eCoaching Tip 60 Personalizing Learning Content so Students Grow with the Course Experiences

Sept 18, 2008; Checked April 10 2020 eCoaching Tip 60: Personalizing Learning Content so Students Grow with the Course Experiences Is your course meaningful to your students or do they just feel as if they are swimming through a pool of content? When the course ends, will they wipe themselves off and toss their content towel aside, scattering the bits and pieces of your course about them and emerge with no perceptible content growth or new skills? In designing courses most of us struggle with what seems to be an either-or choice; between (1) “covering” the content or (2) engaging the learners in problem-solving and simulations. On the one hand, we can “cover” the content with students developing an “awareness”’ of issues.  On the other hand, we can design for…
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eCoaching Tip 58 Reaching the Heights of Learning — Authentic Problem-Solving

April 09, 2008; checked April 9 2020 eCoaching Tip 58: Reaching the Heights of Learning — Authentic Problem-Solving This tip focuses on activities you can use to create effective problem-solving experiences in your online course. The general rule of thumb for problem learning is to incorporate problems that are as “authentic as possible.”  What is meant by authentic? One definition is that authentic learning “uses real-world problems and projects that allow students to explore and discuss these problems in ways that are relevant to them.” (Carlson, 2001) This tip suggests practical steps towards incorporating authentic problem-solving into your courses.  The references provide some starting points for examining the role of simulations and games that you may want to pursue in looking towards the future. You may also want to gather…
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