Welcome, onliners, to our blog. Please check this blog frequently to add your two cents or learn from others. This is probably easier than posting emails to everyone. Hope you enjoy it.
Charlie asked a question about how we would assess progress. What are some good ideas for doing so?
We've also had questions about marketing and keeping students. What has been your experience working with those issues? Let the discussion begin and thrive! Leecy
5 comments:
What do we know that could help us engage adult learners in online activities? We know that..
1. most of our learners have failed traditional systems or had the systems fail them. They don't trust "education" and they don't much like it. That is not to say they don't like to learn. Humans are learning machines.
2. most of our learners don't trust their self-initiative except to survive. They have skills at the bottom of Bloom's Taxonomy and meet their needs at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: http://www.lifeworktransitions.com/exercises/part1/mazlow.html
3. most of our learners have limited experience with and little access to computers at home.
4. most of our learners have not been forced to follow through on goals.
5. most of our learners want instant gratification.
If this is true, most of our learners are not good candidates for online learning, which requires initiative, technical skills, computer access, higher order thinking, commitment to a goal. In addition, online learning does not gratify students with instant pats on the back, movie tickets, and pizza upon success.
We also know that adult learners become engaged when the material relates to their experiences and successes. They want to learn how to use computers, but they are more comfortable with gaming and other attractions, which we cannot offer through out programs. The come with hope that we will fill the gaps in their education, but they have little concept of the time and effort they will have to commit to helping us help them get there. How can we best select people for online learning, knowing what we know? If online learning were a job and we had students as applicants for it, what would we require?
I'll start a list of strategies, many of which we have developed together. Please add your comments so that we can begin to put together some promising practices for our 4CO project.
1. Screening is basic. Without proper screening for success, we will get more drops than surf. What screening strategies do we want to promote?
Do you have daily or weekly access to a computer with fast Internet connection?
Are you willing to sign a contract (and pay a refundable fee) promising to spend at least 3 hours a week working with the materials?
What do you need from us to help you succeed?
2. Enrollment is commitment. What do we want as part of our enrollment process? (Do you have an enrollment form specifically for this project? If so, Would you let us see it?)
We will provide you an orientation and expect you to come to the center for twelve hours before we give you access to the online materials.
We will add you to our list of techies and post your progress for others to see.
We may ask you to provide orientation to other students on occasion.
We will develop a few timelines together so that you know what is expected of you on a weekly basis.
We expect you to call immediately if you find that you cannot meet those timelines or if you need help of any kind.
Place checkmark next to each item on this sheet, showing that you have read and understand the terms of your enrollment and know the materials you will be covering. Sign the bottom of the sheet.
If you find the material too difficult, call us immediately. I, or someone, will be glad to meet with you throughout the project to tutor you along the way. (Remember that you are reimbursed for your time with students away from the center, too.)
3. Support is essential. How can we support learners in the project and encourage them to succeed?
Weekly phone calls or meetings.
Share progress and help fill gaps where needed.
Refer to community resources.
Provide incentives. (Any ideas?)
List them as techies in the program.
Give them freebies, like games or CD's with fun content. Show them how to navigate the Web and find games to play. Have them join chat groups. Away from the center, of course.)
Have computer or other magazines lying around and let them take them home.
Post success stories.
4. Marketing provides selection. The more people who respond, the better we can select. However, create realistic ads. Possibility? -- Think about ads for the army or the Peace Corps. We need real learners who are determined to get an education. We want a few winners who won't give up on themselves. You don't need to know how to use the computer, just how to commit to yourself. We'll do our part; you do yours!
5. Success must be evident. Learning is change. Learning is invisible. We only know it's happening by the changes it produces. What changes do we want to see? How do you want to measure your success? How do you want students to measure theirs?
When I read Mark's e-mail this morning, it occurred to me that it might be worth our while to develop a poster we can all use so that potential students are seeing the same thing at the Mini Merc in Bayfield about online GED that they see at the library in Cortez (or wherever . . .)--in other words, kind of saturate the market with a "brand" image that catches the eye with space to write in local contact information.
Leecy makes a good point that students don't have a realistic idea of how much time getting a GED takes; all of our students want to know how quickly they can finish, and they don't like the true "it depends" answer. Yesterday I looked at our Ignacio/Bayfield students enrolled online and discovered that the 2 students who have spent more than an hour working on the online program have also both passed some GED sections since their online enrollment. That's anecdotal, but mentionable to students who think they want to try this. Also, the student who had done the online practice test scored higher on her paper-and-pencil tests and solidly passed that section of the GED last week, so we are building our own data bank, even though our numbers aren't statistically signifcant yet.
I just read Leecy's e-mail about retention. Personally, I haven't used the e-mail or chat tool with online GED students and am eager to hear from others who have. We might think about setting up study-buddy peers online; I'm not sure what that would look like, but will think about it. How much time are students from other 4C programs spending working on GED online? Have we had any GED online students complete GED yet after being enrolled in the online program?
Just testing the waters to see how this blogging thing works.
Welcome Charlie and Txcgl! I appreciated Charlie's comments on our list. I agree that it's worth trying to define our population more closely for this project. I hope others join us here. Otherwise, we'll go back to the email think. The nice thing about a blog is access to all comments and the ability to copy and paste. Notice that you can also collaps different comment to make the list shorter.
Thanks! Leecy
Txcgl asked "How much time are students from other 4C programs spending working on GED online? Have we had any GED online students complete GED yet after being enrolled in the online program?" When we met with Barbara from AZ, she said it varied considerably, just as we are finding.
We had a report on a student passing the GED after enrolling in our project, but I don't know if the success was linked to the project. Maybe someone can tell us.
Thanks for your feedback and comments! L
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