Learning Things

G’day! My name is Chuck Bagley.  I am one of the Instructional Designers for Granite State College’s online courses and a member of the faculty.  I feel I am very fortunate because I really dig going to work.  Why do I dig it?  I get to work with excellent faculty, bright and inquisitive learners and remarkably dedicated and expert staff.  As if working with great people isn’t enough to get me out of bed in the morning, the field I work in is constantly changing with new innovations and discoveries.  Seldom does a week (sometimes a day) has gone by without a new learning technology or application to explore. 

I have always had a passion for learning though (as Winston Churchill once said) I don’t always like being taught.  I have experienced some real train wrecks in the education world particularly in public school, as an undergraduate learner and, unfortunately, more than a few vocational workshops.  Therefore, I enjoy trying to figure out the best way to get good learning between the ears of a learner.  As Barry Sheckley from the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut puts it, “Adult learning is about creating or re-creating experience.” That has become my mantra and my goal when designing learning.
 
I have a Master of Education in Adult Learning and Development from Plymouth State University (PSU) and I am working on a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) in the Neurodevelopmental Approach to Learning at PSU. I am also a certified fitness trainer as well as an avid skier, cyclist, runner (plodder more like it) and hiker.  I used to row crew and ski biathlon (cross country skiing and rifle shooting) years ago.  As a result of this experience I developed some pretty good strategies that enhance optimum performance for either competitive or non-competitive applications. These seem to fit in with the whole adult learning “thing” and enhancing motivation to learn.  Keywords: Adult and Continuing Education, Adult Education and Training, Adult Online Classes, Education and Career Advancement, Online Classes for Adults, New Hampshire University System

Learning online at Granite State College is practical and functional for many adult learners taking adult college courses.  It lends itself well to how adult learners learn best, under the unique conditions they often find themselves.  Online learning is appealing from a practical lifestyle perspective but also from a theoretical and neuro-scientific perspective.   Here are the top ten reasons to take online classes for college:

Easy to get started - You can get started learning online with a computer and Internet access.   Computers are becoming more powerful, less expensive and more user-friendly.  Internet service is widely available in many places.  If owning your own computer or accessing the Internet from home is a problem, many public libraries offer free computer and Internet access.  Be sure to check your school’s technical requirements for your computer before taking an online class. 

Economical - No travel costs, no commuting, and no dormitory fees - just tuition and occasionally materials fees.

Accessible – As long as you have an Internet connection, you can access your online course.  This is particularly appealing to parents of young children or students who travel often for their work.

Flexible –Unable to make a 9:00 AM Economics lecture on a college campus?  Online classes are available 24 hours a day.  You can learn online from your own home at a time that is convenient for you. 

Effective – When you take online classes for adults, you can expect to learn important career building skills and abilities equal to, or better than, a traditional classroom setting.  According to a 2010 evaluation of online learning conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, “Students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction.” 

It gets better - Thanks to advances in technology, learning online continues to improve at an unprecedented rate.  New technologies facilitate active engagement that allow adult learners to apply, integrate, implement, differentiate, and formulate new learning into experience generating activities.   Technological advances also enhance learner connectedness, interaction and mutual support.  Immersive learning environments and serious games are no longer distant concepts but rapidly becoming more common in online learning. 

Challenging – Though there are deadlines and due dates, there are no class meeting times (although some online classes may require mandatory synchronous session), you are constantly working on your own resourcefulness and initiative to complete the coursework. 

Time for Reflection – Unlike a face-to-face class where immediate responses are often required in class discussions, online discussion boards allow time for thoughtful reflection and critical thinking when interacting and responding on an online discussion board.   This reflection time can facilitate metacognition – thinking about one’s own thinking or “the ability to monitor one’s current level of understanding and decide when it is not adequate” (How People Learn, 2000).   

Your experience counts – Online learning facilitates the connection to past experience (cognitive activation) critical to the adult learning process.  Raymond Wlodkowski author of “Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn” explains it this way; “adults have had more time and seen the benefits and outcomes of a greater variety of experiences.  Neurologically, their brains are more developed and capable of judging, planning, and making decisions about their experiences in a manner that is more integrated, stable, reflective, and future oriented.”  Online learning interactive activities such as discussion boards, blogs and journals provide the opportunities to employ an adult’s “rich mosaic of experience” at deeper levels of learning as part of the learning experience. 

