Abstract

ABSTRACT The present theoretical paper aims to develop a grounded model for designing instructional activities appropriate to e-learning and online learning environments. The suggested model is guided by learning principles of cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism learning principles to help online learners constructing meaningful experiences and moving from knowledge acquisition to knowledge creation process. The proposed model consists of five dynamic and grounded domains that assure the quality of designing and using e-learning activities:  Social Domain;  Technological Domain;  Epistemological Domain;  Psychological domain; and  Pedagogical Domain. Each of these domains needs four types of presences to reflect the design and the application process of e-learning activities. These four presences are:  cognitive presence,  human presence,  psychological presence and  mental presence. Applying the proposed model (STEPP) throughout all online and adaptive e-learning environments may improve the process of designing and developing e-learning activities to be used as mindtools for current and future learners. Keywords: e-Learning, online learning, instructional activities, instructional design, mental models, web-based activities, e-learning activities models. INTRODUCTION Educational practices through the ages have been shaped by the dominant forms of communication, and the transitions from one age to the next age have caused great anxiety among educators of the time 57 Digital age learning began with a poor initial pedagogical model of e-learning, based on a behaviorist and page-turning approach to learning. The reality is that digital learning is becoming integrated into portals and work flows, even though it is not necessarily labeled as e-learning. The lines are increasingly blurred between learning and working, and many aspects of learning that occur online are not being measured as such (Driscoll, 2008). Today's learners live in a global-knowledge-based age. They deserve educators whose practices embrace the best that technology can bring to learning (International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), 2002). The Internet and the Web are the driving force of the future of the educational delivery, in which learners are allowed to choose and change not only the location and people, but also the time and context that learning takes place. The instructional environments became non-linear and concurrent than ever before. Therefore, it is questionable whether new instructional activities will support the non-linear and concurrent features of Web-based instruction and learning to educate our students to be life-long learners and successful contributors to other students learning. Such holonomic view will make student not only responsible for his own learning but also other students' meaningful learning as well. Meaningful learning that can take place in virtual and e-learning environments is not reflected only in the preparedness of learning environments and state-of-the-art teaching strategies. It also reflects the extent of trust in the learning outcomes. Learners need to get convinced that learning in virtual and e-learning settings will be meaningful, and that they will acquire self-learning skills. For meaningful learning to take place in virtual and e-learning environments, there should be, as conceived by the researcher, well-developed comprehensive instructional activities models to guarantee that meaningful learning is actually taking place. Such models are expected to build bridges of trust in the outcome of virtual and e-learning. Virtual and e-learning are now facing challenges of the nature as challenges faced by Web-based learning. Such challenges are not related to weaknesses in software, apparatus or management of learning. Rather, they relate to the quality of learning activities from the learner's perspective (Downey, 2011). With face-to-face teaching the educator receives continuous feedback from the students. Several non-explicit messages tell him if the speed of presentation is correct, and send other information which make possible to evaluate in real time the level of understanding, and tune properly the delivery (Corso, Forno, Morrone, & Signorile, 2006). This is not possible for e-courses and Web-based learning activities. They are prepared without an audience -or audience at delivery is different from the audience at preparation. Therefore, they must be designed very carefully and effectively with specific methodology to coach and train learners' minds (Corso, Forno, Morrone, & Signorile, 2006). The holonomic concept is shifting Web-based and e-learning environments from ordinary one into an adaptive and effective learning environment. 58 According to the National Research Council (NRC), effective learning environments are consisted of four basic components:  knowledge-centered wherein the emphasis is on understanding rather than remembering;  learner-centered, wherein individual learners' personal and cultural backgrounds and learning styles are valued;  community-centered, wherein learning activities are collaborative and foster a community of practice that involves legitimate peripheral participation; and  assessment-centered, wherein formative assessment is used to make students' thinking visible to them and evaluation is performanceoriented (Rhodes, 2011). The author may add one more components to the previous ones. This component is that effective learning environment is activity-guided in which instructional activities is the capital of any e-course delivery. The researcher believes that currently available instructional activities models for elearning environments need to be evaluated and enhanced in order to assimilate the continuous change in adaptive and e-learning environments, and social communication channels that are recently increasing in number and spreading everywhere. In this regard, Heide & Henderson (2001) reported that there are a number of important reasons for adaptive models of instructional activities, and they are:  our students live in a world of technology;  new technologies can enrich and expand learning, increase the productivity of teachers and students, and enhance their lives beyond the classroom;  research continually provides us with new information on how we learn and how technology can be of assistance in the teaching/learning process;  there is an ever-widening diversity of student needs in every classroom and these students have different learning preferences, and  the workplace demands a new repertoire of skills and competencies. Based on his experience in e-learning, managing e-learning centers and teaching ecourses, the researcher noticed that instructional activities in virtual and e-learning environments continues to be based on traditional methods such as online chat, discussion forum and e-mail that do not enhance knowledge creation, especially when learners are exposed to situations requiring the application of what they have learnt. In such a context, the learner focuses on passing courses and not on self-promotion. Retention of learnt experiences is based on learners' ability to construct and organize meaningful cognitive structure, which helps them to self-generate new experiences in the future. 