Online Learning Consortium

Day Three @ OLC

November 7, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Friday, October 31, 2014

Blogging to Create Community

Using Blogs to Improve Student Engagement and Learning
Michelle Aebersold, Dana Tschannen, Christine Anderson from Michigan University

This duo did NOT have an LMS that had a robust discussion format/interaction and wanted to get students enrolled in the nursing program to have more dialog in discussing the nursing activities and patient rounds they were practicing. Their audience were older students 35 age and up. They compared and contrasted similar written activities between Ctools’ Discussions and Blogger Blog posts. Across the activities Blogger reigned supreme in all user happiness and interaction.

Their objectives were to create a sense of community = greater cognitive learning

Cognitive presence – construct meaning thru reflection

Social presence –ability of participants to feel connected

Teaching presence – design, facilitation and process to support learning
Posted activities to do inside the blog

i.e. how to help unmotivated students
find an innovative strategy

Students give advise and goes beyond just typical learning-the blogs created a relaxed atmosphere.

Data analysis

survey about the blog
- feedback

Post Analysis

Categorized the social, cognitive, teaching & multiple elements
Methodology approach based on Jimoyiannis research

Comparison on Discussion Posts

Learning Theories – describe a theory & respond to another student’s post and describe why you choose the same or different
Clinical Evaluation –
Critical Thinking –what critical thinking would you choose?

Social Network Analysis

Sense of community
Teaching the how-tos up front save time in the long run
Course content may impact the level of creativity
Visualization of student social networks can aid in strategically designing blog assignment to increase connectivity.

Blogs are private and instructor monitors the posts settings are so ONLY those with the URL will be able to see the blogs.

Because they are working with students, they are asked not to post the unit or patient [and private info]

Peer Review in Online Open Courses
Phu Vu & Martonia Gaskill, University of Nebraska Kearney

This session covered the results of implementing a Peer Review – grading scoring strategy where learners used a set of criteria to critique one another’s work with the purpose of improving skills. This Peer Review was done within a MOOC and the presentation was not very well communicated. However, these notes do offer some insights and confirmation on peer reviews.

Facts:

Students who involve themselves in peer review perform better that those graded only by instructors
Peer review is build on the notion of collaboration and shared understanding
Peer feedback seem s to be associated with improving student academic achievement
Students write more carefully when they know the audience includes their peers
ESL studies suggest peer feedback exceeds instructor feedback

Concerns:

Students are biased or not honest in giving feedback.
Students in F2F reviews express anxiety in sharing their writing for fear of being wrong in front of their peers
Students have difficultly giving negative feedback esp to friends and worry this exercise will damage their relationships
Uneven quality of feedback.

What is an Open Course?

Web based
Open enrollment and free courses w/o enrollment caps
Contains all the content for the course
Low or no instructor involvement after course begins-auto pilot

Peer Review in Open Online Learning Environments

MOOCs remain limited in ability to effectively evaluate and provide feedback in qualitative assessment [i.e. essays].
Peer review makes the task of teaching at scale manageable for instructors

In the test course: discussions, lectures, resources, videos, delivered in Moodle LMS

Research Study.

Compare peer feedback rating with instructor feedback
512 participants- all ESL teachings, not new to teaching
20 different countries

Methodology:

Data collection
- Assignments audio instructions,
- Visuals
- Content
- Video presentation
- Online assessments
- Online learning materials
Data scores went into an excel spreadsheet
Results indicated instructors scored the assignments significantly higher than the peers.
- Critique vs. criticizes i.e. simon vs. Jennifer
Has qualitative data- but didn’t analyze it-why would she mention this in her presentation?

