Open and Distance Learning

Weekly Discussions

In our 4 week long discussions, we held a discussion on "Online Teaching and Learning" in the first week, on "Importance Of Presence In Online Education" in the second week, on "Online Learner Engagement" in the third week and on "Flipped Classrooms" in the fourth week. As we held discussions every week, we realized that the topics actually consist of interconnected topics. Each topic was like a continuation of the other.

            We talked about online teaching and learning in the first week. We talked about the benefits of online teaching and learning, and discussed the aspects that needs improvement. We talked about online teaching and learning tools. We gave examples of useful aspects such as being economical and practical. We talked about the beneficial aspects to students such as not having transportation and other expenses, and being easily accessible from every home. Since every house in rural regions does not have internet access, we talked about the state's support and responsibility. As a Tool, we talked about the tools we learned and used in technology lessons in the education we received in the 2nd grade. We talked about applications such as Hot potatoes, Pexton, Flipkart, Pinterest, Socrata, Blackboard, Moodle, Kahoot and talked about what they do. In addition, we mentioned that students who are younger are not likely to use technology well and that they will have difficulties in lessons. In addition, we talked about the differences between new and old generation teachers. We talked about the fact that the new generation teachers are adapting to technology, but the old generation teachers cannot keep up with developing technology and the state organizes education programs for this. Finally, we mentioned that we have now received our education online, and we ended the discussion by talking about our experiences we gained from the lessons we gave in our internship.

In the second week, we held a discussion on “Importance Of Presence In Online Education”. We talked about Telepresence, Social Presence, Engagement and Presence. If we talk about these briefly, it can be called interviews in digital environment as telepresence. Social presence can be called face-to-face interviews with physically being in the same place. Engagement can be defined as participation in a lesson or activity. Presence, on the other hand, can be defined as being in the environment where the lesson or activity is held and the relationship between the student and the teacher. In addition, Sena asked she could not understand if one of her students was engaging in the course and do i have any advice on this matter. I said that she can understand this only by student’s looks and answering questions, etc. We talked about the pandemic we are in right now, and we talked about the good and bad sides of it. We talked about the examples we gave in the 1st week as good sides. In terms of being economical and practical. We mentioned that the teacher has more opportunities as a material. We talked about the negative aspects, again, from the examples we gave in the 1st week, that not everyone has access to the internet. In addition, we discussed whether telepresence or social presence is more efficient. 2 of us also decided that social presence is more effective. Because in telepresence, the teacher does not have the chance to fully observe the student. He or she cannot tell if the student has fully participating in the lesson. Adult students do not experience this problem much, but i experienced this problem in younger students in my internship. After that, we ended our discussion.

In the third week, we talked about "Online Learner Engagement" and its interaction types. If we go into details briefly. We talked about Learner - instructor, Learner - learner, Learner - Content. In Learner - Instructor, training is done between student and teacher. Learner - learner takes place between 2 students in. Both students are trying to learn the subject by teaching each other. In Learner - Content, a text or material is given to the student. The student learns on his or her own by making use of this text or material. Apart from that, we talked about Behavioral Engagement and Cognitive Engagement. If we explain them briefly. In Behavioral Engagement, the student or learner participates in the lesson with motor activity and mechanically. So, in a way, they attend the class on a superficial basis. In Cognitive Engagement, students go deeper in detail. They attend the lesson even more effectively. In addition, we talked about an assignment that Sena gave to her students. We talked a little bit about this assignment. Finally, we had to end the lecture because we had a few technical problems at Zoom due to the internet.

We had the longest discussion this week. This week we talked about "Flipped Classrooms". In addition, we took a look at Bloom's Taxonomy. We talked about what Flipped Classroom is. If we explain briefly, we can explain as the student's learning at home, reinforcing it with the teacher by practicing at school, and finally extending the learning at home. It’s basically flipping the teaching progress. If we talk about Bloom's Taxonomy. Bloom's taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used to classify educational learning goals according to their level of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover learning goals in the cognitive, affective and sensory domains. Then we talked about the positive and negative aspects of Flipped Classroom and we talked about whether this method is successful or not is related to the learning style of the student. We said it was faster than other lecture formats for its positive side. We said that because the student does the learning process on his or her own, it causes the student to do research and gain more information than necessary. On the negative aspects, we said that this method will not work for every student. And we gave this example from me. I have ADHD. I can get distracted easily and understand something best when taught first in theory and then in practice. Therefore, we mentioned that there is no teacher to ask questions while the student is learning and also there is no teacher to correct the student’s mistakes can cause problems. And with that, we ended our discussion.

If we are to sum up, i mentioned above the debates we held for 4 weeks and the parts that i think are important in general. However, we must adapt to the ever-evolving world as a teacher. We should not limit ourselves only to the education we receive at school, and we should be in a constant state of development. Due to the pandemic we are in now, almost all of the world has switched to online education, as an instructor, we must be prepared for such unexpected situations and always be open to development.

References

Chapelle, C. A., & Sauro, S. (2019). The handbook of technology and second language teaching and learning. John Wiley & Sons.

Hiver, P., Al-Hoorie, A. H., & Mercer, S. (2020). Student engagement in the language classroom. Multilingual Matters.

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. (2010). Creating a sense of presence in online teaching: How to "Be there" for distance learners. John Wiley & Sons.

A systematic review of research on flipped language classrooms: Theoretical foundations, learning activities, tools, research topics and findings. (2020, November 13). Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2020.1839502

(n.d.). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLOUlbAgs0