Web-Based Teaching and Learning across Culture and Age

Identity and diversity permeate teaching and learning. Technology-mediated learning environment designs are infused with cultural values, norms, and assumptions. In addition, age-related diversity mediates interactions, learning, perceptions of instruction, self-regulation, and experience with technology. Individual instructors and/or instructional designers are both cultural insiders and cultural outsiders to diverse groups of online learners. Learning difficulties are likely to arise when underlying pedagogical values, norms, and epistemologies in an online learning setting are culturally inappropriate or ineffective for a learner group. Instructors and learners are usually unaware of how identity and diversity manifest in teaching and learning, and hence experiencing challenges in negotiating academic norms.

With limited empirical research available about online teaching and learning across culture and age, this book presents the findings of a two-year study in exploring an inclusive (i.e., multicultural and intergenerational) instructional design approach for online learning. The book provides readers an overall understanding of epistemological and pragmatic differences in how students from different cultures and generation groups learning online. Data-driven suggestions on the cultural analysis, design, and facilitation of an inclusive online learning environment are provided. Any professional in the area of online teaching and learning, researchers and educators alike, will benefit from the insights into cross-cultural and intergenerational teaching and learning provided.