Strategizing for E-Learning Success with Learning Management Systems
E-learning courses distributed via learning management systems help to solve many problems that schools have faced in recent months, including fewer course offerings, lack of funding, and lack of AP courses.
However, along with the benefits of e-learning systems come a few downsides, such as the increased likelihood of plagiarism and other kinds of falsity in student work.
People in the e-learning community truly believe that online learning can be effective and offer unique solutions to educational objectives, but there are still some glitches in many common e-learning practices. Unfortunately, many e-learning systems that are popular today are characterized by errors and a general lack of planning. And the students are the ones who suffer. It’s often difficult to know: when a student performs well on an online assessment, does that mean that he or she understands the material?
Studies indicate that around 70% of American high school seniors admit to cheating at least once in their high school career, and 95% of those students say they were never caught in the act. In other words, most people cheat at some point.
The goal of educators, online course developers, and training instructors is to offer effective learning content that ensures that students are both engaged in the learning content and held responsible for inadequate participation. But how can we go about achieving this?
A powerful learning management system will include the best features for ensuring that learners are giving their best effort and creative work. Part of these are tools that prevent cheating and monitor student activities within a course.
Utilizing Web 2.0 tools such as discussion forums for student assignment is an increasingly popular practice–especially at the university level. But it’s certainly not enough simply to set up such a system and hope students will take it and go with it. Without a strong system for using Web 2.0 and a strategy for avoiding cheating and repetition, such phenomena are inevitable.
To ensure that students are engaged with the material, the best strategy is to create interesting learning content in the first place. E-learning tools like videos, simulations, and podcasts are often simple and effective ways of obtaining and maintaining student interest.
However, even the best-designed and most interactive course must be balanced by a method of tracking and ensuring student understanding.
Taking advantage of learning management system tools such as automated tracking is an essential part of the training and teaching process, in order to ensure successful e-learning.
