Toward a Theory of Online Learning - Centre for Distance Education ...

Sufficient levels of deep and meaningful learning can bedeveloped, as long as one of the three forms of interaction(student-teacher; student-student; student-content) is atvery high levels. The other two may be offered at minimallevels or even eliminated without degrading the educationalexperience. (Anderson, 2002)The challenge for teachers and course developers working in anonline learning context is to construct a learning environment thatis simultaneously learning centered, content centered, communitycentered, and assessment centered. There is no single, right mediumof online learning, nor a formulaic specification that dictates thekind of interaction most conducive to learning in all domains withall learners. Rather, teachers must learn to develop their skills sothat they can respond to student and curriculum needs bydeveloping a set of online learning activities that are adaptable todiverse student needs. Table 2-1 illustrates how the affordances ofthese emerging technologies can be directed so as to create theenvironment that is most supportive of “how people learn.”Table 2-1.Affordances of thenetwork environmentand the attributes of“How people learn.”“How peoplelearn” framework(Bransford et al.)LearnercenteredAffordancesof the currentWebCapacity to supportindividualized andcommunity centeredlearning activitiesAffordancesof the SemanticWebContent that changesin response toindividualized andgroup learner modelsKnowledgecenteredDirect access to vastlibraries of contentand learning activitiesorganized from a varietyof discipline perspectivesAgents for selecting,personalizing, andreusing contentCommunitycenteredAsynchronous andsynchronous;collaborative andindividual interactionsin many formatsAgents for translating,reformatting, time shifting,monitoring, and summarizingcommunityinteractionsAssessmentcenteredMultiple time- and placeshiftedopportunities forformative and summativeassessment by self, peers,and teachersAgents for assessing,critiquing, andproviding “just intime feedback”54 Theory and Practice of Online Learning