Applying Deliberate Practice to Online Courses

 

Last week I wrote about the steps to Create Education that Sticks.  With a lot of education taking place online for a number of reasons, I wanted to suggest some ideas for creating learning experiences in online courses.

 

The biggest hurdle for creating meaningful experiences is well…creating experiences.  Showing a video is one way of creating an experience but does that experience lead to learning?  And how do you know that?

 

• In one of my previous jobs as the online Learning Management System administrator, I had an internal customer that had created videos that demonstrated how to use a software package that is needed to request purchases.  The videos showed each click that was needed to find a vendor, determine if the product had been purchased before, determine the quantity previously purchased and make another purchase.  Pretty dry stuff.  They asked how they could test that the people taking this course actually understood what they had just watched.

•  My suggestion was that they have the students actually, step through the process and determine if they can use the software.  For instance, the question they can ask in the test is:  What is the address of the vendor with Vendor Code A123?  They can give 4 possible vendor names as the multiple-choice answers, however, the students would have to actually use the software to determine what the vendor address is.  There were hundreds of vendors available to choose from, so they could copy each of the questions and just change the Vendor Code, a couple of the addresses, and you could have many questions for the Learning Management System to choose from.  This would reduce the chances that students could "guess" at the answer and not really learn how to use the system.  If they did make a bunch of guesses, the passing criteria could be set such that they had to repeat the test.  And the Learning Management System could be set up to not repeat the same questions so there could be no "process of elimination."  Once they did THAT a couple of times, they would find it easier to just learn the software (i.e. pay attention to the video) than just try to pass the test.

 

• How about for other courses like biology?  Students could be asked to find a leaf of a plant and determine the biological classification.  They could be asked to create the process they used for finding the classification.  Once all the students had presented what they found and their process, they can develop their own process and use that to determine the classification for other plants.  That way they can determine if their process is sound or needs some adjusting.  Creating their own process is a powerful way of getting them away from memorizing and more toward becoming independent, critical thinkers.

• I was a math teacher at a High School.  On my first day, the department head told me that my main focus was to prepare the students for college.  With that, I set out teaching an Algebra class.  Using examples of where algebra shows up in real-life (e.g. If an apple costs $1 and an orange costs $2, how much would 4 apples and 3 oranges cost?), I would help the class change the actual objects to variables, and then see how that would work to find answers.  Then, I would give them examples to try on their own.  One day, the department head came in and told me that a parent called complaining that I didn't collect and grade the homework.  My response was, "I thought you wanted me to prepare them for college?  In college, there won't be anyone collecting their homework and grading it."  I also told him that I was testing their ability to think on their own and by giving them new problems to solve that they had not seen before, I was testing their knowledge of the material versus their ability to memorize and regurgitate what they were told.  By the end of the year, my classes had scored an average of 20 points higher than other classes on a standard test that was used by all of the Algebra classes at the school. 

 
While the Algebra example is not from an online course, the concept of deliberate practice is what we as educators can provide to assist students in gaining knowledge.
 

• One last example.  I had a colleague that provided nurses with an annual electrocardiogram (ECG) test.  The test was to show that the nurses could recognize some 20 heart rhythms.  The colleague was very protective of the test saying that if the answers got out, the nurses could cheat.  I asked what the goal of the exam was?  I was told it was to verify the 20 rhythms.  So, if they print out all 20 rhythms and learn all 20 so they are ready for the test, doesn't that accomplish the goal?  I said to make it more effective, you can get 40 different rhythms that are possibilities for being on the test and let them cheat away!  That way they are showing that they can recognize 40 rhythms instead of just the 20. 

 

It is very important to identify what the goal of the education is and then learn how to determine if that level of knowledge is met.