Jane Vella's Twelve Principles Designed Thesis

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Vella suggests listening to Madame Butterfly for example, in a class on opera, and asking students to look at the opera in several different ways, after multiple listening (Vella 12). Hands-on experiential assignments like listening to an opera and charting different reactions to the technique are an example of how the principle of "praxis" can be integrated into an online environment (Vella 14). Although students may not be able to meet as much with one another as in a classroom, teachers can still assign experiential assignments to students and students can share their findings online. Moreover, through the use of chat rooms and frequent emails, the praxis of creating an active community can still be reinforced (Vella 15). Perhaps "praxis" is the most important part of Vella's schema, even if the praxis is not realized in a conventional classroom setting.

Vella's ideal of respecting adult decision-makers is especially important for adult instructors of all venues to remember. Instilling a sense of control over the learning process through choice is not only respectful, but often essential for a distance learning teacher who may be dealing with a large class full of students with multiple obligations. Giving students flexibility in terms of selecting assignments and allowing students to choose aspects of the curriculum to emphasize in their assessments to maximize the value accorded by the class to the individual student is an important technique to consider. So is learning through the "mind, emotions, and muscles" -- even if the muscular power is not realized within the classroom, assigning students activities such as a field work observation of a religious ritual for an anthropology class, on the student's own time, are examples of ways of introducing learning methods that deal with all of the senses and all of the human capacity for learning in a way that will make the experience more meaningful for a distance learning student (Vella 16). Teachers can also prompt assignments that draw upon student's emotions and affective capacity as well as intellectual learning -- for students with more life experiences, these may be the most gratifying of all, as they will allow the student to build upon past experiences in a way that makes the decision to go back to class at this juncture of the student's life seem even more valuable.

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Relating the material to the student's life and needs might most obviously be realized in technical classes, designed to reinforce computer skills, for example. But even in less obviously practical composition classes, allowing students to discuss their lives, and stressing the practicality of information in lecture material are also ways to make learning immediate and vital to adult learners (Vella 20). By asking adult learners "how do you learn most effectively" in helping them tailor the classroom online to suit their needs, teachers are not only teaching the material, but teaching yet another practical skill -- they are teaching adult learners how to become better learners.

The need for clear roles and demarcation between adult learner and adult teacher is important, given that similarity in ages and the informal nature of some of the apparatus of online education such as email may run the risks of collapsing such roles (Vella 20). Teamwork between students, however, can be encouraged, even if the teamwork takes place over email than through more conventional means (Vella 21). Accountability combined with a sense of student excitement and engagement with the material are the cornerstones, ultimately, of all educational opportunities, and creating a true 'classroom' and playground of the mind, regardless of the….....

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