Distance learning for women in India

The given reading Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning  by Howell et al. mentions that,’ Like growth in adult learners, the percentage of women and minority learners is increasing. More women than men now enroll in college (57% of students are women), a trend supported by the fact that more women are entering the workforce (“Lifelong,” 2002). Among minorities, the proportion of women is even higher: “60% of Hispanic and two-thirds of African-American college students are women” (Cetron, 2003, p. 10)’

This certainly holds true for Indian women and minority communities. Indian women got uplift with the introduction of distance education back in 1990s. The distance education was a ray of hope for married and single moms(widow, separated, divorced). Women those who got married early in their life and could not finish studies had an option to pursue further with their degrees. Indian families are generally joint families, supporting the daughters and daughter in laws if the wish to study further after marriage. Now a days, many women are obtaining professional degrees and diplomas. With professional degrees in hand, these highly educated women are ambitious, financially independent, aware of their rights and know how to take charge of their life. Online education addresses some of India's shortcomings: a dismal education system, limited reach, and a severe paucity of faculty. Distance education allows women to study according to their convenience . They take care of the kids and family and study as and when they like.The only thing is that they have to go to the examination Center once or twice in an year for writing the exams or for practicals.

Minority section and underprivileged sect of society also got advantage of distance learning. People living in remote areas, were blessed with the concept distance learning. With advancement, and many of them having access to internet, the online education is becoming popular among Indians.

References: Howell, S. L., Williams, P. B., & Lindsay, N. K. (2003).westga.edu. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall63/howell63.html

Journal writing

Journal writing should be an integrated part of our daily busy schedules. The journals are the recordings of the thought process. The journals help in resolving the problems those we might have been accumulating over the period of time without finding solutions. It also improves the reflective thinking and cognitive process. One can combat stress if he/she has a habit of writing the journal.

I learnt a lot while writing the journals because it invoked questions in my mind and I read, researched and synthesized  my thought process to find the answers.

The procedure is that there is no ’procedure’, means you can write whatever, whenever  and wherever. The flow of the words should be coming from the mind without any fear or concern. 

The journals can have some negative aspects also. The writer may tend to write longer journals which might become boring for the writer himself/herself over a period of time and finally, he/she  gives up writing it at all. I would like to fix the minimum number of journals that one has to write in a given week.

The quote I would like to share is-'The role of an instructor is to keep the learning community functional in virtual classes by designing the course to allow participation of all the students as community members and  increase the participation'.

Evaluation in online course

I was finalizing my final paper today. Suddenly, a question popped in my mind what is the purpose of testing. Before making a course, the creator/s of the online course should be clear regarding the purpose of testing, whether to record the progress or give feedback to learners. To  design a test, you must know exactly what do you need to measure. If you already know the specific learning objective for the course/lesson, it is easier to construct the test. Any activity that can be scored by a computer or human can be a test question.  For that reason, there are an unlimited number of test questions possible. Consider the type of question you need, as per the kind of information you’re are trying to gather and what are you willing to do to get this information.

Questions can be subjective or objective. Subjective test questions require human judgment to evaluate whereas objective questions have clear standards for correctness. They are sometimes called closed questions because learners must select an answer from choices provided by the designer. Multiple choice questions are objective. They are best for right –wrong kind of question in science fields where the learners are tested for new technology and skills.

Thus, I wish to include MCQs, as one of the evaluation tool  in the my lessons to test the acquisition of basic theories and principals of chemistry.

Constructivist Learning Environment

Mini Lecture from week  5 indicates that-‘If students are primarily adults, they are likely to be enrolled in the course for career reasons, and will probably be highly self-reliant and highly goal-oriented. They will probably also approach the course with a good deal of prior learning (in-school and out-of-school learning) as well as preconceived ideas.’

That  sounds true because  at a level of maturity, the learners tend to have some ideas and thoughts they truly believe in. There may be certain prejudices also. Thus, designing a course for comparatively older learners can be a challenge because the material has to be chosen very carefully and there should be strong arguments and facts supporting the reading material and the views of the instructor. Sometimes these pre-conceived ideas create some kind of hindrance in the learning process because the mind is pre-occupied with the notion one already believes in.

The other thing is ‘Effective online curriculum generally adopts and builds in a more "facilitative" model of teaching in which the function of the faculty member (or trainer) is to lead discussions that are carefully crafted in order to elicit the ideas of students with respect to key concepts in the subject matter. As an example, the facilitator might ask a question regarding how selected concepts apply to the learners' work environments, and to share this with their online colleagues from THEIR perspectives.

This concept was very beautifully taken care of by Anne in Discussion forums for week 5. For example , Forum: 5:1 Anonymous Threads - Thoughts about Groups, which  says, you have worked with different group members on various tasks through exchange of emails, synchronous communication, threads, exchange of files. Briefly and anonymously comment on this experience. You may respond to other posts. What are the "lessons learned"? What went well? What surprised you? What will you do differently next time? This forum is not graded. (I don't know who you are!)

Similarly,  threads 5.3 ask learners  following –

You have kept a journal throughout this course. In this thread, please do the following:

1) Write a couple of sentences about the journal process, including pluses, minuses, procedures and changes you would make in the future

2) Pick a quote from your journal that may be meaningful to others and/or representative of a significant part of the course learning/experience

3) Please respond to others

4) Anonymity in this post is a choice

These kind of discussions/reflections at the end of the course help learners to  find the usefulness of a particular activity/learning strategy. For me writing these two threads made a whole of sense of whatever I did in last 5 weeks.

