Conceptualization of Learning Online

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Recommended: Cultural diversity in a classroom

Primary characteristics, such as age, gender, and ethnicity, and secondary characteristics, such as occupation, income, and marital status, can have implications on a student’s persistence. Most online learners are married and work full-time, making time management crucial as they juggle between their family, work, and school responsibilities.

As a middle school teacher, it is important that I understand both the primary and secondary characteristics of my students so that I can plan my curriculum accordingly. I teach in a very diverse school, meaning I need to plan for a variety of activities so that I can engage all of my students. The ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of students in each class is tremendous. Often, I find it is necessary to communicate the content in different ways within the same class. This places an importance on self-paced, individualized instruction, something that the online component can address. Turning my traditional classroom into a hybrid classroom would allow more of my 210 students to be engaged in the learning process.

A learner’s ability to interact with others and attitude toward learning can have a profound impact on student achievement. According to the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scales (Grasha, 1996), six categories—independent, dependent, competitive, collaborative, avoidant, and participant—are used to describe student learning styles. These different learning styles affect how much support the instructor needs to provide. Also, having an understanding of student learning styles is important so that instructors offer plenty of opportunities for the students to feel comfortable in their class.

Understanding how learning styles impact student participation helps explain w...

... middle of paper ...

...ing my students different levels of self-directedness through the use of My Big Campus, the new online learning platform we are using at my school. Hopefully this combination of support and flexibility will allow for my students to advance stages as I teach them to be more confident, self-directed learners throughout the year.

Works Cited

Grasha, A. F. (1996). Teaching with style. Pittsburgh: Alliance Publishers.

Grow, Gerald O. (1996). Teaching learners to be self-directed. Adult Education
Quarterly, 41 (3), 125-149. Expanded version available online at http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow. Hannifin, M., Land, S., & Oliver, K. (1999). Open learning environments: Foundations, methods, and models. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory, 2, pp. 115-140. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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