Abstract:

Due to the pandemic experience e-learning has gained new research momentum. There has been a lot written about e-learning these past couple of years. Although e-learning cannot be seen as a new thing, in some instances it was considered and used as something new without any reference to the previous research or experience. Another thing seen in the practice and body of literature was the confusion of e-learning with the emergency remote teaching that most teachers and students were experiencing. This all brought the greater divide in perception on the benefits of e-learning but also towards e-learning in general.

So now we are facing the challenge of how to create competent teachers for successful e-learning and digital transformation of the educational environment. Being a Faculty and University that has a long tradition in using LMS and blended learning we have approached this problem through the graduate course Electronic educational environment. We started from the position that hands-on experience influences future orientation and preparedness for a digital environment, especially for the future content creators and course designers. Teachers usually design courses from their own standpoint utilizing activities and resources they think might be of use to the students. The student feedback sometimes shows a completely different picture.

The goal was to identify the types of learning activities students consider the most important and useful for learning, based on their previous experience (at least three years of finished undergraduate studies with over 70 online courses in total). Prior to their course design they were offered theoretical background on e-learning and instructional design as well as different frameworks and models available. In planning and creating activities they were guided to use the Conversational Framework (Laurillard 2012) and six types of learning activities that they could use for their course. In our paper we are analyzing their courses according to the following criteria: topic and length of the course; course difficulty; objects used; balance of the learning design. Course design is a foundation of a successful course but sometimes the teacher's and student's preferences are not aligned. Gathering insight into students' preferences and their viewpoints on e-learning design could bring us one step closer to the development of engaging and effective courses that support learning.

Keywords:

e-learning, student centered learning, learning design, course design, student perspective.