Discussion

Instructors scoring were consistently and significantly higher than peer review
Participants peer professional teachers
40% completion –enrollment was low
- they didn’t try to find out ‘why’ the teachers dropped
- no cost for class

Limitations

Qualitative peer review needs to be completed
No extra data was collected mid-way- to determine why the completion rate was so high
- Instructor not visible in course
Low enrollment in open course when compared to recent enrollment numbers

Need:

MOOCs will not survive w/o feedback from instructors
There are too many students, and students can not make connections

Day Two @OLC

November 7, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Presentation Day: Thursday, October 30, 2014

Poster Outside Our Session

Collaborative Creation: Challenges & Logistics of Launching a Fully Online Graduate Writing Program:
After a quick breakfast, Leanna and I got to the Americas Seminar room around 8:15 a.m. to prepare our Keynote. Our presentation clicked into place thanks to the help of our fabulous Educational Technologist, Chris Gaudreau. I want to give a HUGE shout out to Chris for all his assistance creating our presentation. Embedded videos and audios seamlessly played without a glitch. During the final practice run we made a few minor tweaks to our script and deemed ourselves ready.

As participants came in, we each worked the room introducing ourselves and asking where our guests were from. By 9:25 a.m. we had nine dedicated souls –coming from Utah, Tennessee, Kentucky, Connecticut, Georgia and Washington and elsewhere, all were truly interested in learning what we were presenting. By that point it felt like we were sharing stories with good friends.

During the presentation, I watched the audience take notes and the 30 minutes flew by. Before we knew it, we were into the Q&A session and then packing up our show. We are hoping to repackage the show and present it to a gathering of our Program Directors at Bay Path.

One audience member met up with us in the hallway to chat. He was interested in becoming a MFA faculty member. Peter was able to snap some pictures and also shot a video of our presentation. I hope to upload that in the near future-so stay tuned. After texting the office our gratitude for the flawless Keynote and grabbing a quick lunch we were onto the next session.

Secrets to Teaching Online:
In the afternoon, I choose to support Bill Hettinger, another adjunct faculty member, with whom I have been supporting online and had never met face-to-face. Besides teaching for the MBA, BUS, NMP and CIM programs at Bay Path, Bill also runs his own consulting company called Effective E-Learning and he has written a book on his experience supporting and guiding online faculty.

What I learned from Bill is that we are doing many things right at Bay Path and that we need to continue to re-fresh our online courses to keep them up to par. Nothing we didn’t already know-all this just takes time. One tidbit I did pick up from Bill, which is a good reminder: online courses need to have some consistency. Bill was referring to courses across a program and/or institution. Bill’s nugget to remember is that just as with an Amazon [or any other online] experience, the user wants to arrive feeling welcomed, easily find their way around the course and enjoy the whole learning experience.

Competency-Based Learning [CBL]:
I moved onto a session called, Competency-Based Education and Lessons: Our First Year Swimming in the Deep End, presented by Natalie & Robert Lupton and Laura Portolese Dias from Central Washington University. Their colleague Laura Portolese joined the session via a Google Hangout [with BTW very good results].

They vacillated between explaining their experience implementing competency-based courses revolving primarily around a retail management program of studies with content provided by Cingage.

This team told it like it was and did not spare any details of the pain they went through. However, it did seam like they had plenty of support & budget to bring this to fruition.

When approaching this new learning delivery model there are many aspects to consider as many institutional systems are impacted with the implementation of this approach such as: financial aid, curricular, registration, etc. across campus. This is not something that can be done in a bubble.

Modalities are turned upside down, as Competency-Based Learning:

requires educating the faculty as CBL measures learning rather than time spent on the assessment.
becomes a challenging shift for traditional teachers and professors who think in terms of schedules & seat time.
introduces the concept of fluid movement utilizing technology similar to online programs.
utilizes technology in seamless fashion to meet course outcomes in delivery competency-based education.
appears seamless -yet meets outcomes.
implements one-on-one personal advising for both mentors and evaluators.
requires measurable competencies.

Challenges which Central Washington University encountered, implementing a competency based program in retail management and technology

Content -Central got their content from Cingage.
Faculty understanding
Program marketing
- they recommend to start marketing early
Small starts = time to make operational systems changes

Questions:

Accreditation agency
Impacts on financial aid
How and when grades are submitted?
No competency based transcripts- grades are created on transcripts, just as they always have been done
Measure success- how?
How to manage faculty load? No seat hours/seat time ‘other services’
How many students per advisor /mentor/evaluator 1 to 30
Copyright issues?

