HOW TO MAKE DISTANCE EDUCATION PROCESS EFFECTIVE?

 

    There should be some variables in distance education that would make the lessons successful. First of these variables is social presence. It is the feeling of togetherness and should be created by being percieved as a real person rather than sitting on a screen passively. To create the sense of togetherness some warm-up exercises can be done that would initiate students to interact. Preparing a quiz, ask students about their feelings, etc can be done as warm-up activities.

      The second type of variable is transactional presence. It is about sharing information which is created by the student. Creating and sharing the information with others will encourage and attract the students' attention to the lesson.

    The third variable is cognitive presence. It is constructing the knowledge by giving feedbacks to the student and motivate them for critical thinking. Thus, student will be able to follow the lesson, concentrate on it and participate actively.

    The last variable is teaching presence. This includes the teacher's designing and creating a content for the lesson, facilitating and directing cognitive and social processes by creating materials, responsing to the students and giving the information without doing cognitive load.

    When all of these four variables come together, new skills, new information and new perspective is gained, these make up educational experience. When some of these variables are missing in the education, the lesson will not help learning, it will become boring unfortunately. So as teachers or as  candidates of teachers, we should be aware of these variables to make our classes enjoyable and effective.

THE COGNITIVE THEORY OF MULTIMEDIA LEARNING

     At first, let's look at multimedia learning; it is building mental representations by integrating words and pictures. When it comes to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, it is developed by Richard E. Mayer. To Mayer, learning is deeper when the words and visuals are integrated, this is called multimedia principle. According to this principle; as graphics promote active learning, they should be explanative. When the graphics and the text are used simultaneously, it is easier for learners to make connections between them. The cognitive theory of multimedia learning is based on three assumptions. First one is "the dual channel assumption" stating that working memory has auditory and visual channels and use of both is crucial. The second assumption is "the limited capacity assumption". It says learners have limited capacity of memory; if the visual or audio information is loaded much, it will be tiring and the learning will not be effective. And the third assumption is "the active processing assumption". This assumption states that people should pay attention to the relevant material, organize it into a coherent mental structure and integrate it with their prior knowledge so that build knowledge in meaningful ways. You can examine the mind map below also, in that way you will integrate the visual and my words :)