Related Foreign Studies

The Challenges of Online Learning Supporting and Engaging the Isolated

Learner

According to Jenna, GS. (2017) Higher education providers are becoming more
conscious of the diversity of their present and prospective students, and they are
taking steps to offer a variety of choices for their participation. Students now have a
greater variety of options for completing their school because of the more flexible
delivery modalities accessible to them. In other words, internal information is
transformed into a format that is considered acceptable for transmission to a third
party. The one-size-fits-all approach, on the other hand, poses a major issue for
external students who feel or experience isolation. When compared to their internal
counterparts, these students often encounter a variety of obstacles that prevent them
from participating fully in their online classes. In contrast to students enrolled in these
same class face-to-face or via mixed enrollment modalities, online learners offer a
different kind of learner who should be taken into consideration while developing and
implementing learning activities online.

Participation obstacles are especially noticeable in groupwork activities, which is not

surprising. On top of their normal academic responsibilities, many academic staff
members face new difficulties in the online world, which requires them to
demonstrate ever greater levels of technical competence and expertise. "Teaching
with technology" is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, according to Orlando & Attard
(2015), who says that "teaching with technology is not a one-size-fits-all approach
since it relies on the kinds of technology in use at the moment as well as the curricular
material being taught." Thus, integrating technology into teaching methodology and
creating learning experiences introduces new variables to take into account. The
prevalent belief is that technological integration, learning enhancement, and student
engagement are all intimately connected. The creation of individually tailored
differentiated instruction for each learner within and across each cohort, on the other
hand, can result in increased workload pressures on those wishing to engage with the
online environment, as teaching staff attempt to respond, often reactively, to the
individual learning and engagements needs of each group.

Students and faculty are brought together to jointly solve problems encountered in the
online arena in the same way that they may collaborate to overcome technology
challenges in their prospective work settings in the future. Because of the reflections
throughout this article, it is possible to reduce the impression of the difference
between internal and external student cohorts while also increasing the possibility for
optimizing student learning regardless of discipline, method of enrollment, or kind of
assignment. Even with varying degrees of facilitator technical confidence and skill,
there are still a lot of possibilities to reduce student participation obstacles to a
minimum. In conclusion, by concentrating on social relationships and community
building in the online environment rather than a preoccupation with the technological
complexities of the online environment, the importance of continued critically
reflective academic practice to ensure the best learning outcomes possible for all
student cohorts is also emphasized. This will allow some of the student concerns and
problems connected with external delivery modalities to be addressed and resolved
while also benefiting the students via the use of pedagogical techniques available in
the online environment.

Jenna, GS. (2017). The Challenges of Online Learning Supporting and Engaging the
Isolated Learner. Retrieved From:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1127718.pdf