DET portfolio - Khushbu Sheth

Topic: A Study of the Effectiveness of the effectiveness of Accelerated Learning (AL) approach in an online environment on B.Ed. students

Author: Khushbu Sheth

Year: 2008-2009

Abstract:

Today, technology has made it easier for Instructional Designers to make complete and creative use of online teaching and learning, by offering innovative and interesting learning strategies. A new strategy that has achieved success and has proved to be beneficial in the field of education is ‘Accelerated Learning’.
Accelerated learning is the most advanced teaching and learning method in use today. It is a style of learning in which one learns and retains information in an intensive and shortened amount of time using various methods which allow one to read, retain, and recollect information quickly and efficiently.

Objectives of the research were:

To plan session based on accelerated learning strategy for teaching in an online environment
To study the effect of the stages of accelerated learning in an online environment on the performance of the B.Ed students
To study the opinion of the participants about accelerated learning as an online strategy

The Dependent Variable was Student Achievement and the Independent Variable was Accelerated Learning

The target population comprised of B.Ed students from H. J. College of Education, Khar. The sample selected was a heterogeneous group as students had varied backgrounds and were of different age groups. The sample size was drawn from the sample population. For the study, 20 students were selected. Purposive sampling method was chosen to select the college as well as to select the students who showed interest and which had internet access. Whereas, random sampling method by choosing alternate students from the given list.

Tools for Data Collection were Achievement Test and Opinionnaire. Two parallel tests i.e. Pre-test and Post-test, were administered and data from those tests were collected.

An opinionnaire was create to record the opinion of the samples as a participant in the learning process and as a participant of the research tool – Ning. This provided two perspectives to the researcher.

The study suggests that depending on the subject taught, the situation and time in hand, and by providing supplementary learning material accelerated learning approach can be incorporated successfully in an online asynchronous environment.