Topic
A5: Designing Learning Activities that Promote Active Learning Introduction
- Additional Resources
Dr. Tom Estes, Professor
Emeritus of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education and former
Director of the McGuffey Reading Center, teaches a Web-based course for
the University of Virginia. His course, Reading to Learn, is offered
to teachers seeking professional development and to graduate students
working on their Master's degrees. In the statement below, Dr. Estes
describes his reasons for building his course around WebQuests.
"I want my students to
organize their teaching around principles of inquiry learning and
to give their students multiple ways to examine and learn the content.
I also want them to provide ways to learn, as well as what to learn
for their students. I do not want them to set themselves up as
purveyors of information but, rather, to see themselves as architects
of complex learning opportunities for their students. As they do
the Web Quests that I create for them, I want them to "get" the
message that I am that architect for them as they are for their
students.
I want them to see that the
Web and its vast resources, combined with the many informational
texts they can use to supplement their standard issue textbooks,
can be the resource they need to accommodate the range of learning
abilities and interests of their students. I also believe that
teaching needs to be redefined as a matter of providing learners
the help they need to do what they want to do, not to learn what
you want them to learn. The Web Quest is a way to organize that
way of teaching."
Below are online resources which may help you in preparation.
Take a moment to visit each. If you find a resource particularly helpful,
remember to bookmark that page to make it easier to return to it at a
later time.
Three
types of interaction: American Journal of Distance Education
Online copy of the classic: Moore, M.G. (1984) (June)
3(2): 1-6.
While this article is somewhat dated in its discussion
of the range of technologies included in distance education, the discussion
of the three types of interaction is timeless.
Design
and Sequence Your Way to WBT Interactivity: An instructional design
methodology for building interactivity into WBT
by Atsusi Hirumi and Kathern Ley
The authors present detailed Web-based interactions
grouped into three levels and outlines of nine research- based instructional
models. They offer a four-step process to integrate the instructional
strategy with the levels of interaction to produce a highly interaction
Web-based learning experience.
The
Web: Design for Active Learning
by Katy Campbell, University of Alberta, Canada,
Academic Technologies for Learning
While you may want to read the entire handbook,
Sections 1 and 2, Introduction and Hypermedia and Constructivist Frameworks,
are overviews of the concepts of active learning and constructivism.
Designing
for a Constructivist's Approach
by Zane L. Berge and Marie de Verneil
This short article highlights cognitive flexibility
theory as a branch of constructivism that the authors feel is most appropriate
for a Web-based learning environment.
Promoting
Student Interaction in the Virtual College Classroom
by Jack Cummings, Ph.D.
Written by Jack A. Cummings, Professor and Chair
of the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana
University, this article reports on different kinds of student interaction
in a virtual classroom. He describes his success with recursive
assignments that require students to submit pieces that are subsequently
reviewed by other students. He also presents virtual debate as
a means to promote reflection and critical analysis.
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