Call for Papers: 2014 Conference of the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL)

We invite you to submit a proposal to present at the 2014 Conference of the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL), to be held October 14-16, 2014 in Lubbock, Texas. The conference will be hosted by Texas Tech University Independent School District.

Each year, we seek to discuss the concerns and new developments in the field of distance, online, and independent learning. We encourage proposals on topics in research and assessment, student services, curriculum development, instructional design, marketing, administration, and teaching. Presentations may be by individuals or groups and may use a variety of formats old or new (lecture, panel discussion, group interaction, hands-on sessions).

Website:  http://www.adeil.org.

The Benefits of Reverse E-Teaching in Military Education

The concept of reverse teaching has been around for nearly 200 years. In practice it has led to both strong and poor performance of students. This is often dependent on the motivation of the student and whether or not they are actively reviewing materials and making connections between that information. A paper by Maria Constantinescu (2013) discussed how reverse teaching works with e-platforms in the military. 

Reverse teaching is a process whereby the teacher provides the necessary materials and tools for students to understand theoretical concepts. Students study on their own time and then come back to class to show what they know. It is based off of a model implemented by the 1817 Colonel Sylvanus Thayer at West Point who is known as “Father of the Military Academy”. 

The same process also occurs in an online environment whereby the instructor provides the right materials and students use these materials to study the concepts. The class is used as a place where they can display the material, gain new connections of concepts, and share understandings. Both individual and group activities occur to help foster this learning. 

The author discusses the importance of e-learning platforms in developing the right learning environment. As the classroom environment is the place in which students come back to show their mastery it must be designed well to allow students to engage in these single and group practices to the fullest extent possible. Without a strong classroom design the student may not engage the learning process or show what they have learned.

Likewise, the author did well bringing up a problem with assessment. It appears that the platform she used was lacking a formal assessment process. Each conceptual module requires some form of assessment which ensures the students have learned what they need before moving onto the next module. Without this assessment the student would have difficulty constructing even more difficult concepts later in the class. 

The use of papers that incorporates critical thinking analysis and formalizes a greater picture is important. This is where students show the teacher what they have learned, how they understand the material, and how they use it to solve a particular problem. Teachers act as guides and find holes in their understanding and fill them with appropriate materials and information to create greater bridges. 

The advantage of such programs in the military is that it affords greater flexibility and creativity with learning. Each person constructs meanings through the offered material and their past experiences to come up with a bigger understanding. This affords them the opportunity to own the information and creates greater motivation for practical implementation. The biggest detractor is the willingness of the student to expend effort and time in the learning process. Student motivation is a difficult problem that many military academies and colleges have suffered for decades. 

Comment: The use of reverse teaching is related to reverse learning.  When focused on a particular problem unwanted mental connections are lessened while useful connections are strengthened. This is the core of learning and unlearning. As students construct concepts in their own way each of the neural connections should lead to proper conclusions offered within the class. This is a formalization of a larger concept based within the many smaller understandings offered through materials. To implement strong reverse teaching means that greater care over the types of materials offered are necessary to ensure they lead to a greater conclusion.  If the materials are not aligned well it could create confusion among students. 

Constantinescu, M. (2013). Considerations on reversed teaching in the military education system. eLearning & Software for Education, 2.

Online Learning through Social Constructionist Practices

Education is more than transferring knowledge from one person to another without integrating the information. It requires the building of a sense of community so that students can see themselves in a different light and find support for their goals. A study by Shackelford & Maxwell (2012) helps to define how a sense of community is developed in an online educational environment. Accordingly, they found that introductions, group projects, sharing personal experiences, class discussions, and exchanging resources made all the difference. Of these exchanging resources for learning seemed to be the most important. 

Online education is not simply about posting information in a forum. It is about the way in which that information is presented for maximum learning and having students cognitively engage in the process of learning. There are varying aspects of learning that include social reinforcement and mental processes that further the way in which students understand the information and how it may enhance their lives. 

Social constructivism is a concept whereby people make meaning out of information by actively engaging in it. It is a process of learning new information, testing it, sharing it, and manipulating that information to gain higher levels of understanding. The purpose of online education is to create conduits of social constructivist learning through activities infused with information. 

To effectively engage students it is required that they have full expression of themselves through social and emotional processes. The use of cognitive, social and teacher presence it is possible to enhance learning through multiple paths of understanding. It is this environmental framework that creates higher levels of motivational cognitive activities that are encourage through social engagement. 

The survey was conducted with 381 students. The researched looked at the overall social factors and interaction of students. A Likert scale and reverse coding were used. SPSS was the statistical software and a Chi-square analysis was conducted to understand the relationship between frequency and importance. 

Interactions are associated with a sense of community. The more people interacted the more they viewed themselves as a group. Using introductions allowed students to foster the rapport needed for the rest of the semester. Students who shared experiences personalized and incorporated their information to more real life scenarios. Sharing resources between students allowed students to take ownership over their learning instead of relying on the instructor only. 

The report doesn’t indicate this concept but it is important to see such social learning as active versus passive learning. When students develop a sense of community, find their own ways of relating to the material, and find resources that help them achieve their goals they are taking an active role in their learning. They are no longer passive receptors of information but become part of the overall process and own that education to a higher degree. Social, cognitive, and resource develop appear to be an important part of the higher education process.

Shackelford, J. & Maxwell, M. (2012). Sense of community in graduate online education: contribution of learning to learner interaction. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13 (4).