59 Even though e-learning management systems make available tools and programs that can be used in learning activities, they focus on the use of varied traditional methods through media. Traditional activities don't extend to cover the depth of learning and meaning making. Thus, this paper attempted to suggest a grounded model for designing e-learning instructional activities based on the non-linear and interactive features of the digital learning and instruction through the Web and the Internet. The premise of this grounded model was based on the belief that adaptive learning environments are important medium in teaching and learning process and need to be integrated into Web-based instruction more than ever before (Abdelaziz, 2012 A). Adaptive learning environments introduce another source of knowledge, skills and values. The introduction of an adaptive and interactive activities of learning means that instructors may spend less time presenting knowledge to groups of students and more time facilitating small groups work and guiding students to appropriate resources of curriculum. This shift will more likely involve a change in all instructional practices and delivery of Web-based education. This shift will also keep our learning with the Internet and the Web more holonomic than ever before. Nowadays, students are learning in a technology-rich environment that is collaborative and knowledge building. Thus, technology-rich environment requires a special type of holonomic and adaptive instructional activities. The main features and components that can be used to visualize, direct, and manage the process of elearning activities according to this new model are presented in thin paper. A STEPP is needed to move e-learning and instructional activities from stand-alone physical benchmarks to multitask mental benchmarks. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Improving The Quality of E-Learning Instructional Activities What shall we do when information is doubling every 73 days or less? One rational answer is to train students to learn how to learn and contribute to other students learning in an ever-changing society. In order to develop such training/learning activities, we need to adopt a student-centered activities and materials where students can become adept to new information in light of their own needs based on their academic and culture background (Gillani, 2003). According to Merrill (2008, p. 397), "many of current e-learning models could be characterized as e3 -learning (e sub-three learning): enervative, endless and empty".  Enervative means that learning is focusing in knowledge acquisition not in generating ideas and innovative solutions.  Endless means that learners are passive receiver of knowledge; they avoid interaction and engagement in meaning making situations.  Empty means that current learning e-learning models fail to apply new instructional strategies that promote active feedback and feed forward. Many of educational literatures and studies pointed out several characteristics to assure the quality of Web-based instructional activities. One of these studies is Merrill's study (2008). Merrill pointed out three characteristic of e-learning activities. 60 "E-learning activities according to Merrill's model should be: effective, efficient, and engaging (e 3 learning-e to the third power learning activities) (p. 398)." The National Research Council (NRC) has also reported that there are five ways that e-learning activities can be used to help meet the challenges of establishing effective learning environments: To assure the quality of designing and applying e-learning activities in online and Web-based learning environments, several factors should be considered. These factors are discussed below. These factors are also representing the main domains of the proposed model in current research, which could be called STEPP model. Where, S refers to the social and human domain, T refers to the technological domain, E refers to the epistemological domain, P1 refers to the psychological domain and P2 refers to pedagogical domain. The Social/Human Domain With the increasing demand of e-learning and Web-based and online teaching nowadays, the educators' roles are decreasing and the technology and pedagogy roles are increasing. To face this issue and guarantee the quality of e-courses delivery, we should develop effective instructional activities that substitute the absence of educators. According to social constructivism theory, there are different views in the surrounding world. It is rare to find two learners having the same experiences and perceptions as each constructs meaning in his/her own way. This explains differences in our views that we can share with others (Lefrancois, 1999). Is diversity in views reflected in e-learning activities? One of the main principles of learning according to social contructivism theory is that meaning can be shared with others. Thus, meaning construction can result from discussion with others. Because we share the world around us, we can also share meanings constructed through it. The learner is a human being who is affected by the changes made by others. Hence, meanings can be constructed through effective social/human interaction. 61 This interaction results in what is called "Communities of Inquiry and Practice". These communities enhance the concept of collective learning versus individual learning. Unfortunately, individual learning is still used in Web-based learning even though its value is lower than the value of collective learning (Conrad & Donaldson, 2011). In addition, Harris (1998) stated that interpersonal exchange is a helpful strategy to engage online learners from a distance. This strategy gives students an opportunity to interact with others from a distance. By doing so, they come to appreciate how differently people see and make sense of their world. They also have opportunities to reinforce literacy skills through extended reading and writing activities. Harris Online and Web-based teaching is great gates to develop a culture of learning that promote global mind and collective memory. Online educators should be guides and directors of online students' activity without forcing their will on students. Hence, online teaching should be collaborative process to increase the Zone of Proximal Growth among learners (Lefrancois, 1999). Social and human factor is the feel that online learners communicate with people instead of technological objects. When social presence is high, each online learner has the feeling of engaging in meaningful actions. Cobb (2009) agrees with this. He concluded that social presence is one concept that has been explored in relation to the quality of online learning experience. To sum it up, the author believes that online socialization and interpersonal exchanges can increase the probability of shifting online learning from being just a community of inquiry to a community of practice. Community of practice is a future theme for collective, collaborative and global mind which reflects the capabilities and skills of 21 st century learners. 62 The Psychological Domain Learning styles are yet another quality factor that should be considered while designing e-learning activities. For better activity design, online educators need to pay attention to this factor if they hope to engage every member of the group, from a solid and successful learning community, and achieve the objectives of the ecourse 64 It's a mistake to assume that every online learner receives and processes information the same. Online learners learn best when they approach knowledge in way they trust (Palloff & Pratt, 2003). The ability to transfer and generalize learning outcomes is depending mostly on the degree of trustworthiness that learner's mind gets from e-learning activities and materials. It could be concluded that psychological domain is one of the most important factor that should be considered while selecting or designing e-learning activities. Learner's psychological characteristics empower online learners to develop multiple pathways to learn and to build their own meaning of learning. 65 Content structure reflects the epistemological bases that each learner in both faceto-face and e-learning environments should know and be able to use throughout his personal or career life. Breaking e-content into small and sequenced chunks during designing e-learning activities helps to prevent cognitive overload during processing in working memory. To assure the quality of e-learning instructional activities, online activities should be organized and presented to reflect content structure and levels of knowledge.