Week 4 reflections

The week 4 was a little stressful at the level of mental work. There were lot many things going on in the life and I was little tensed for the final paper preparation. I read the guidelines 2-3 times. Initially, when I read it for the first time, it looked a lot of work and then with consecutive readings, it starting making more sense to me. But still there are a lot of things those have to be taken care of while preparing the final paper and then the rubrics!  I have started working on the same and will try to meet the guidelines.

There were many interesting readings, video and the podcast. The podcast had some problem. It stopped after a while but then I could listen the whole lecture. This provides and interesting insight into the universal course design which can be accesses successfully by the major chunk of the population including persons defined as disabled under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These lectures also helped me understand that Universal design and accessibility are not synonymous and clarified any confusion between the two terms.  The course and the design of the web  designed such that it can be accesses by the people with disabilities or without disabilities.

This week also helped in getting understanding of  what is the best way of carrying out assessment -9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning, explains Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Its effective practice, then, begins with and enacts a vision of the kinds of learning we most value for students and strive to help them achieve.

While brainstorming on Accessibility issue and my role in team, I thought of taking the role of the content specialist and the technologists. I saw that role has already been taken up by anyone else in my group. I decided that I can still take up the role of a technologist as an assistant to the lead. In that case, I will be able to learn as well as fulfill my desire of playing a role of technologist. 

This week, I acted funny and foolish. In the Forum: 4:4 Assessing Collaborative Projects, I misinterpreted the whole question. I took it to be a general group grading in term of a classroom scenario. Then I realized that this particularly ask about the group work we did  the last week. So, I changed my response.

Top three characteristics of an online learner

Top three characteristics of an online learner are:

Self-Motivation:  This is one of the most important traits of an online learner. The learners have to be independent and self-derived in order attain the goals. Students must understand what is expected out of them and they should meet instructor’s expectations as well as the objectives set for the program.

In case the students lack self-discipline and time-management skills, the instructors and people around, have a great role to play. Instructor can engage them in conversation and ask them about the difficulties they face while studying. They can write journals and the reflections would help them learn and motivate to move on. As an instructor I would try to show my students that I’m a human being behind their computer screen. I also recognize their emotions, needs and humanity. I would like to share my ideas with them and then, invite them to share their views with me.

Good reader and communicator: An online learner has to show good skills in reading and communication because this is required to convey thoughts, ideas and share concerns. Also, in order to understand and apply learned material to write assignment and writing to other classmates and instructor, students have to be good in reading and communication.

In order to enhance these skills, students need support from instructor, family members, peers  and online resources(dictionary, spell check). They may take a small course in editing and reading also. Local libraries sometimes also have small programs in reading and communication skills. They may get a support group in library or nearby community center.

Organization of time and daily routine: Usually online learners have so much going on in their lives other than taking the online course. The organization of time and space is absolutely necessary in order to meet deadlines for the assignments, discussions and reading. They need to organize study space, and then they need to find time to actually study.

Students those don’t have good organizational skills might learn it over the time. I learnt it by the time my first week in this course was over.  They need support of family members, friends and other loved ones. Students also need to communicate to themselves and people around,  that this ’particular hour’  is my study hour and they don’t want any disturbance. Finding help from classmates, getting an idea how they organize their time, can be helpful.

One aspect of online delivery, which can surpass that of a face-to-face classroom, is of flexibility of time, convenience of studying from home while at the same time having cultural diverse group interactions.

An aspect of learning in a social context is the development of “ learning communities”( Vygotsky, 1978) centered around student-to-student interactions and the exchange of ideas(discussion boards, email, chat). Another one can be for learners those are seeking help in libraries or other support group in their locality(community center)

Savneet Singh

Hello everyone,  

This is Savneet Singh, from a beautiful city Bellevue, Washington. It is spring time and you can see nature at its best all over the place. I am nature lover, in fact, mother earth lover. I enjoy reading and writing about the health, environment & life related stuff, and doing volunteer work. I practice yoga and meditation with the sunrise. Whenever I get time, I go for trailing, walking or hiking. 

My classroom is going to be my  pentagonal laptop desk kept besides my bed.

I hold Post Graduate degree in Education as well as in Ecology & Environment. My M.Ed program gave me an in-depth and comprehensive insight of philosophical, psychological, social and economic aspects of education. I also hold a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education (B.El.Ed.). This program gave me a chance to enhance my critical thinking, writing, verbal and quantitative reasoning skills. The M.Sc in Ecology & Environment helped me in getting chummy with nature.

 I started my career as a subject expert for an educational software company. But, I couldn't work there for a long, because I met an accident and had to stay home for some time. After that incidence, I started teaching at a primary school. Since then, I have yearned to move ahead in computer aided learning. I’ve 5 years of professional teaching experience. I taught Science, English and Environment to primary and  7^th to 10^th grade  students. I played the role of the head of Environment department and had an independent decision-making authority. Teaching students coming from rural areas, low income families and minority section helped me in adding patience, endurance and fortitude.  

During these 5 years, computer aided teaching was an integral part of my day to day lesson planning. I used Power-point presentations, graphs, excel sheets and animated DVD’s. I loved to see the sparkling eyes of my student while enjoying an interactive and animated presentation or the DVD, more than any traditional classroom lecture, which I might have delivered on the same topic. Through my experience, I came to know that kind of computer program, online activity or game should be age appropriate and should precisely fit in the context and needs of the students.

 I’m glad to say that, I am a national scholarship holder(India), given to only 0.1% students, those get merit in Secondary school exams.

This course will enhance my pre-existing skills in the field of education as well as in web-development and help in learning ropes of e-learning.