In the given reading ‘ Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators’, Ed Hootstein highlights that e-learning facilitators have four different roles- instructor, social director, program manager, and technical assistant. Initially, I thought that, I will be most comfortable in the instructor’s shoes because that is what I have done till date. But, I strongly feel that I have also been playing the role of social director for my high school students. Thus, I can say that I will be most comfortable in the nice blend of these two roles. As an instructor, my work was to create an environment where students could learn by doing. I used to teach chemistry to grade 10 students. They had lectures as well as laboratory classes. While doing experiments, my students and I often ‘participated together as partners in learning activities’. The experiments and their results were coupled with comments and what, how and why questions so as to stimulate their thought process. Demonstration and experimentation had very important role in my classes. Thus, as an instructor, I always tried to help learners connect content with prior knowledge; help them complete assignments and suggesting ideas or strategies for learning(Ed Hootstein).
As a social director, I helped students to learn through collaborative projects, case studies, didactic learning partnership exchanges, and one-on-one exchanges (p, 2). The projects, presentations and discussion were held each month so that students could recognize problems, find their common interests, and share experiences. This kind of interaction helped them to identify misconceptions and find correct answers.
Chemistry is embedded everywhere in our lives. Chemistry teachers or as a matter of fact, science teachers should help learners get familiar with the type of language suited for the subject. Chemistry vocabulary has new words and terminologies those have different meaning. For example, terms like alcohol, energy, reaction, burning, suspension, purification, and solution have different common place meanings than specific chemical meanings. While taking chemistry classes it is very important that students can relate this subject to their day to day lives so that learning becomes more meaningful. Therefore, learners should be exposed to small-group problem-solving sessions, collaborative and investigative learning experience and interaction among learners. Thus, in my case a facilitator has to wear a combination of instructor and a social director role.
I personally think that the technology and the learning resources we are using also need some revision. Web-based learning resources (WBLRs) are thought to be powerful tools for enhancing teaching and learning processes in school education. But, WBLRs are still considered as an area of technical and software experts rather than an easy to use tool for teachers and students (Nam & Smith-Jackson, 2007). The technical usability puts more strain on the cognitive process, and as a result, the learning process itself lags behind.
Thus, learners should get an environment that enables them to focus on learning materials without making an effort to figure out how to access the technological environment in first place. So, teachers take learning new technology as a burden
Reference: Nam, C. S., & Smith-Jackson, T. L. (2007). Web-based learning environment: A theory-based design process for development and evaluation. Journal of Information Technology Education, 6, 23- 44. Retrieved from: http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol6/JITEv6p023-043Nam145.pdf
he fear or the laziness of teachers that Michael referred to, may be because of variety of reasons, such as time consumed in learning, using and then teaching technology to students, already tight schedules, heavy workload and lack of institutional support. Sometimes the equipment and the software used are different in each class which makes the teacher’s work even tougher. So, I also understand the frustration of an instructor that Lisha referred to.
I think that instructors should learn the latest technological tools before introducing it to the class. Moreover, technical and institutional support in terms of equipment and technology issues is very important. These things will help an instructor to create a supporting teaching and learning atmosphere.
No comments:
Post a Comment