Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ What Does Engagement Mean?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This post looks at a chapter from An Urgency of Teachers, and specifically, a quote from a Sean Michael Morris chapter: "Today most students of online courses are more users than learners. The majority of online learning basically asks humans to behave like machines…" Veronica Douglas says, "learners are not a uniform body, nor is it possible to create a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching." I think that this is exactly what's at issue in a lot of the discussion around online learning. Consider the whole debate about whether learning styles are a myth: it revolves around the question, do we treat all students the same (ie., does the content determine how it is taught?) or do we in some way adapt to the individual (or allow the idividual to do the adapting themselves)? And all of this is the same writ small in the discussion of 'engagement': is the pushing of a button 'engagement'? Or is it different for each person?

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 23, 2024 2:51 p.m.

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