Moving from Theory to Real-World Experiences in an e-Learning Community

Many programs in higher education are focused more on the transmission and replication of knowledge than on providing opportunities for learning in real-world contexts and "[testing] in action what [students] have learned” (Kolb and Kolb 2005, 208). Similarly, many online courses deliver enormous amounts of information instead of offering pedagogies and processes that might allow for the development of transferable and professional skills (McLoughlin and Luca 2002). This pedagogical tendency to privilege information transmission over experience is a problem because employers expect colleges and universities to produce workers capable of leveraging information and communication technologies and instructional techniques to perform highly demanding tasks at work. Accordingly, classes need to offer experiential learning opportunities—activities that go beyond case analyses and technical training to provide real-world experiences.