Online Education is a form of distance education where the students and teachers interact over the virtual medium. The pedagogical approach of online learning is mostly associated with the designing of course curriculums that are disseminated based on the application of internet-enabled medium like a computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. The application of internet-enabled mediums for the delivery of online courses helps in catering to a large number of students spread across geographical borders. Online Learning usually has a self-study approach where the students residing afar from their instructors can carry out their studies all by themselves without little or no interference from the teaching communities.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) has rightly emerged as a new concept in the ambit of online studies. The MOOCs are largely available for both blended and the completely online programs. The newer approach tends to excite the interest of both the educators and student communities. The online learning approach associated with MOOC essentially centers on the VARK learning style. VARK stands for the acronym of the four different elements like Visual, Aural, Read/Write and finally Kinaesthetic that are essentially synchronized and entwined with each other for the production of the different online learning programs. The VARK Methodology used for designing of the online education programs are enlisted as follows:
Visual Elements
Visual Elements are associated with the various pictures, tables and graphs that are incorporated for enhancing the quality of the online programs and for promoting a better understanding, of the discussions carried out, to the students.
Aural Elements
Aural elements are associated with the different types of interactive videos shared along with the programs for enticing interest of the learners in understanding the subject. The application of multimedia elements like videos also contributes to enhancing the quality of the learning resources disseminated online.
Reading and Writing Elements
The Reading and Writing elements are associated with the different written texts that produced online for helping in promoting the self-learning of the students and in generating elaborate discussions of concepts, theories and diverse applications. The reading and writing elements also involve the application of caselets and case studies that helps students in understanding the experiential nature of the theoretical discussions. Likewise, an Open Assessment and Evaluation module incorporated at the end of the program evaluates the holistic understanding and knowledge of the students in accomplishing the study of the online programs.
Kinaesthetic Elements
The Kinaesthetic Elements incorporated in designing the online studies enhance the level of interaction between the program and the students especially in cases of asynchronous learning styles. Different types of kinaesthetic elements like brainteasers, spot call and polling techniques are incorporated for engaging the students in generating answers; which in turn helps in understanding their knowledge gainthrough given answers and scores.
To this end, the courses offered by Globsyn Business School Online, the online arm of the country’s foremost Corporate B-School, Globsyn Business School, to its global fraternity of students are essentially developed based on the application of the VARK Approach. The visual elements of the different online programs, disseminated through GBS Online Portal, are based on the application of hand-made flowcharts, figures, tables and graphs for enhancing the understanding of the students. The incorporation of different pre-recorded session videosby esteemed faculties responsible for professing the different programs rightly meet the aural approach.The reading and writing elements are based on the generation of PDF documents which can be easily accessed by the students and downloaded on a wish for carrying out subsequent readings. Along with the generation of session handouts based on summary sheets or key takeaways, reading and video materials or links for the different sessions are also rendered in PDF. Further, the reading and writing elements also encompass the incorporation of multiple-choice questions in key assignments and a final assessment. An Open Assessment and Evaluation module is designed at the end for encouraging the students to assess and evaluate the self-understanding of the subject under discussion. Finally, the application of brainteasers is used along with the different sessions for meeting the objectives of the kinaesthetic element.
The application of the different VARK Elements potentially contributes to meeting the self-learning objective of the online studies. It thus contributes to promoting greater interactivity of the learners that also fosters a flexible and innovative learning approach.