NORTHCENTRAL UNIVERSITY ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET
Learner: Stephen W Watts
28 December 2011
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EL7001-8
Dr. Stephen Law
Principals and Practices in e-Learning
4 Meaningful Learning Experiences
Assignment: Examine what the literature, and your own experience, indicates creates a positive
learning experience. What criteria have you used to say that an educational or training event was good or
bad? What helps you learn? Think about a rich learning experience you have had in the past. What
made the experience successful? The e-Learning challenge today is to find ways of creating meaningful
and rich learning experiences. What characteristics of learning experiences do you feel are necessary in
order to provide rich online learning experiences for the online learner? Discuss this issue thoroughly,
giving examples and support from the literature. Length: 2-4 pages.
Faculty Use Only
Excellent job Stephen! Well organized and very well documented.
Dr. Law
Dr. Stephen Law
100
100
12/30/2011
Running head: MEANINGFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCES
Meaningful Learning Experiences
Stephen W. Watts
Northcentral University
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Meaningful Learning Experiences
Learning is a ubiquitous experience. Learning occurs all of the time. With so much
learning why are there so few remarkable teachers? As I reflect on my lifetime of learning, I
realize that the teachers who taught me the most were my parents, whose teachings erupt in the
most unobvious places, and the dear teacher called experience, who through pain has taught me
more than I care to acknowledge. I have had hundreds to teachers in my life, and less than a
handful are remembered, and only one truly revered. Our experience together began in a less
than auspicious way – he is the only professor who has failed any of my work, in this case five
times – but he thought enough about me and my potential to encourage me to become the writer
that only he could see. So, this paper is dedicated to his memory, and to describing the
characteristics that the literature indicates creates rich, positive, and meaningful learning
experiences.
Positive Learning Experiences
According to the literature there are several characteristics that contribute to an optimal
learning experience. Some of the characteristics noted in the literature for online learning
include creating a safe environment for discussion and the making of mistakes (Baskas, 2011b;
Zemke, 1995), generating high levels of interest in the topic (Bye, Pushkar, & Conway, 2007),
conveying meaningful and interesting content (Chyung & Vachon, 2005; Gunawardena, LinderVanBerschot, LaPointe, & Rao, 2010), encouraging reflection and integration of the material
(Baskas, 2011a; Baskas, 2011b; Kenner & Weinerman, 2011), ensuring that a clear structure for
the class (objectives, assignments, deadlines) is expressed (Ferguson & DeFelice, 2010; Stein,
2004; Zemke, 1995), and encouraging competence, autonomy, and self-discovery within the
learner (Baskas, 2011b; Blanchard, Hinchey, & Bennett, 2011; Chen & Lien, 2011).
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Several research studies identify three characteristics of teaching that facilitate learning
for the student as the most essential. These characteristics are that for adults the learning needs
to be problem centered, or useful for everyday life, increased and rich interaction between
learner and learner, and increased and connected interaction between learner and teacher.
Focused on Real World Usage
According to Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (1998) adult learners are assumed to be
motivated, and they are more likely to “integrate new learning with various life roles in more
multidimensional ways” (Baskas, 2011b, p. 3) if that learning “can be used in real life” (p. 3, see
also Bye, Pushkar, & Conway, 2007). Adult learning focuses on “teachers as facilitators of
learning” (Blanchard, 2011, p. 4) to draw on the experiences of their students and nurture new
knowledge by encouraging self-efficacy, independence, and motivation in their learners
(Gunawardena et al., 2010; Ismail, Gunasegaran, & Idrus, 2010). By focusing learning on the
practical (Cabrera-Lozoya, Cerdan, Cano, Garcia-Sanchez, & Lujan, 2012) and motivating
learners to be autonomous (Bye, Pushkar, & Conway, 2007; Chen & Lien, 2011; Ferguson &
DeFelice, 2010) learner satisfaction increases, as does perceived learning, enabling the student to
“reason from their own experience” (Sharples, Taylor, & Vavoula, 2007, p. 223; see also Lorge,
1956; Zemke, 1995) which has “been shown to impact achievement” (Gunawardena et al., 2010,
p. 209).
Learner to Learner Collaboration
In the literature for adult online learning one major factor that appears in multiple studies
is the importance of collaboration between learners in the virtual classroom. Ferguson and
DeFelice (2010) found that interactions between learners were significantly more related to
learner satisfaction than was the amount of interaction between the learner and the instructor.
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Gunawardena et al. (2010) found that higher levels of student satisfaction results in more
participation and “greater learning gains” (p. 209) which is confirmed in Cabrera-Lozoya et al.
(2012) who found that “collaboration among learners has a significant impact on learning
outcome” (p. 618; see also Allen, Crosky, McAlpine, Hoffman, & Munroe, 2009; Chen & Lien,
2011; Hurtado & Guerrero, 2009). This means that teachers need to encourage participation and
interaction of learners in order for them to have an optimal learning experience (Watkins, 2005).
Teacher to Learner Interaction
In addition to the interaction between learner and learner, interaction between the learner
and the teacher is essential for successful learning. According to Martinez-Caro (2011)
“interaction is key to effective e-learning” (p. 578) who found that the “strongest predictor of
learning” (p. 578) is the amount of interaction between teacher and learner. In a study conducted
by Chyung and Vachon (2005), four of the seven most significant factors contributing to a
learner’s satisfaction were directly related to an instructor’s skills or their interaction with the
student, while Donovant (2009) identified that the lack of face-to-face interactions were the
single most significant contributor to learner dissatisfaction with online education. To maximize
the learning environment for the learner the teacher should validate “the student as an active
partner in a shared learning experience” (Bye et al., 2007, p. 155), while understanding “that the
degree of teacher involvement is a significant distinguishing quality of effectiveness” (MartinezCaro, 2011, p. 578).
Conclusion
There are many factors related to rich online learning experiences including (a) creation
of a safe environment, (b) generating high levels of interest, (c) transmitting meaningful content,
(d) encouraging reflection by the learner, (e) defining a clear structure, and (f) encouraging
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competence and self-discovery within the learner. The three characteristics most mentioned in
the literature for providing the highest satisfaction and learning outcomes are focusing of
learning on real-world problems, increasing collaboration between learner and learner, and
ensuring a good quality, attentive, and highly interactive relationship between learner and
teacher.
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