Reaction to Anderson's Article (2003)

"Getting the mix right" is definitely necessary in distance education. As educators, we have to first place primary emphasis on interaction between student-content, student-teacher, and student-student interaction. Anderson (2003) clearly laid down the key components of learning, one of which is "the value of another person's perspective". I have also found this to be an important facet in distance learning. Comments, suggestions or encouragement from the educator or from students can and may determine the students ability to perform in the content area whereas there can be an opposite effect if the comments are negative and/or discouraging.Informal or formal interaction in the educational contexts are both beneficial and encouraged, whether it be student-teacher, student-student, and student-content). Media that supports the various modes of interaction definitely benefits LLs, especially during informal interaction when the teacher is not available as noted, "attention to the creation of a personal voice in the content, and attention to ways to create “guided didactic interaction” in the text materials, can create high levels of student-content interaction" (Anderson, 2003, p. 12) For example, I have a student (I am currently doing some ESL work at a local elementary) who is a 2nd grader. She is a struggling reader and has minimal comprehension. Therefore I have decided to have her interact with media that will assist her in increasing her reading skills such as Starfalls (www.starfalls.com) so she can interact with modularities within her own pace (asynchronous). As displayed through Anderson's polls, "there is a wide range of need and preference for different combinations of paced and un-paced, synchronous and asynchronous activity, and also a strong desire for variety and exposure to different modes and modularities of educational provision and activity" (p. 7).

I am skeptical about Anderson's equivalency theorem, "Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three forms of interaction is at a high level. The other two may be offered at minimum levels, or even eliminated, without degrading the educational experience..."(p.7). I'm not sure if he supports this claim or has just deduced this from his experience, however I am unconvinced that eliminating or deducting one mode of interaction can be beneficial for student achievement. Students, in my opinion, need all three modes of interaction to get satisfying results especially for the learning experiences in LLs. Language Learners need to interact with both their peers and content as well as teacher towards high achievement. I agree with Slavin (1995) that, "...enhancing student-student interaction in the classroom through case or problem based learning activities, have long been shown to increase not only student achievement, but also student completion and enjoyment rates "(Anderson 2003, p. 12). Another point brought by Anderson's article (2003), is the high level of learning with minimum student-teacher interaction in independent study students. In my opinion, ELLs may not be able to achieve the "high level of learning" without student-teacher interaction because the content material may not be comprehensible. Web based courses, I agree have "... the capacity of the Web to support enhanced levels of content interaction, and for autonomous agents to be created to assist both teachers and students in the educational process" (Anderson, 2003, p 16). Of course learning assistants are available for LLs through the Web, and this allows students to clarify content information, in some cases 24 hrs. However, there is a limit to assistance since the assistant may not be available and/or they don't know the material or how to convey it to the learner. Again, I believe there is a definite need for LLs to balance between, student-teacher, student-student and student-content, for higher achievement. Since distance education is more focused on student-student and student-content interaction there may be difficulty in the long run in regards to high achievement of success especially for language learners.