Sounds pretty cool but like a-lot-of-trouble. Why should I bother?
Well there are many great reasons to start incorporating learning objects into your repertoire of teaching tools. Commonly touted benefits include their reusability, their accessibility, and their cost-efficiency. </P
Because they are reusable, faculty members can share them for use in their classes, and students can share them with peers with common interests. Their accessibility saves time and effort because they are easy to locate and retrieve when needed so you get the right information at the right time. This lends itself to advanced customization of content, where you no longer have to take the entire text book when all you want is a single chapter.
The reusability and share-ability of learning objects makes them cost-effective, as you only have to pay once for their development no matter how often you use them. Because of their small chunk size, they more readily become cross-discipline beneficial. This means they are useful to more people and when they get used more often, you really get your money’s worth.
Benefits of a New Way of Learning
But there is an even better reason to use learning objects and its focused on the learning process or the ways that we learn. Traditionally higher education has been an instructor-centric learning environment, where the instructor controls all the conditions of learning (content, learning process, assessment). Recent pedagogical research suggests that uber-controlled teaching styles results in uber-dependent, unmotivated students. Instead the trend is to move towards a learner-centric learning environment, where instructors support students’ ownership of the learning process by facilitating and guiding students in their search for knowledge. In this way, instructors enable students to become partners in the learning process.
Learning objects figure into a learner-centric model of learning, as their modular quality lends itself to a customized learning experience, where they can be mixed and matched to meet individual learner needs and be utilized at a time and place that is convenient for the learner. Learning objects provide students with the opportunity to determine when and how they learn; they encourage student interaction, to engage with the material when it is convenient for them, making any environment potentially an instructional environment. That means learning extended beyond the classroom has never been easier or more effective than with the adoption of learning objects.
The convenience, customization and mobility of learning objects nudge students to move toward a learner-centric model of learning, which is beneficial to both learners and instructors. Because students process information differently, chances are teaching to only one style of learning will diminish student’s comfort level with the subject. Determining the different learning style of each student for a college professor isn’t very realistic. But even if it was possible, such a feat might not even be desirable as it still implies, although customized, a singular approach to instruction. Such an approach encourages a loss of mental dexterity in students, dissuading them to think in different kinds of ways.
A Beneficial Tool for Multiple Learning Styles
To be greatly effective, teachers must reach students on different levels and learning objects provide a simple solution for doing this. Learning objects are a beneficial tool for students of different learning styles, as they present material in ways to appeal to the verbal learner as much as the visual or auditory learner. They provide environments for learning tactilely, independently, and in a group dynamic. For example, students can view and listen to a simulation learning object, read the accompanying text, analyze the situation, and discuss it with their peers.
An interactive learning object on how to perform a specific medical procedure, allows students who learn visually to watch the animation repeatedly to gain greater comprehension. Students of other learning styles can customize their learning by spending more time with the elements that speak directly to them. Tactile learners might benefit more from hands-on interactive play with the animation, in conjunction with reading the accompanying text, while students of other learning styles might benefit more from discussing the material with classmates in a class forum.
The Cool Tool that’s No Trouble
As you can see, learning objects are a pretty cool tool you can use inside and outside the classroom. To sum up, learning objects truly benefit all learners. Whichever way your students learn, a learning object provides them with a tool that speaks to their learning style, that is convenient and that they can practice with repeatedly before actually performing in real life. This new tool gives students options so they can take charge of their learning by catering their lesson plans more effectively to their specific learning styles while, at the same time, exposing them to a variety of learning approaches. As a result of their use, learning objects increase the chances of content comprehension and retention, plus creative thinking.
So if learning objects do all that, then yes, they are worth the bother. But here’s the best part, they are no bother, or rather, they should give you no trouble to use because learning objects are designed to be self-explanatory, without the need to learn new software. With the standardization of learning objects, there is no learning curve on operating them and no software to download. They work independent of your campus’ LMS system, so they are easy to move around, from institution to institution or to an altogether new LMS system. There’s nothing holding you back, so get starting today by using a learning object in your class.
