relationship between teacher and student will improve. If teacher will be aware of the students needs, know how to involve students, know how to motivate them, it will be easier for the teacher to create presence. Additionally, teacher can ask for the students’ expectations and get feedback from the students to create a presence environment. Social presence means to me communication like we do in video calls. I can enhance social presence in online education by technological tools, and appropriate media. Padlet, Pixton, Voki, Flipgrid, Discord, Secondlife, WhatsApp can be used in the online environment to create the sense of presence.

The third topic of the article and discussion is engagement. Engagement is a participation of a learner or a teacher. When we think engagement and presence together, they bound to each other. Presence is more general, umbrella term, and engagement is a part of presence. Engagement has three perspective, these are interaction perspective, interactivity perspective, and learning perspective on student engagement. Interaction perspective on student’s engagement in online learning depends on interaction, dialogue, and feedback. These are heart of the education and learning. Feedbacks, reflections of the students, group work, peer work, and developing on understanding is important in interaction perspective. Interactivity perspective is more about behavioral, cognitive engagement and affective engagement. First, behavioral engagement in online environment is join the lesson, clicking to the materials, access, download, or log on to the online environment. Shortly, behavioral engagement is being active and participant to the lesson. Second cognitive engagement is more about thinking, participating, encouraging, and fostering. For instance, discussion, ask students to contribute their ideas, creating is more about cognitive engagement. Cognitive engagement is being mentally in the online lesson being thoughtful during the lesson. Last affective engagement is willingness and emotional responses to the online lessons. As a teacher in online environment, we have to use both behavioral and cognitive engagement. Learning design is more about creating student centered classrooms. Not only teachers present the lesson, but it is asked to the students to undertake activities and lesson. While designing a lesson in online environment to engage students authentically, we can use authentic scenarios, real world scenarios, role playing, group work, we can set problems, questions and ask students to solve these problems. Engagement must be authentic because this help students to learn meaningfully. Engagement in language learning is very important. Because language cannot be learned without using it. For this reason, learning by doing is a key point for engagement. As a teacher how can we create affective engagement in online environment? As a teacher we can create students centered classroom, and facilitate, guide students. To create meaningful engagement, we can use digital tools that increase the attention and motivation of the students, such as videos, real world tasks, games, brain breaks. On the other hand, while as a teacher we think creating engagement in the classroom, that may be fake engagement. Fake engagement is bodily display behaviors, such as movements, posture, gesture that is seen as authentic engagement. Students can show fake engagement when lose concentration, because of teaching style or for personal reasons. To prevent fake engagement more student-centered classroom can be created. More active teaching style, active participatory activities can be created. As a teacher being more flexible, free is important and giving student safe environment that students can ask and approach to the teacher is important in creating engaging classroom. To understand whether students engage in the classroom, we need take into consideration their participation. As a teacher we should ask direct questions to the students and create discussion environment in the classroom. As a result, as a teacher take the lesson with student and create student centered classroom engage students in online.

The fourth and last topic of the article and discussion is flipped classroom. According to the article flipped learning is the role of activities in and out of the classroom. Flipped learning is not only about what teacher and students do before the classroom, also it is about how to relate before and in activities of the lesson to each other. Flipped classroom is a form of blended learning that is based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. There are 6 principles of flipped classroom that are based on bloom’s taxonomy. These principles are remembering, understanding, applying, evaluating, and creating. In flipped classroom, firstly it is expected from students to do lower order skills at home. These are remembering, understanding, and applying. To give an example, students can listen a video, take notes, make a search, and read something related to the topic. Secondly in the classroom it is expected from students to do higher order skills these are analyzing, evaluating, and creating. To give an example, in the classroom students can analyze and discuss the watched video, as a group work or peer work, they can create new thing related to the topic. As a result, in flipped classroom more individualized and behaviorist learning space at home is provided, and in class more collaborative and constructivist learning space is provided. Game based flipped learning maintain confidence to the students, decrease their anxiety level, facilitate deep information process, provide meaningful authentic learning, higher order thinking skills, effective learning and strengthen social communication skills. According to the article, activities of pre class in flipped classroom is more about listening and grammar, during class activities is more about grammar, listening, vocabulary, speaking, activities of after class in flipped classroom is more about writing and speaking. Additionally, after class activities do not include any video making tools. Also, many tools are included in the article, such as for video watching tools Ted talks, documentary, animations, Coursera courses, video recorded lectures, for video creating tools Piktochart, Powtoon, Moviemaker, for creating games Kahoot, Quizlet, Infographic, and for learners to create their own learning materials Padlet, Google Docs., Studystuck, Softchulk, Padlet is given as an example in the article. To give an example to the flipped classroom at first teacher will create a place for the students to help them to see all the activities that are needed to be done, such as on Edmodo or Blackboard. Secondly, as a pre class students will read a text acquire and comprehend the material at home. In class, students will rebuild the text in group and present the topic that is covered in the reading text. After class, students will write an essay or blog page to share it on Edmodo or blackboard. Consequently, teachers play crucial roles in creating a flipped classroom. The quality of teaching and learning is largely influenced by teacher’s technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. If teacher create a successful and effective flipped classroom, students will be aware of their own learning process. They will be more autonomous in their learning and create their own strategies to learn. If teacher create and apply appropriate technology to the flipped classroom, students will engage more in the classroom. If they engage, before the classroom they will read, listen, watch, and make search about the topic to interact in the classroom. With the help of dynamic and interactive learnings students can learn with others and expose different ideas and different point of view with their friends’ thoughts.

To summarize all of the paper, technology is the key term in distance education to enhance interactivity, participation and engagement. With the help of technological tools in distance education, teachers can create productive, enjoyable, innovative learning environments for the students. Additionally, with the help of technology students can engage and participate the lesson. To achieve this, teachers should be technologically competent. When the teacher is technologically competent, it is easier for her/him to create presence and engagement in the classroom. Presence is being there and being together in online environment. Presence includes interaction, behaviors, emotions, and engagement.  Engagement is a part of presence and both of them are bound to each other. To create affective engagement that is about willingness and emotions, teachers should create interest. To create interest, teacher can use various digital tools that attract students’ attention and increase motivation. Lastly, flipped classroom is using activities in and out of the classroom. It is providing individualized learning space at home and collaborative learning space at class. Briefly, technological knowledge of the teacher in distance education influences the teaching and learning atmosphere in the classroom. If teacher technologically competent, it is easier for the teacher to create presence, enhance engagement, and apply effective flipped classroom.

References

Conceição, R. M. (2010). The Role of Presence in Online Environment. In Creating a Sence of Presence in Online Teaching (pp. 1-12). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cynthiaj.White. (2017). Distance Language Teaching with Technology. In The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning (p. Chapter 10).

Di Zou, S. L.-J. (13 Nov 2020). A systematic review of research on flipped language classrooms: theorotical foundations,learning activites, tools, research topics and findings. In Computer Assisted Language Learning (pp. 1-27). Routledge Taylor&Francis Group.

Kennedy, G. (May 2020). What is student engagemet in online learning and how do I know when it is there? Malbourne CSHE.

Sarah Mercer, K. R.-H. (2020). Fake or Real Engagement – Looks can be Deceiving. 122-136.

Stannard, R. (2020, May 4). Using Flipped Classroom when teaching online.