#5: learning is unique to the individual.

the concept of "learning styles" acknowledges that each student has a signature style of most effective learning. pace varies, as does the degree of orderliness and the dominant intelligence a learner favors. gardner identified seven dimensions of intelligence that have informed the subsequent development of many taxonomies of learning styles.

effective learning happens when the student expends a minimum of time and effort to acquire a competence he can retain and demonstrate. and learning is effective when an activity designed to encourage learning compliments the student's dominant dimension of intelligence, preferred pace, and preferred degree of orderliness or method.

good instructional design lets a student shape the class he experiences to suit his profile of learning preferences. whether the resulting "class" is a lock-step treatment of set materials or a seemingly random tour through course content and activities, good design supports the individuality of the learner.

the very best instructional design, however, strikes a balance between accommodation and positive tension. superior design also pushes a student to extend himself by relying on (employing, experiencing?) other learning styles.

practice: the online classroom is a flexible environment that accommodates different learning styles. you can leverage the online modality by enabling a student to select the form of the content he consumes. this means providing the same content in textual, visual, and/or audio formats.

learning styles also express themselves behaviorally as the degree of "transactional distance" a student prefers. transactional distance is the extent to which you synchronize for all students 1) the pace and simultaneity and 2) the sequence of content coverage. little transactional distance means that everyone does the same thing at the same time; on the opposite end is the asynchronous class without prescribed sequence or collaborative components. the traditional class environment typically permits little transactional distance, and this often results in class pacing and sequencing that is unsuitable many learners. you can support variations in your students' behavioral learning styles by designing your course to be more project-based and your learning activities to be modular, rather than strictly dependent upon a given sequence.

the best teaching, as indicated above, results in intellectual "cross training" that pushes students to exercise non-preferred learning styles. a student whose characteristic dominant dimension of learning is mathematical/logical (as described by gardner), will benefit from relearning the same content from a different dimensional viewpoint, such as social/interpersonal. by using course site tools to assign roles in group work and to publish content in a variety of media forms, you can push students to flex their preferred learning styles.

application notes: an obvious way to help your students be efficient learners on the web is to help them understand, exploit, and/or compensate for their preferred learning styles. there are numerous form-driven learning style inventories available on the web (lee, mention the main one you named), and a learning activity in which students assess their own styles can help them to use your site more efficiently and to understand why you post the same content in a variety of forms. a self-assessment learning activity can be turned into an invaluable lesson in difference if the instructor tabulates or generates a scattergram of how all members of the class distribute themselves across the basic styles of learning (see figure below, based on kolb's learning style model). students are surprised to see such variation in the "obvious" way to go about learning something.

you can also sensitize your students to learning style variations by setting them up to discover their own styles through the solving of a problem. ask all the members of a class to answer a simple question, such as "does salt water boil faster?" or "does hot water freeze faster?" or even "why does adding salt to ice speed freezing in an ice cream churn?" once responses are submitted, administer a simple questionnaire to prompt students to examine their learning behavior. ask them questions about total time on task, the sequence they followed, the degree to which they pre-planned what they did, and whether they discussed the problem with friends, conducted a physical experiment, or consulted expert sources. their responses will lead naturally into a discussion of most aspects of learning styles.

the non-synchronicity of web-based learning helps you to accommodate your students' preferences for the pace and orderliness of learning. negotiating the nature of assignments or even summative assessments with students on an individual basis is more practical in an online class because your teacher-student relationship is more private. since "final exam time" is not a prescribed in-class event, for instance, you could offer a choice of mode by providing a quantitative and essay version of the same summative assessment.

once you generate a learning-style profile of the students in your class, you can design learning activities that push them to flex their dominant styles by assigning roles in group work. you could require a highly social/interpersonal learner to observe and record a team's work in the course, or a highly analytical person to help write a play-script to act out a role-playing exercise in business negotiations.

#6: learning is experiential.

humans learn action-oriented competencies by doing. the proof of having acquired such competencies is the ability to replicate them through performance. to master an action-oriented competency, such as playing golf or delivering a speech, it is not sufficient to explore the subject in the abstract. while describing, analyzing, discussing, critiquing, and reflecting upon delivering an effective speech is valuable, actually delivering a good speech, and receiving reinforcement feedback, is the most effective means of solidifying the synaptic linkages formed when one learns how to speak well in public.

"doing" helps to transfer new knowledge from short term memory to long term memory.