Meaningful - You determine the meaning of the learning.  “Most experts who have studied or participated in online learning communities share an approach to adult learners described as ‘constructivism.’ It is based on the premise that knowledge is constructed by adult learners as they filter new information through the prism of their own experience. It is quite different from the more traditional ‘objectivist’ idea of knowledge as a preexisting reality that teachers simply transmit by means of effective communication, and reinforce through practice and repetition. Constructivists expect adult learners to be active, reflective, and creative: managing their own learning process and often collaborating with each other to test new ideas and information by applying them to real problems and circumstances. Therefore, constructivists often describe their approach as student-centered rather than teacher-centered. Instructors facilitate learners’ progress rather than operating primarily as podium-based sages.” – Dr. Burgess Smith, Granite State College. 

Like any other endeavor, learning online is what you make of it.  Organization, discipline and hard work are all successful components to a positive online learning experience.    As Judy Willis, MD, M.Ed. puts it: “The person who does the work LEARNS.”

Citations

Means, B, Toyama, Y, Murphy, R, Bakia, M, & Jones, K. (2010). Evaluation of Evidence-based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies .  U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development Policy and Program Studies Service.

How People Learn. (2000). Washington, D.C.  National Research Council.

Wlodkowski , R. (2008). Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Smith, B. (2011, February). How We Learn Online [Web log message]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.granite.edu/  

The Study Guides and Strategies website (www.studygs.net/metacognitiona), has an extremely useful webpage on “Learning how to learn”.   This useful resource suggests that “effective learning is through knowing
• yourself
• your capacity to learn
• the process you have successfully used in the past
• your interest in, and knowledge of, the subject you wish to learn”

The site continues to outline the four steps required in an effective learning experience:
• Begin with the past
• Proceed to the present
• Consider the process, the subject matter
• Build in review

By connecting to past experience one can accelerate a new learning situation.  The Center for School Success suggests, “When new information is learned, a chemical reaction occurs in the brain between brain cells (neurons).  When repeated, this reaction spreads and builds connections between previous knowledge and information.  The more frequently this process occurs, the more memory and comprehension are strengthened, as it becomes easier and quicker for the brain to access information."  (www.centerforschoolsuccess.org).

By building in review, elaborate rehearsal is a preferred method of anchoring the new learning.  David Sousa defines elaborate rehearsal as a “a more complex thinking process in that the learner reprocesses the information several times to make connections to previous learning and assign meaning.   There is almost no long-term retention without rehearsal Sousa suggests.   “Simply increasing your time on a learning task does not guarantee retention” if you do not take the time personally interact with the content being learned through rehearsal.  Additionally, Sousa recommends the initial learning needs to be on target as “practice does not make perfect…it makes it permanent.”

For more on effective learning visit:  www.studygs.net.  

Recently, one of my learning colleagues (aka student) I have had the pleasure of working with (aka teaching) for several years just finished his last course required for graduation.  With his coursework completed, we have been busy congratulating each other on a job well done.  In his last e-mail to me, he shared this story:

“A young associate here approached me the other day, asking where I went to school. He's being nudged by management and co-workers to get a degree, but worried about the workload and time commitment for school. I reminded him that yes, it's a commitment, but the rewards are worth every bit of it. However, it is most important to do it for yourself and not on somebody else's recommendation. Make it your own goal and the rewards are much greater. It may seem overwhelming in the beginning, but one step at a time and suddenly, you're looking back with a huge feeling of accomplishment thinking, "it wasn't that bad." Of course shortly after that you will wonder how you ever had the time. “

My learning colleague, like myself and undoubtedly scores of others, arrived in academia bewildered, anxious, a little frightened and certain the admissions department made a dreadful error.    Despite the many technological advances and enhanced sensitivity to individual needs, the initial plunge into higher education hasn’t changed.  MIT’s Professor Eric Grimson puts it well in his advice to new students,

“Relax! Yes, everyone around you may be smart and full of great ideas, but so are you. The key is to be willing to participate; if you engage yourself in the vibrant exchange of ideas that takes place in the labs, the classrooms, and the student lounges, you will find the experience exhilarating…the point is that you have to be willing to engage.”

If you are willing to engage, participate and be part of the learning community, you too will find yourself looking back on your college experience with a “huge feeling of accomplishment thinking, ‘it wasn't that bad’."  Indeed, not only will you feel it wasn’t that bad, you will undoubtedly feel it is one of the essential components in defining your life.