Education Commons^™

Free Asynchronous Professional Development By, From, And For Instructional Designers: How Informal Learning Opportunities Shape Our Professional Learning And Design Practices, Pauline S. Muljana, Kristen Austion, Kayla Jutzi, Lora B. Pezzell, Malgorzata (Gosia) Pytel

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Instructional designers (IDs) need to maintain an understanding of the current trends and issues within the field. Pursuing professional learning informally supports IDs’ effort to keep up with current trends and issues because it is not restricted by curriculum and time. Professional development (PD) offered by Professional Development for Instructional Designers (PD4IDs) learning group can address issues related to geographical and funding limitations. This application paper presents the coordination of PD based on the conceptual framework (e.g., Community of Practice and Social Network Knowledge Construction) and reflections of several PD4IDs members with various roles. The reflections indicate the benefits of …

Instructional Strategies To Prepare Students For Success In Informal Learning Environments: Leveraging Metacognition And Critical Thinking To Develop Self-Regulated Learning Skills, Carolyn P. Commiso

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

This paper looks at how learning is evolving in the 21st century and what skills learners need to be successful in that environment. Based on existing research into the topic, this paper focuses on how learning is increasingly taking place in informal settings, through the lens of the Social Cognitive Learning and Cognitive Constructivism theories. The hypothesis is that students can be successful in these settings by mastering self-regulated learning strategies which can be developed through critical thinking and meta-cognitive skills. It assesses what instructional strategies can be used to develop these skills and enable continued learner success. In addition, …

An Evaluation Of Educational Values Of Youtube Videos For Academic Writing, Gbolahan Olasina

The African Journal of Information Systems

The aim is to assess the impact of YouTube videos about academic writing and its skills on the writing performance of students. Theoretical perspectives from constructivism and associated learning models are used to inform the purpose of the research. The contextual setting is matriculation students awaiting admission to higher institutions. The population is 40 students belonging to a class aimed at assisting disadvantaged students in their academic writing in Scottsville, Province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The students are broken into two groups – control/traditional teaching and the treatment/YouTube facilitated groups. Consequently, a dominant qualitative approach is adopted using focus group …

Personal Learning Environments For Business Organizations, Denise Wunderlich

Wayne State University Dissertations

This exploratory, mixed-methods case study investigated supervisor/manager-level employees in a hospital health care organization to examine how they created and used personal learning environments (PLEs), what internet/Web 2.0 technologies were used to solve work-related problems (or for professional development), and what strategies were engaged to meet learning goals. Research questions addressed: what internet/Web 2.0 technologies were used to find and retrieve information, build networks, collaborate, and create and share knowledge; what triggered employees to use internet/Web 2.0 technologies to solve work-related problems; how they evaluated information found; how they determined completion of learning goals; how much confidence they had in …

Constructing Meanings By Designing Worlds Digital Games As Participatory Platforms For Interest-Driven Learning And Creativity, Vittorio Marone

Doctoral Dissertations

This study emerges from the observation of an increasing divide between generations: a lack of a shared ground that carries profound social, cultural, and educational implications. In particular, the broadening differences between academic and “grassroots” approaches to learning and creativity are transforming formal and informal enterprises into seemingly incommunicable realms. This clash between different (and distant) practices, inside and outside of school, is inhibiting the construction of a common language between teachers and students, and, more broadly, between generations, thus hindering the development of any educational discourse.

In this study I inquired into an online participatory space in order to …

Improvization And Strategic Risk Taking In Informal Learning With Digital Media Literacy, Renee Hobbs

Renee Hobbs

The city provides a rich array of learning opportunities for young children. However, in many urban schools, often it can be logistically difficult to get young children out of the building. But when elementary children are encouraged to view the city as a classroom and use digital media to explore and represent their neighborhoods, they can be inspired by the unpredictable events of daily life to ask naive, critical and sometimes troubling questions. This paper presents a case study of a teacher in an informal media literacy learning environment who worked with a group of 9-year-olds in Philadelphia. It documents …

From Oer To Plar: Credentialing For Open Education, Norman Friesen, Christine Wihak

Norman Friesen

Recent developments in OER and MOOCs (Open Educational Resources and Massive Open Online Courses) have raised questions as to how learners engaging with these courses and components might be assessed or credentialed. This descriptive and exploratory paper examines PLAR (Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition) as a possible answer to these questions. It highlights three possible connections between PLAR and open education which hold the greatest promise for credentialing open learning experiences: 1) PLAR may be used to assess and credential open educational activities through the use of exam banks such as CLEP (College Level Examination Program); 2) Learning occurring in …

Factors That Influence Informal Learning In The Workplace, Shelley A. Berg, Seung Youn Chyung

Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influence informal learning in the workplace and the types of informal learning activities people engage in at work. More specifically, the research examined (1) the relationship between informal learning engagement and the presence of learning organization characteristics, and (2) perceived factors that affect informal learning engagement.

Methodology – Workplace learning and performance improvement professionals were invited to respond to an anonymous online survey, and 125 professionals volunteered to participate in the study.

Findings – This study did not find a significant correlation between informal learning engagement and the …