1Quality In Online Learning()Application Notes: The collaborative group project is the ideal means by which to blend both social and private modes of learning. Assign your students roles within the group that make the results of their private learning essential to the success of the group. Here are three discipline-specific examples of how such roles could be defined within a project group: In an engineering management course, assign a feasibility study of salt solution solar ponds and define the following roles: chemical engineer, economist, and industrial engineer. In an art history course, ask each group to assemble a collection for a different national museum and assign the roles of historian, curator, and financial officer. In an occupational therapy class, ask groups to investigate the use of computerized prostheses (mobility enhancements) and assign the roles of therapist, psychologist, engineer, and social economist.#8: Inexorable epistemological presumptions misdirect higher order learning.Prior learning is an important pre-requisite to continued learning. It is also the foundation into which the student anchors the scaffold of new knowledge. However, prior learning often also holds incorrect assumptions about the epistemological context of that prior knowledge. There are numerous anecdotes and research findings that describe students who can, for example, calculate the gravitational attraction between two bodies with great proficiency, but who cannot explain why ocean tides might be related to the moon. In addition, students need to understand the value of collecting and interpreting it without bias, as a means to counteract these inaccurate predispositions. As long as new learning is focused primarily on Blooms three lower taxa (recall, cognition, procedural), it is less likely the student will be confronted with the irreconcilable conflicts between her own fundamental presumptions and this new knowledge. Students have been shown capable of mastering entire college degree programs of cognitive knowledge, while still harboring misconceptions of the fundamental precepts from which that knowledge derives. Practice: In order for a student to truly master the higher order thinking skills in Blooms three higher taxa (analytical, synthesis, evaluation) it is important for the course design to first help the student discover any intractable conflicts between this new knowledge and their own apriori epistemological presumptions. But first, it is necessary to convey in a clear and compelling manner to each student, the nature and real prospect that each of us may harbor at least one such fundamental misconception. 2The course design should provide for a non-threatening exploration of typical misconceptions, and how, from a learners viewpoint, such ideas could have first developed and how they could have gone so long undetected. Additional study could show how collection of data from tangible observations, could have been interpreted to dispel the misconceptions. Encourage the student to complete a careful self assessment that attempts to discover any of his own misconceptions in fundamental reasoning that lurks among prior learning. Again, the web-based class environment is an ideal venue for the presentation of self-assessments and curiosity-evoking questions in a non-threatening manner.Application Notes: Provide a survey of common misconceptions held by students prior learning in the form of a “fun facts“ item on the site. You could, for instance, post tantalizing questions or riddles on an announcement page and link the students to information that answers or explains the riddle or perplexity. An extra-credit site feature is very simple to incorporate into an online class because students can complete or not complete the work as motivated. You might have students contribute critical analyses of logical or scientific concepts, by both defending and criticizing the view or assertion you post. Ask students to pose real-world observations that could be used to substantiate or defend their own respective viewpoints on the views or assertions you post. Then follow up in some manner by posting a public reply, answer, or summary of student comments. Placing time limits (such as one week per riddle posting) on such activities is an effective manner to focus student attention and leveraging the “teachable moment.“ As a component of group work, ask the group to identify the fundamental precepts of knowledge for the topic at the beginning of the project assignment. Then ask the group to debate how those precepts may be correct, incorrect, or in need of further development, before observable phenomena are reconcilable. Chat transcripts or discussion board archives are an excellent means of documenting this type of group work.#9: Learning is spiral.The learning brain naturally assimilates concepts in a spiraling, progressive manner. Research on brain learning