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Discussions about Open and Distance Language Learning
During these 4
weeks, we read and discussed four different chapters about online education and
distance learning. All of these topics and subjects have a great role in online
education. Basically, we discussed the place of technology in online education,
creating a sense of existence, fake engagement, and the importance of the
flipped learning approach in online education.
In
our first week we talked about technology in online education. We talked about
how technology helps teachers and students. For teachers the chapter mentions
some approaches that teachers can use when they face a difficulty in an online
setting. Şevval and I discussed the important topics of the chapter and after
that I explained how I felt about online education. For me having a physical
classroom and learning in an actual school will always be better. While I don’t
believe that video conferencing students improve their languages, Şevval
believes that it’s similar to a classroom environment and thinks that students
can improve their languages. I mentioned my practicum and said that high school
students don’t really care about what’s going on in the classroom. For Şevval,
it was different, her practicum went really well. After that we talked about
our experiences with online education for three or four minutes. We concluded
our discussion with talking about how video conferencing isn’t for every
student. Because not every student is suitable for online teaching and online
learning. Some students are shy in classrooms and don’t want to participate.
In
our second week we talked about sense of presence. We explained what it means
and what it implies. Then we talked about how sense of presence affect
participation in lessons. One of the questions were what kind of problems occur
when there is no sense of presence. We discussed this question by starting with
teacher’s presence. I said that when a teacher doesn’t have a presence,
students would be bored and just listen or don’t listen at all. If a student’s
presence is not there, there won’t be any participation and it would be a
boring class. Because no one wants to be there. After that we talked about how
interactions can improve sense of presence. Then I asked Şevval how a teacher
can have a presence in the classroom. We said that asking questions in the
classroom, they can hear their student’s opinions, interact with them, and open
their cameras so the social presence occur via camera. We tried to give
examples from our experiences from our practicums. And lastly, we talked about
technology as a disadvantage. I mentioned that not every person is a technology
literate person. This can be a disadvantage for students and even teachers. Not
being illiterate in technology could affect presence as well.
In
our third week we talked about fake or real engagement. We started to
discussion with explaining what fake engagement is and the difficulties that it
creates in classrooms. Then we talked about dimensions of engagement.
Behavioral, cognitive, and affective. We talked about each one of them. Şevval
also talked about her experience with a student’s fake engagement in her
practicum. We talked about if a student is uncomfortable in a lesson, they
don’t want to participate at all. Şevval gave another example talking about her
past about being shy and couldn’t participate in the lesson. I agreed with
talking about having an intrinsic personality. Then we talked about why
student’s have fake engagement. Being bored, or having a problem outside of the
classroom like having family issues etc. Lastly, we mentioned forms of involvement
getting confused with engagement. We also gave examples for each of them. Being
a hypothetical or ones that we experienced.
In
our last week we talked about the flipped language approach in classrooms. We
started the discussion by explaining what a flipped language approach is. Then
we mentioned the positives sides of the approach. Both of us gave some examples
for the positive sides of the approach but we both agreed that we don’t like
this approach in our classes. Then we started to talk about the negatives of
this approach. It was mainly about the teacher’s role. I personally believe
that the teacher’s role in this approach is too important because the teacher
needs to be instructed about it. I don’t believe that every teacher can use
this approach in their lessons. We mentioned couple other things like having a
poor video quality etc. Then we concluded our discussion with talking about how
hard it is to use this approach but how successful can it be if it is used
right and instructed well.
In
conclusion, online teaching and distance learning are new terminologies that we
started to learn and experience for a year now. There is clearly a need for
technology in online teaching but how much of that technology is useful and how
many of the students that are listening to you in that classroom is actually
listening and learning is another topic that should be brought up in discussions.
If we add approaches and presence in this equation, it almost feels like a real
classroom. Creating a sense of presence is different in online teaching,
flipped learning is a lot harder when it’s in an online setting. I think that
teachers need to know about and instruct themselves about. It’s a new era and
we as the teachers need to adapt, develop, and survive.
References
·
A
systematic review of research on flipped language classrooms: theoretical
foundations, learning activities, tools, research topics and findings (Di Zou,
Shuqiong Luo, Haoran Xie & Gwo-Jen Hwang)
·
Creating
a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching (Rosemary M. Lehman Simone C. O.
Conceição)
·
The
Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning
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