Assessing Collaborative Efforts

According to Dr. Simonson (2009), in a collaborative learning community, students should have access to learn beyond the classroom; learning that would encourage transference of knowledge, building and promoting a sense of trust amongst students and instructors, the ability to learn new communication technology, the opportunity to work independently as well as within group discussions that will provide students with feedback to enable them to evaluate themselves and their educators. I agree with Dr Simonson, students will learn more than a face-to-face learning environment because in collaborative learning the community promotes an active role among students where students can feel valued for what they contribute. Furthermore, collaborative learning teaches students the sense of autonomy, initiative, and the ability to access new developmental skills to create an empowering learning community.

Consequently, the different levels of skill and knowledge a student brings to a course can truly affect the teaching environment because teachers are forced to face new challenges with cultural differences and must deliver new methods of teaching styles that will construct new assessment methods to meet the student’s individual strengths and needs; to transform their knowledge to be demonstrated as educators. Basically, this new approach will encourage students to have high self esteem, to reinforce social presence, and the promoting of interaction amongst learners within a learning community to have a sense of community. Finally, new teaching challenges will promote new practices for teachers to modify their assessments based on the student’s individual learning strengths in a collaborative learning environment.

According to Palloff (2007), the learning community is the vehicle in which learning actually occurs. However, it's the development of a sense of community that builds mutual trust amongst learners, promotes a sense of belonging, and a sense of membership to participate within a group to share and exchange knowledge in their educational journey. When a student does not want to participate in the learning community, that student may feel discouraged and members of the community must express their concern and encourage the student to rejoin the community. Although the teacher is responsible for managing and maintaining the learning community, the success of the course depends on every student to participate and teachers must find ways to encourage students to fulfill their learning agreement. Furthermore, teachers must adjust their assessment plans to include a clearly defined purpose of the course, promoting transformative learning, assessment of student assignments, meeting the learner’s need, consideration of a student’s level of experience, educational and technological online learning, developing creativity and innovativeness, and ideas in a collaborative community; this would lead to a positive community outcome.

Reference:
Anderson, T. (Ed.) (2008). The Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom. San Francisco

Simonson, M. "Principles of Distance Education Video: Distance Education: The Next Generation." Walden University, 2009. Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved October 14, 2009

Element of Distance Education Diffusion

In his Video, Dr Simonson (2009) emphasizes that Distance education provides equivalent learning experiences to those learners in Face-to-Face instruction but at most he expresses the positive impact of collaborative learning and the importance of educators to create a mix of individual and community based environment.

Consequently to George Siemens (2009) testimony from his video, point out that Institutions of higher education will gradually adopt distance education technologies and there is a significant growth in online communication practices that provides access to online courses, more than 80% of instruction is delivered at a distance.

Based on the testimonies of George Siemens(2009) and Dr Simonson(2009) I do agree with both of their views regarding to the growing acceptance of the three elements; (a) Global diversity; (b) Communication; and (c) Collaborative interaction
However, I do embrace collaborative learning because it allows teaching to go beyond classroom learning, creates social construction of knowledge, promotes initiative as well as creativity, critical thinking skills, but most establish high level trust within the learning community.

Basically, collaborative learning is an umbrella for online learning and without the
proper online programs and tools can result in a very frustrating experience for
learners. There are lots of online tools that are available today to assist you with distance learning. The following are some websites that I would like to share with you:

http://oedb.org/library/features/80-oer-tools
http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/e-learning-reloaded:-top-50-web-2.0-tools-for-info-junkies,-researchers-&-students
http://www.business.com/directory/management/knowledge_management/collaboration/groupware_software/




Reference:
Anderson, T. (Ed.) (2008). The theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.
Simonson, M. "Principles of Distance Education Video: Distance Education: The Next Generation." Walden University, 2009. Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved October 1, 2009



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