I never thought that I would experience this. Having completed 6 out of 7 PIDP courses online, I thought I would be able to breeze through this course. I am a Digital Native. Therefore, I thought I would be comfortable with whatever new bells and whistles that technologies have to offer. WRONG! One of the major challenges in online learning is the voluminous of information accessible to you. I spent countless days trying to figure out what is the best way to present the information for my second assignment. Paper submission was an option. However, I refused to kowtow to fear.
Compounded by the endless technologies available at my fingertips, I kept researching and researching. As the assignment didn’t have a specific deadline, I felt like I was in a dark hole and I couldn’t pull myself away from the never-ending research. I was frustrated with myself and the whole world as I knew I had fallen into the time-management trap. (Nielson, B, 2019)
I knew I had to pull myself out as it was affecting how I conducted my teaching in a classroom. I took the opportunity to share my challenge with my students in class last week. I wanted them to know that I fear learning new things just like them. Amazingly, it was my students that gave me different perspectives about life in general including how to cope with stress. By speaking out about my issue, I felt a ton lifted off my shoulders. I suddenly realize that millennials and baby-boomers can coexist in the same workspace. Each generation brings different perspectives on how to cope with different issues in life.
According to research, fear of failure and stress are the top nine reasons for eLearning drop-outs (Pappas, 2017). As an online educator, we will need to address this. Otherwise, it will have an impact on the student’s success in completing the course or taking another online course. And if students were frustrated or disappointed with the online learning experience, they are less likely to pass on a good word of mouth to their peers. According to the recent McKinsey Report, in comparison to other internet users, 41% Generation Zs are easily swayed by other people’s opinions. And 36% of them use customers’ reviews on social media when making purchase decisions (Francis, T.H., 2018). Therefore, it will be wise to learn why students drop out and what instructional strategies should be used to address this issue when designing an online course.
References
Francis, T.H. (2018, November). ‘True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies . Retrieved from McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packagedgoods/
Nielson, B. (2019, March 14). The 4 Biggest Fears About Online Learning and How to Overcome Them. Retrieved from Your Training Edge: https://www.yourtrainingedge.com/the-4-biggest-fears-about-online-learning-and-how-to-overcome-them/
Pappas, C. (2017, July). eFront. Retrieved from 9 Top Reasons For eLearning Course Drop-Outs And How To Prevent Them: https://www.efrontlearning.com/blog/2018/07/reasons-elearning-course-drop-outs-how-prevent.html
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