Learning Online

Chunk 1: Introduction
What does “doing it right” entail?
1. “Doing it right” means that online learning materials must be designed properly, with the learners and learning in focus, and that adequate support must be provided.
Describe some of the benefits of online learning.
1. For learners, online learning knows no time zones, and location and distance are not an issue.
2. In asynchronous online learning, students can access the online materials at anytime, while synchronous online learning allows for real time interaction between students and the instructor.
3. Use the Internet to access up-to-date and relevant learning materials, and can communicate with experts.
4. For the instructor, tutoring can be done at anytime and from anywhere. Online materials can be updated, and learners are able to see the changes at once. When learners are able to access materials on the Internet, it is easier for instructors to direct them to appropriate information based on their needs.
The development of effective online learning materials should be based on what?
Learners learn best when they can contextualize what they learn for immediate application and to acquire personal meaning.
Three schools of thought can in fact be used as taxonomy for learning. Behaviorists’ strategies can be used to teach the “what” (facts), cognitive strategies can be used to teach the “how” (processes and principles), and constructivist strategies can be used to teach the “why” (higher level thinking that promotes personal meaning and situated and contextual learning).



Chunk 2: Behaviorist and Cognitive School of Learning
What are the four implications for online learning from the Behaviorist perspective?
Implications for Online Learning
1. Learners should be told the explicit outcomes of the learning so
that they can set expectations and can judge for themselves
whether or not they have achieved the outcome of the online
lesson.
2. Learners must be tested to determine whether or not they have
achieved the learning outcome. Online testing or other forms of
testing and assessment should be integrated into the learning
sequence to check the learner’s achievement level and to provide
appropriate feedback.
3. Learning materials must be sequenced appropriately to promote
learning. The sequencing could take the form of simple to
complex, known to unknown, and knowledge to application.
4. Learners must be provided with feedback so that they can monitor
how they are doing and take corrective action if required.
How should information be organized to facilitate processing?
Online learning strategies must present the materials and use strategies to enable students to process the materials efficiently. Since working memory has limited capacity, information should be organized or chunked in pieces of appropriate size to facilitate processing. According to Miller (1956), because humans have limited short-term memory capacity, information should be grouped into meaningful sequences.

What are the four implications for online learning from the Cognitivist perspective?
• Strategies should be used to allow learners to perceive and attend to the information so that it can be transferred to working memory.
• Strategies should be used to allow learners to retrieve existing information from long-term memory to help make sense of the new information.
• Information should be chunked to prevent overload during processing in working memory
• Other strategies that promote deep processing should be used to help transfer information to long-term storage.