relevance | eMaestra Blog

Please share in the comments area the most important skill that has helped you succeed.

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Part 1: Today’s Student and Learning Preferences

Part 2: Today’s Employers and What They Need

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PART 2

In Part 1, a snapshot was provided of today’s student and their learning preferences. In this post, the focus will be what skills students need based on information provided by today’s employers. After these two parts, I’ll be writing about what language educators can do to foster learning environments that will help students succeed beyond graduation.

This post’s research was started in September 2013 and is ongoing as of April 2014. Resources were pulled mainly from internet sources using the social media tools Twitter and Yammer. The research was initiated due to a desire to

communicate the value and relevancy of a liberal arts education
build in activities in distance education courses that apply the skills students need in their personal, academic and professional lives

Continue reading Today’s Employers (Part 2 of 2) →

If you are a student, please share in the comments area the most important educational activity that helped you learn the most.

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Part 1: Today’s Student and Learning Preferences

Part 2: Today’s Employers and What They Need

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PART 1

Update: 04/12/14 – I realize that my use of “digital native” will cause a stir with some (many?), and may involve “Bingos!” to resound for those playing buzzword bingo, but let’s face it, most of the world is more connected to devices and the internet than ever before. Each individual has different access & uses the internet & devices in a variety of ways, which as educators, we need to realize. The more technology-intensive a course, the increased need to build in appropriate orientation exercises and links to available resources and services. The internet, personal computers, and mobile devices have changed how we interact with information and people, and have affected how we learn, live and work. On the subject of how we learn, I’m currently reading Make It Stick: The Science Behind Successful Learning (Brown et al. 2014), thanks to Mary Bart’s @facultyfocus tweet on April 10, 2014 . My next blog post (Today’s Employers) digs a little deeper into the skills we, as educators and employers, want students to carry away with them after our courses and graduation. But even getting more at the core of how we learn best is crucial as we continue to explore best design practices to offer high-quality distance education courses, something that greatly interests me on many levels. Specifically, what to include in pre-course readiness quizzes and activities for students.

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PART 1

How can educators better reach students and still teach them what they need? To answer this, let’s take a closer look at today’s students and how they prefer to learn, with a special focus on technology. In part two (next blog post), the focus will be what skills students need based on information provided by today’s employers.

Today’s Student.

Today’s students are…

digital natives that prefer …
- anytime, anywhere learning opportunities
- personalized instruction
- doing real and relevant work
  - where they…
    - can participate in social and collaborative activities
    - have a choice
    - can explore
    - are able to work with interactive technologies

(Helsper, 2010; Lombardi, 2007; New Media Consortium, 2011; Brown, 1999; Barnes et al. 2007; Stansbury, 2011).

Continue reading Today’s Student (Part 1 of 2) →