One must take into consideration network connectivity speeds, software updates and also the actual amount of course content material! This element is particularly important since unlike face-to-face tuition, the tutor can rarely gauge and must theirfore experimentally forecast the pace at which the learner is following lectures, unless he makes continuous use of advanced tracking tools. However most of these tools are limited to reporting the 'access-to' such resources rather than the actual reading, viewing, listening and actual understanding!
In fact, a study related to e-learning puts particular focus on this and underlines the following important information which one must consider to evaluate how long the student will take to learn the learning unit:
- working on the learning subject
- exercise solving
- tasks sending
- purchase and the study of supplementary literature
- various activities
More information is available in this document.
I think we often underestimate the amount of time students take to look up information from the internet especially when researching new topics; to realise what is relevant to the subject, to gather the amount of information that is necessary from different sources and finally to put it together hopefully in their own words.
ReplyDeleteI have often met some of my students in the library, some working as a group (around the computers suggesting different sites, pointing out what they think is relevant) and then having a group discussion which sometimes ends up in even smaller groups or pairs discussing even further. This peer learning is a valuable and highly productive method of learning. I intend to make better use of it next year. Students work faster and produce better material, they get far more involved in the lectures and have a more direct involvement in how and what they learn. In assignments these students usually do better compared to those who work on their own.
I think that time management is a skill in itself, and we as lecturers should never take it for granted that our students are good at this. Helping our students to manage their work is part of our duty as lecturers.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experience, students lack time management mostly when they have home assignments, which are usually split into several phases/tasks. I am not referring to those student who try to work everything out one day before the deadline. There are some good student who are willing to work, but are not able to manage their work accordingly. We as tutors need to help out these students, by using the right learning methodologies such as peer learning (as mentioned above).
I totally agree with Mary Grace and Mark, students know how to browse the web and will find excellent links to download information but they will totally get lost in this maze of information. As already said in the previous comments many students do not know how to manage their time properly.
ReplyDeleteSo our role is to lead them and if possible refer them to links which are relevant to their assignments. Or else to prevent from spoon feeding them we can show the difference between official and non official sites. We need to educate them and instruct them what can be used as reading material and those that can be used as reference for their assignments. Many students do not know the difference between a wiki, a blog and official sites. As I have already said in another thread I find it very difficult to convince my son that the Wikipedia is not an official site. He is very convinced that this site is the truth and nothing but the truth.
Hence my opinion is that we as educators have to open our students’ minds and lead them to work in a better time management environment.
I agree with Mary Grace that in actual fact the time that students spend when searching for material or information from the internet is quite considerable especially if the student wants to do a proper search in order to come out with a good bled of information (and not get data from the first search result –with whatever there is inside).
ReplyDeleteI also agree, that irrespective of the time a student spends to perform such research, the student is in most cases playing more “at home” then when he/she is in the classroom and because of this their usual economisation of time and effort on a particular job becomes secondary. This because we all know that at their late teenage years (like most of Mcast students), the youths give a lot of importance (and I emphasise on that) to the acceptance from their peers and their friends’ company. So if such students are asked to do research through a VLE or from the internet it is amazing what such students can produce. This year I have had an experience with students from Foundation classes. Two out of the three assignments were given to them to work out together and then to come out with individual reports. I was amazed with the effort observed from their work. Something that I would have never dreamt of obtaining from the students had such an assignment been in the form of a written exam conducted in class.
May I also add that in order to provide a sustainable and effective VLE, one must appreciate that the teacher must have mastered such elearning facilities in order to give quite an extensive range of information for the students to assess online. This means that both the teacher and the student will ultimately experience a better learning environment and gain more skills than the through the traditional (class-room) ways.
Like any other project, E-learning requires good time management in order for it to serve its purpose efficiently. In my opinion e-learning makes assimilation of information much easier for the student and therefore the learning process can take place even faster because the medium by which information is being passed on the students is much more interesting and interactive.
ReplyDeleteThe best way for us to use e-learning would be to synchronise e-learning material with that being given in class so that both move at the same pace. Students would be expected to engage in the e-learning material forwarded to them and report back to the next lesson in class. This would make sure that students keep up with the planned schedule and that they actually learn how to organise themselves to be able to manage and review the content presented to them.
I do not agree with Mr Gauci's idea of the need to give students the links they need to research for their assignments. I do agree that we need to guide the student but not with spoon feeding. It would be beneficial for us to give a research structure to the students and only one research lead for them to start their research. The college on the other hand should make sure that it has a research engine that has access to the necessary information or like I already said before, establishes information and research partnerships with other private or public institutions so that students would have access to up to date information.
It should be made clear to students that Wikipedia is no suitable source of information and it can not be referenced in any of the assignments handed in. Wikipedia might serve as a starting point to get an idea on something which one might not know, however, it certainly is not a proper source to research on. We must strictly direct students to research in books and journals. This has to be backed by a rich library and an efficient online research facility.
Returning on to time management, we can also help our students by giving them stages by when they should complete certain parts of their research, assignment or study. This will gradually help the student to plan better his/her work. I strongly agree with the concept of peer learning as suggested by Mary Grace. It would make much sense if we structure our assignments into two parts. The first part would be a group assignment and would require group research and work, whilst the second part would be an individual part continuing on the first part. This will help students to engage better with the subjects, expose themselves to larger volumes of information due to the sharing of researched information and learn how to plan better their work due to planned group teamwork.
