A learning object and pedagogical strategies for facilitating deep learning online

An ongoing challenge for any pre-service teacher education program has been to develop within students a metacognitive approach to learning. Early research by Biggs (Biggs & Telfer, 1987) found that the longer students attended University, the more likely they were to adopt both surface motives and strategies for learning. Teacher educators must then find a way to move students towards a deep/achieving approach to learning and adopt strategies to achieve that end. Both the content and the structure of the course must be considered. For this paper, the researchers sought to use an online, problem-based learning environment to foster such an outcome, and not only change approaches and strategies to learning but also to produce a qualitatively and quantitatively deeper pattern of responses in students' written work when compared with that produced in a traditional learning environment. A virtual school learning object played a pivotal role in this process.