A. instructor-centered versus student-centered learning
The model of instructor-centered learning is to put teacher or instructor at the centered place of the learning environment. Students will focus on teacher’s material or lectures to learn the knowledge. Also, it kind of system would be limited for learning from many perspectives. Students would not be able to design the way of learning something new. Not all of the students will stay at the same pace with the instructor, so many of them will just cannot finish the process of learning at the same time. As a contract, student-centered learning is standing at the opposite side of the other concept. Students will be in the center of the place, everything will be personalized for the students in order to make students comfortable in the process of learning. Student – centered learning will be able to give the access to students to communicate with each other and students democratically choose the way they want to learn. Students will be responsible to design the learning environment for themselves.
B. asynchronous versus synchronous learning
Asynchronous and synchronous also represent two completely different methods of learning. Asynchronous means that students and instructors are not required to be a same place and a same time to meet each other. Instructors can just leave the material at somewhere so students could work on the learning process at their own pace. It is quite flexible for both students and instructors to work with. Synchronous represents the meaning of same pace. There is a fixed schedule for both groups to interact with each other. For example, I believe most courses at Uvic are synchronous, for making sure that every student has the same pace of learning. School will make a fixed schedule for every registered student with a instructor and a place with an accurate time. This requires all of us to be there in order to finish the process of learning. However, this kind of model does not have the flexibility as the other one does. Students are required to be at the same pace with the instructor until the end of the course.
C. your thoughts on connectivism
Connectivism means an online platform for everyone for exchanging information, sharing things and expressing thoughts. This platform will be able to shorten the distance for each other and make the process of learning easier. This concept gives us the opportunity to make the world smaller and to keep everyone stays connected with each other. Everyone could make the effort to the platform so we can have a better understanding of the knowledge. It is also a perfect source for someone who cannot reach out for some help in the real life. So everyone can share the valuable information for the right people.
Referecnce
Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Siemens, G.
(2005). International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance
Learning, 2(1). Retrieved from https://edtechuvic.ca/edci339/wpcontent/uploads/sites/5/2020/01/Connectivism-A-Learning-Theoryfor-the-Digital-Age.pdf
Crosslin, M. (2018). Basic Philosophies of Distributed and Open
Learning. https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/chapter/chapter2-basic-philosophies/