For my first reflective blog post for OMDE603 I am choosing to reflect on the optional reading from Module 1: "Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy" by Terry Anderson and Jon Drone. This was a 2011 article in a special Issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning called "Connectivism: Design and Delivery of Social Networked Learning."
I am at the very beginning stages of coursework for the Master's in Distance Education program at UMUC, and I haven't been exposed to many pieces of research on distance education pedagogy. This article introduces three generations of pedagogy: 1 - cognitive behaviorist, 2 - social constructivist and 3 - connectivist. The authors conclude, and I agree, that all three generations of pedagogy should be considered and included in a well rounded distance education program.
The first point I wanted to highlight is regarding social presence in the Cognitive -Behaviorist Model. This model was defined by a complete lack of social presence in the learning environment. This is often a criticism that is voiced about distance education in general, that students are completely isolated without any element of social learning. Because of this article, I chose to write my first assignment for the class on the perceived issue of a lack of social presence and how Twitter can be used as a technology to build social presence in an online course for adults. (I will post more about that separately in the future.) The authors explain that while this is often an element that is criticized in online learning, that research as yet to show there are differences in learning outcomes between online learning environments with high levels of social presence and those without. This is something I'm interested in exploring further and expanding on the paper I wrote for my first assignment. But, again, I want to receive feedback on it first. Exploring this further would be directly relevant to my current work position as we offer a course that uses Twitter to increase engagement during student presentations online.
When reading about the social-constructivist pedagogy, I immediately was able to relate this to the extreme diversity of students in the online program I coordinate. In this style of pedagogy, instructors do not present facts to be memorized, they rely on a more social form a learning. Knowledge, through the lens of this pedagogy, builds upon previous knowledge and experiences and is unique to each learner because of this. The program I work with is geared towards professionals in the intelligence community (IC) and/or recent graduates hoping to break into the field. Because our students range from recent unemployed graduates, veterans, and mid- to senior-level professionals in the IC, I certainly see the same readings and/or discussions resonating differently with each student. What introduces a new thought for one student may reinforce an experience another student had. Or, a previous experience may lead a student to not trust the findings of a particular article because it is directly contradictory to what they saw in the field. My main takeaway from reading about this pedagogy is that learning should be authentic and assignments should have authentic context. This will allow each learner to apply the concepts to something real and relevant to them and their learning experience.
The last pedagogy is connectivist and the one I had the hardest time grasping and applying to the program I work with. In this pedagogy, students build and utilize networks and apply them to real life problems to learn. This seems to build off of the idea that learning should have authentic context as discussed in the previous section. The introduction of building a network of resource and information seems valuable, yet I had a hard time visualizing how this would look in a classroom experience. Essentially, I believe that this pedagogy asks students to use networks of each other, their academic resources, data, etc. to build an overall network where they will be able to refer back to find the information that is needed. So their knowledge can essentially be described as the creation and maintenance of their unique network. Because of this, I decided to create a new virtual information hub for students in our program as a step in creating a network for them - or at least introducing them to the concept so they will perhaps inadvertently begin to think about the network they may (or may not have) constructed on their own. In this information hub I have an alumni contact list, places to discuss career networking, outside academic resources, internal data resources, etc. I'll post about the outcome and student response to this in a later post.
Again, as stated in the beginning, learning should be a combination of all three of these approaches. Reading about each of these individually was extremely helpful in understanding and re-emphasizing the fact that we all learn differently and that a diversity of approaches should be used.
Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy.
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning,
12(3), 80-97. Retrieved from
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890/1663
