Zuochen Zhang, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Windsor University, and Richard F. Kenny, Associate Professor at the Center for Distance Education, Athabasca University, joined us this week to discuss the perspectives of International students in online courses.
It is becoming common practice in higher education for online distance education programs to enroll international students, but what are the implications for online course designers and instructors when faced with learners from diverse backgrounds that may not be familiar with cultural references, discourse conventions or a constructivist pedagogical approach.  Tune in to find out more.
 
Discussion is based around Learning in an Online Distance Eductaion Course: Experiences of Three International Students

In a slight departure from our traditional format, we discuss several research papers that are being presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium being held in Bloomington, Indiana from July 20 - July 23. Jennifer Maddrell, presenting on the influence of Backchannel Communication on Cognitive Load, discusses her paper and several others in this 30 minute discussion. All papers presented at the symposium are freely available on the AECT website.

Available on the Web

Chat Transcipt:

Xiaojing Liu, Senior Research Analyst at Kelley Business School, Indiana University, joins us this week to discuss how to design effective online cased-based learning courses.  Drawing on her research into cased based-learning startegies used in an MBA program, Dr. Liu considers the benefits and challenges of case-based learning from both a student and faculty perspective. Some insightful commments in the chatroom as well.