Introduction
Last year, my organization's leadership asked me to develop an easy memory aid that they could all use to help sell the idea that our organization's learning design was superior to our competitors. As a result, we developed what we call the R4 Learning Retention Model, which focuses on; a) relevance, b) rigor, c) reinforcement and d) reflection. This is our organization's model for designing learning content and ensuring the transfer of the learning objectives and retention of the material over time. I have referenced this throughout the discussion posts for this class when considering effective online teaching strategies in adult education and have realized that the R4 Learning Retention Model offers both a structurally sound basis for face-to-face development as well as online education.
Relevance
Wlodkowski and Ginsberg describe Relevance in adult learning as a characteristic of learning that promotes curiosity which gives the learner the impetus to "search existing neural networks to find a place for the information" (p. 92). Thus, relevance leads to associations and deeper, more resilient learning. My organization provides a virtual reality course where we place the learner in a virtual refinery environment. We hope to have them associate this training with other work they might have done in a refinery setting and inspire them to remember this training later when they are surrounded by the setting in the future. Scenarios, discussions, and problems posed both in an online learning environment, and face-to-face can help inspire this association as well. Another way to ensure that the content is relevant to the learner is to allow the learner to establish goals relevant to his work, his life, and his learning. This ensures that the learner, although constrained by the limits of the course, has the freedom to shape the training to their own needs and make it more relevant to them.
Rigor
Challenging the learner leads to greater engagement from the learner. To put this in a simple analogy, a well-educated adult learner would hardly be challenged if they sat down to take a course on the alphabet; their mind would wander, they might complete the training, but not with the eagerness a young learner might, because the adult learner is not challenged. Understanding and ensuring that learners are learning information within their zone of proximal development (ZPD) ensures that the learner is challenged. "Students should be encountering problems, and concepts beyond that which they already know, which is their actual development level (Boettcher & Conrad, 2016. P. 36). Ensuring that courses push learners to learn helps establish engagement both in a face-to-face environment and an online environment.
Reinforcement
Hintzman and Block (1971) show two benefits of spaced practice, both memory strength and the formation of multiple traces. Both of these processes of reinforcement provide greater recall and retention for the learner. Having reinforcement exercises broken into smaller modules spread out over time ensures that learners are not provided too much information too fast in a massed learning environment. Additionally, the instructor creates greater engagement by providing multiple touchpoints instead of just one long training course. Boettcher and Conrad (2016) discuss many options that effectively spread out information and make it easier for learners to assimilate and engage in a community, but also provide evidence that the instructor being more a facilitator, can encourage learning and engagement in an online environment. As Boettcher and Conrad (2016) state, "rather than preparing fifty-minute lectures, instructors prepare short concept introductions and challenge, concept-focus discussion, monitor discussions" (p. 8) to become a facilitator or guide in an online environment. These reinforcement techniques offer multiple opportunities for the instructor to interact in small ways in an online environment and create the engagement and presence that would have been created via physical interaction in a face-to-face environment while making the course more manageable for the learner.
Reflection
Based on my learning journal notes and discussion entries for this class, there is more focus on reflection than any other aspects of the R4 Learning Retention Model. According to Merriam and Bierma (2014), "reflecting on and in our experience (our "practice"), is where learning occurs" (p. 123). I wrote in my journal that reflection is more substantial than reinforcement if only because the learner is creating the reinforcement exercise himself, internally, rather than be asked by an outside entity. Reflection is internally inspired and created by the learner and is usually accompanied by an association with previous learning.
Community of Inquiry
All of these aspects of my organization's R4 Learning Retention Model provide presence to the online learning course. Presence and engagement can be attained in a face-to-face course by the actual physical presence of the instructor in the classroom, however, this can be lost for the learner when there is an online delivery system. By providing rigor, relevance, reinforcement, and reflection, the online learner finds a greater sense of presence via cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence, leading to a community of inquiry. According to Orcutt and Dringus (2017), the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model establishes a framework by which presence can help facilitate online interaction and learning transfer. The "CoI defines the existence of teaching presence through the interaction that occurs between students and instructor" (Orcutt & Dringus, 2017, p. 18).
HASC's virtual online live training has traditionally focused on a synchronous environment that provides training that lasts at the longest, just three days. Finding ways to immediately provide a CoI and engagement for the learner as quickly as possible is critical to the success of our online efforts. The R4 Learning Retention Model has characteristics that have worked well in face-to-face learning can be the key to effective online learning as well.
References
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R.-M. (2016). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hintzman, D. L., & Block, R. A. (1971). Repetition and memory: Evidence for a multiple-trace hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 88(3), 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030907
Merriam, S. B., & Bierema, L. L. (2014). Adult learning: Linking theory and practice (1st ed.). Nashville, TN: John Wiley & Sons.
Orcutt, J. M., & Dringus, L. P. (2017). Beyond being there: Practices that establish presence, engage students, and influence intellectual curiosity in a structured online learning environment. Online Learning, 21(3), 15–35.
Wlodkowski, R. J., & Ginsberg, M. B. (2017). Enhancing adult motivation to learn: A comprehensive guide for teaching all adults (4th ed.). London, England: Jossey-Bass.
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