"doing" promotes and reinforces competence acquisition via two primary mechanisms: the act of doing serves as a formative assessment in that the doer encounters (sometimes quite forcefully) the "holes" in his understanding and is prompted to interpolate the missing sub-skill. secondly, the act of doing strengthens the tentative synaptic linkages formed during earlier stages of learning.

good instructional design does not substitute active, expressive, demonstrable, experiential learning with the passive intake of knowledge. it preserves some element of action and experience in the acquisition of action-oriented competencies.

practice: a great course web site has brilliant graphics, lots of informative documents and valuable external links. but truly deep understanding, and higher order learning depend more on what a student does on a course site than what she sees and reads. one active-learning instructional design approach involves a sequence of learning steps that can be related to john gagne's "conditions of learning." this sequence begins with an initial stage to motivate the student's curiosity to gain a new competency. it then progresses through several steps, including one intermediate phase involving a learn-by-doing activity. the course designer should have a collection of preferred action verbs on hand, and be sure to include a learning activity for every topic that causes the learner to demonstrate the new competency. this active learning can be configured as a formative assessment. that way, the learner not only learns by doing but also derives added benefit through feedback.

practice: the learning sequence does not need to consistently follow a cycle of "learn, then do." switch it around occasionally. dispatch the learners (possibly as teams) on loosely defined or open-ended discovery adventures. without first announcing which specific competency is targeted, assign an action oriented learning activity, or a sequence of actions, that compel the learner to discover a phenomenon that is inexplicable in the context of prior knowledge, then seek out new knowledge (or competency) that resolves the mystery in observed phenomena.

application notes: ("do while learning"). have students post their poems on the course site anonymously, then all students can exchange anonymous "reader reviews."

provide action-oriented assignments in the course, for students to get away from the course site. they might go to perform a task, research a topic, interview an expert, complete their own oil painting, or construct an operating model. ask the student to consider why a spinning gyroscope can lean without falling, or explain why mixing all colors on an oil palette seems to blend toward no color at all (white), why a spinning black and while top appears colorful to the human eye, why a circular rainbow surrounds an airplane's own shadow on a cloud, or interview persons in risk-intensive occupations to consider why they sometimes fear their own mortality less than their loved-ones do.

#7: learning is both social and private.

learning as a cooperative and collaborative endeavor is as valuable as intra-personal (private, solitary) learning. a student who is available mentally and emotionally for effective group learning one day may benefit more from a solitary learning experience the next.

gardiner's review of research concluded that "actively involving students in discussion fosters retention of information, application of knowledge to new situations, and development of higher-order thinking skills-discussions do this much better than lectures do." social learning at its best provides a student the external structure of the group, and the group can offer feedback and social interaction and enhance motivation, buy-in, and a feeling of responsibility in the group member. some learners almost require social interaction as a means of refining their thoughts through debate, dialogue, and sharing. for these benefits to accrue from group learning, it has to be genuinely social.

however, a common weakness in cooperative and collaborative assignments occurs when an instructor allows a student team to manage a project by breaking it into isolated, perhaps even independent, tasks. social learning unites group members in interactive, shared processes of ideation, creation, execution, and evaluation.

in contrast, learning as a private, intra-personal journey is occasionally the more effective learning choice. benefits derive from being free to manage a project or complete an assignment in a self-sufficient, un-critiqued, self-assessed, and independently planned and executed manner. the solitary learner may achieve great focus, feel less distracted and less encumbered by external strictures, and have more time for reflection.

good instructional design accommodates, or even cycles between both modes or moods in the learner. this is accomplished by incorporating a mix of social and private learning activities in the course design.

practice: online courses can promote more active-learning question and answer sessions and critical discussions that will enhance critical thinking and higher order reasoning. the online class setting greatly facilitates a students' ability to "check in" and to "check out" of class according to her needs. sophisticated collaborative projects are also far easier to assign and run via a course site. to give your students the benefits of both social and private learning, design learning activities that are genuinely collaborative (e.g., students jointly producing a product) and not merely cooperative (e.g., placing independent components of an assignment into a drop-box). and design learning activities to ensure that students have experienced both private and social modes in learning on a given topic.

exploit features of your site and the web as a whole to prompt private learning by requiring students to search out, sort, and evaluate information. exploit other features, such as the discussion board or presentation space to prompt social learning that is more collaborative (e.g., debate, compare, evaluate, merge, refine) than simply expressive (e.g., post, present, explain, comment, describe, perform, select).