Limitations of Online Courses for Supporting Constructive Learning

In this paper, we examine some of the limitations of online course delivery and management systems in terms of the range of pedagogies they support. Online courses are often criticized for their emphasis on reproductive learning. We argue that learning outcomes are limited by the lack of pedagogical affordances in the popular course delivery and management systems. Because popular online course delivery and management systems do not support the use of alternative forms of knowledge representation by learners, authentic forms of assessment, and the use of distributed tools to scaffold different forms of reasoning, the range of student learning outcomes is restricted to reproductive learning. Attempts to work around these limitations over-rely on student self-regulation, resulting in student frustrations and negative student perceptions of the learning experience.