Facilitating Learning Online - APR2015-OER

In the past, teaching took place primarily in face-to-face environments and teachers taught a relatively homogenous group of individuals. The learner audience that well-known educational researcher, Malcolm Knowles studied to develop his “andragogical” perspective on what adult learners need and want from teachers was much less diverse than you are likely to encounter as you explore teaching and facilitating online. Many factors contribute to this increasing diversity and there are various perspectives on how best to respond. Although the general principles of adult learning are still helpful to consider, the rapid advances in knowledge, technological affordances and the spread of online learning environments and learning options has changed the nature of our consideration of how best to support our learners online.

Your adult learners may have similar desires: courses that are challenging, collaborative, and flexible to accommodate their different work/life situations and learning preferences. They are likely to appreciate knowing why and how they are to learn (and be evaluated) and like to engage in learning activities that are relevant, applicable, and meaningful. But you will need to be increasingly flexible in your approach to facilitating learning; you’ll need to balance the possibilities of the technologies available for online learning and the beliefs, expectations, and abilities of your student audience.

When you teach online, you may have to adapt your teaching strategies and the way you develop learning activities, to accommodate the impact of the change in learning environment and the ways in which you can monitor, interact and adapt your practice with each new group of learners. You will need to think about how your beliefs about teaching might affect how you approach online teaching and learning.

In this module, you'll explore some ideas that may help you respond to the rapid changes in technological possibilities, the diverse expectations and needs of your online learners, and your own beliefs, knowledge and skills as an online facilitator.

The least important thing this week is becoming an expert on any learning theory, technology or teaching strategy. The most important thing is understanding the main IDEAS, and being able to USE them to inform your thinking and problem-solving when you are deciding how to facilitate a course, workshop or learning activity online.

In Week 2 you will notice that there is only ONE mini-session: Adult Learners Online.

The FLO facilitators will facilitate this first mini-session as a demonstration of the process. The idea is to let you see one approach to the steps described in the Workshop Handbook on how to facilitate a mini-session. We’ll open up the Facilitators planning forum so you can follow the process. (Note: you’ll find a planning forum in each week’s mini-session section but these are set to only be visible to team facilitators.)

We’ll “think out loud” and communicate and plan as transparently as we can.