Teach Learn Share leads Dr Casey Cross and Dr Sarah Brearley explored further the characteristics of the e-Moji learner in their interactive session with HEA delegates at the Advance HE Teaching & Learning Conference 2018: Teaching in the spotlight: Learning from global communities (2nd & 3rd July 2018).
E-tutors need to be aware that the typologies of online learners are complex and not just focused around online behaviours (Salmon 2014) but are rather composed of multilayered positive and negative characteristics which shape the way in which a learner engages with the learning materials and their interaction with both fellow learners and tutors.
In a world where the emoji is king and used to express the immediate ‘gut’ response to anything appearing on screens the millennial learner can appear one dimensional; grazing superficially on competing information. But they are more complex than the behaviours they manifest. In our interactive session we explored with experts in teaching and learning the characteristics associated with different learner types.
Our research into learner types hypothesises the need to understand the typology of digitally integrated learners in the modern era in order to identify the characteristics associated with their learning approach. Only then can we design e-tivities which meet their learner type and encourage the characteristics which best enable the depth and engagement needed for learning.
What type of e-Moji learner are your students?