The individual part would then pose a larger challenge onto the student because it will require much more individual work and the student would have to precisely plan his work to meet the work deadline. The fact that students would have already worked together and would have a shared part of the initial work would psychologically boost them to challenge each other on the individual part of the assignment. E-learning can especially help in group work as it makes information sharable in a much faster way.
Mariella
This post highlighted a problem that is very important. This semester, I had a number of good students who did not submit any assignments. When I followed up, they told me that they focused all their attention on one (demanding) assignment, and ended up not having time to work on the rest. It is our duty to teach students how to manage their time. One technique would be to set milestones for subtasks within the assignment.
ReplyDeleteI think that time management would be more of a problem in eLearning as the student has more distractions, and the teacher often has less direct contact with the student to see his/her progress.
I totally agree with Ranier. Time Management is important and as Mark previously said it is a skill in it self. Something which I started to do lately is like what Ranier said setting milestones. Not all student will meet these dates but the majority will. Another option is to ask the students to present a report in the middle of their project where they will outline what they did and what they will be doing in the following weeks. Ideally this report would have a weight in the final grade. This type of reports are used very often in online courses where the student will be working on a project and to keep communication between the tutor and the student such reports are requested.
ReplyDeleteWe can also use the technology part of e-learning to help our students and ourselves manage our time properly.
ReplyDeleteLearning Management Systems (LMS) should be ergonomic, i.e., comfortable to use, accessible and understandable. LMS should also support logging of all activity and duration of participants.
The less manual / physical work involved in a LMS, the better the users can manage their time. The flexibility offered by a LMS also contributes to time management. For example students can still have access to the lesson material (assuming the material is well prepared) when they are not present in class, for whatever reason. They may be able to communicate with the teacher or other students online through blogs / email.
@Christoper and Mariella
ReplyDeleteGuiding as against spoon-feeding students is a thorny issue but I believe the first is the only way ahead.
Time management in E-learning
I certainly cannot but agree that time-management and organisational skills are extremely important in an e-learning environment and these are qualities which we have to transmit to our students but how am I, as a fine arts teacher, working in a studio where there is a 5 year old pc and no internet connection teach my students to restrain themselves from chatting and work more on acquiring information?
Saying that you have to instil in the students a sense of 'want' or a craving for information is somewhat unrealistic (even when considering what I already said in a different post - see 'Bring on the elearning revolution, May 31 - about students' declining ability to focus on a single task) in this context.
In these past four months or so I had been working with the HND Fine Art second year students on their end-of-course exhibition (www.FA-10.com) which meant that I was out on site most of the time. I found that emailing students was a good option to 'manage' a large group of people (because of the easy and widespread accessability) ... on the other hand am still struggling with the idea of using elearning sources to teach fine arts.
Any suggestions?
ps: sorry for the lengthy post
The Facebook page:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180533&id=723811485#!/event.php?eid=272997936446&ref=ts
Press reviews of 'Ten', the students exhibition
http://www.timesofmalta.com/life/view/20100617/features/art-10-good-reasons-to-visit-the-old-power-station
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=107819
VIDEO: http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=437073685830&ref=mf
In my opinion time management is an extremely important issue in order that the e-learning experience would be a success, however self-discipline, motivation, and willingness to do one's best are fundamental for an effective and efficient educational process.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the fact that students would be following a course via e-Learning at the leisure of their home could also be a distraction. The fact that relatives are aware of the student's presence could lead them to distracting them. Also the student could tend to be too relaxed such that it is difficult to concentrate. The absence of the teacher's presence to correct the student and to motivate further would be a great disadvantage.
ReplyDeleteFor this reason students would required greater self-discipline and time management when following e-learning courses.
Students can be easily distracted if they are not motivated even when using traditional teaching methods. It is important to have proper time management otherwise e-learning would become the worst teaching methods. Additionally don`t forget that time is money! Therefore the lecturer should prepare properly an e-learning course so the student can gain knowledge as fast as possible. Additionally to avoid that students are disappointed the tutor should organize a scheme of work that contains all priorities such that all goals will be reached and knowledge is communicated clearly to the students.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to bear in mind that most of students, particularly those who have began their studies MCAST only recently, are still getting to grips with how to manage their time.
ReplyDeleteIn order to avoid burdening them excessively, they need to be weaned onto the concept of a delivery date. I quite like the format this course has taken, in which our assignment grade is constructed on a week by week basis based on our online contributions.
It is especially good since it prevents having the usual problem of leaving all the work to the last minute, and instead splits it up into weekly deliverables. Gathering work in bite-sized amounts seems a sensible way to me, and students can be given further-reaching deliverables once they've gained confidence with the smaller ones.
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ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Mark when he said Time Management "is a skill in itself" because I find it difficult doing it well myself, however it is a must to try and do our utmost to help our students manage time management.
ReplyDeleteTime management.Ranier said earlier on that students did not submit any assignments because they put all their energy on one. We must admit that this is bad time management coming from the students. Is it just their fault or even we are to blame a bit. We must also admit that certain assignments are demanding and some teachers keep pushing a bit too far. What communication is there between us teachers on the load of assignments. Is there any coordination? I really do not think so. Before lecturing time management to students, we should all contemplate examining our conscience until we are convinced that our modus operandi is correct.
ReplyDelete