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.
