What is the e-learning and instructional design (ID) research gap in K-12?
What are the future trends for ID and distance education (DE) in the K-12 world?
What does K-12 DE look like now?
In the educational world of K-12, DE is not growing as exponentially as higher ed, but we re seeing a steady growth, especially at our own southern California charter school where we are challenged with thousands of K-12 students that are home schooled.
We are also starting to see the emergence of free AP and Honors courses developed with short animations and videos for each concept (hippocampus http://www.hippocampus.org/) and other sites (http://www.khanacademy.org/), Alex, UC Regents. Some are not courses, but are great video resources for individual concepts.
Our charter school is currently using Moodle as a vehicle for out teachers to develop curriculum for academy (hybrid of f2f and home) and full time home school students. These are basically a series of assignments that correspond to textbook and other resources. It is not a flowing, learner-centered ID and has very little technological activities with the exception of links videos and online tutorials. It really is more of an attempt to copy classroom activities or replace them with boring worksheets if classroom activities are not possible for the home school student.
This semester, we have hired a consulting firm (e-Concordia) to help develop two courses with more multimedia infused (at a very high cost).
What are the biggest concerns or fears for what DE could be?
Some of the concerns expressed in the Huett, et al (2008) article are the mixed student populations which may consist of students that are least likely to succeed in the autonomous DE environment. The fear is that DE will become a dumping ground for credit recovery and
dropout students from traditional schools. As a result, the ID opportunities may be seriously underutilized.
This mixed population of students may face several outside distractions in their life styles – travel, social commitments, looking for enrichment, employed, rural, hospitalized, homebound, incarcerated, and be more of a challenge to reach through DE.
The choice between synchronous and asynchronous is a significant consideration with the K-12 population and asynchronous may not be a viable option for most because of little personal interaction with students and teacher. There are several issues of supervision and accountability especially with the younger and/or more immature students.
There is definitely a gap in the research-based effectiveness of online DE and ID at the K-12 grades. Another concern is the lack of trained professionals in DE and ID and that the courses may be developed to look like an f2f class, which would be counterproductive (Simonson, 2000).
According to Simonson’s equivalency theory, DE needs to provide “different but equivalent learning experiences for each learner.” (pg 29).
What should be the future trends in DE and ID?
ID should play a key role in building a research base to make decisions on ID for K-12.
The key is that the ID must serve the needs of students and the ID must ensure that the environment where the course is delivered is supportive for student-centered courses.
We may need to reorganization and hire professionals to develop DE curricula to meet these needs and to determine how we engage learners. Nationalize curricula like the AP courses are starting to emerge. We must honor that DE is not another quick fix educational program and we must focus on the needs of the learner.
In conclusion, since there is such a gap in the research and when comparing DE to f2f, what research we have is not showing significant differences, we need to build a research base for e-learning and ID.
References:
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshey, W., Coleman, C. (2008). The Evolution of distance education:
Implications for instructional design and the potential of the web (Part 3: K-12). TechTrends
(52)5, pp 63-67.
Simonson, M. (2000). Making decisions: The use of electronic technology in online classrooms.
New Directions for Teaching and Learning, (Winter), 84, pp. 29-34.
Tags:
DE, ID, K-12 DE future trends, equivalency theory.
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Hello Marlene,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments regarding the state of distance education (DE) affairs in the K-12 model. I think that the in K-12, any DE component needs to consider the learning needs and learning styles of the learners as you suggest especially for the younger learners. Spector, Merrill, Van Merrienboer, and Driscoll, (2008) suggest a collection of cognitive traits and learning styles of the learners prior to planning delivery systems. The above authors also suggest individual profiling of learners in a specific class so as to be proactive in planning meaningful learning activities and to be responsive to learner needs. This proposition may be time consuming but necessary. Spector, Merrill, Van Merrienboer, and Driscoll, (2008) also highlight the need for further research in the area of incorporation of cognitive traits and learning styles in technology enhanced education systems (p. 313). The myriad forces on the present traditional education system requires multi-dimensional research and change in practices in f2f environments. The complexity is aggravated with the prospect and opportunities that online learning promotes. But, I think it is exciting to be able to collaborate and learn from one another on such important Information age topics.
Spector, J. M., Merrill, M. D., Van Merrienboer, J., and Driscoll, M. P. (2008). Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed.). NY: Taylor & Francis Group
Marlene,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you have written a whole dissertation here. There is no doubt that you are very passionate about k-12 education. You have done a terrific job explaining why you think there is a gap between the level of technology use in Higher Ed and what the K-12 students and parents get to experience. You did ackowledge, however, that regardless of the technology used the end should effective learning. Your statement: " We must honor that DE is not another quick fix educational program and we must focus on the needs of the learner" is the key to understanding where you want the discussion to go. In your opinion, do we have too many technologies and not enough learning?
Hi Jean - Are you the jean Ederson Group 1 Community Member that I have been searching for?? If so, what is your blog url?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Unfortunatley, our K-12 teachers are really behind when it comes to technology. They need to get up to speed so they can speak the same language and offer different strategies for their "digital natives."