I had a conversation with a fellow today who just entering the world of online teaching. He has a group of students in Kenya…mostly all Kenyan nationals…taking a course on the book of Mark. He told me his course is set up as many online courses are…weekly assignments, discussion prompts, lecture/notes from the instructor and weekly feedback. That all sounded good, but then he then told me two important details. One, most of his students are first time online learners and two, there is no accountability to the course. Students did not have to pay for the course, there is no credit associated with it, and therefore, they have little to no buy-in. He also said that the Kenyan culture is one of face to face community, which makes online learning even more difficult. In a recent blog post on bucky’s butterfly, bucky aka Ritchie, elaborates about the online learning audience, reminding instructors to pay particular attention to motivation and preparation. He tells online instructors that “One of the best affordances of online learning tools is your ability to readily differentiate the experience for students.” In the case of my online instructor friend and his Kenyan students, he failed to differentiate the experience by not integrating the cultural expectation of strong learning community connection. Further, the motivation factor was not addressed since the students had no sense of ownership toward the course. The “what’s in it for me“ question was not answered with satisfaction and the students were not motivated to participate in the course.
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