Developing an Effective Program for Training & Supporting the Needs of Online Adjunct Faculty:
Victoria Walker Purdue UniversityAssistant professor in the learning design & technology program

In this session Victoria spoke of the challenges we all face when creating training & support for our online faculty-in particular our adjunct faculty.

Issues:

Few instructors in the pool
- Locating instructors to teach additional sections
- Instructor interest/excitement in teaching assigned courses
Instructor performance
- Disappearance during course
- Responsiveness – discussions & grades
- Low interaction
- Grading and feedback timing
Instructor loss
- Family crisis
Instructor confusion
- General program policies
- Program & lead instructor expectations for teaching course
- Student issues
- Technology
Instructor Exhaustion – workload issues
Program Administrators
- High level of support for instructors
- Student complaints
Lead Instructors
- High level of support for instructors
- Student complaints
Instructors operating individually rather than as a team

Anticipated that the vast majority of the new growth will be for part-time-adjunct instructors.

Declines in funding and greater financial demands-adjuncts are inexpensive

Adjunct Instructors

Hold advanced degrees – teaching & practicing in their fields
Often develop some portion of their courses-or augment
Many adjunct faculty teaching for online programs have never
- Visited the institutions
- No health care or benefits
Locating Hiring adjunct instructors
- Important for online programs

Benefits in hiring adjuncts

Remains with the institution
Bring expertise
Low cost method to increase course sections

GAP

Lack of studies dealing with the support of adjuncts
Responsibility of the admin to provide ample professional support

History of Learning Design & Training [LDT] Program Adjunct Instructor Training & Support

30 minutes of PPT orientation
LMS & Tech support
Course content support – lead instructors
Pedagogical support- administrators and lead instructors
Program policy support – administrators and lead instructors
Student issues related support -administrators and lead instructors

Design – Based Research
Systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practiced through iterative analysis design development & implementation, base don collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings and learning to contextually sensitive design principles and theories. [Wang and Hannafin, 2005, pp. 6-7]

Researchers & practitioners working together over extended period
Provide solutions to a practical problem in a specific educational context
Intervention – process or activity designed as a possible solution

Design Research Model

Generic model for design research used to outline the training & support project phases
2 phases of analysis/exploration, design/construction and evaluation/reflection

Program & Instructor Needs Defined
Support and training were needed PRIOR to teaching [they had no formal training program]

Administrative support
Preparing to teach for LDT

Support and training would continue throughout the instructors teaching experience

Administrative support
Preparing to teach courses
Pedagogical and course content and course design support
Technical questions & student concerns
Monitoring

Intervention 360 training & support PRIOR to teaching

Program coordinator hires adjunct instructors
Curriculum coordinator to provide administration support for adjunct faculty
- Creating university account
- Contracts
- General questions
- Training sessions – scheduling, attending, and documenting attendance, recommendations.

They have an Instructional Designer who assists them in creating their online course.

Orientation training revised & significantly improved

4 weeks prior to teaching
- [retake once every 2 years or if the adjunct has not taught in 2 semesters]
Course housed in LMS [Blackboard]
Available after training concludes

Support personnel

Lead instructors
Curriculum coordinator
LDT administrators [program concerns]
Student services coordinator
ID – technical and pedagogical questions

Check in session

1 hour length
Technical, pedagogical questions, policy questions concerns
30 minutes questions/30 minutes learn new

each course as assigned lead instructor

lead instructor provides:

intro to course
course specific instructor – JOB Aid for that instructor
access to previous course
peer interaction during course
peer feedback during or after the course
crisis interventionist

Mentoring piece- new, new instructors

Paid position assistantship
Work with core faculty in two courses
Evaluated by core faculty and students
- Scheduled to assist again
- Scheduled to teach their own sections or
- Dismissed

Evaluation of LDT Training & Support

Informal feedback
Adjunct instructor training & support survey
- Distributed every 6 months

Data Collection

Evaluates training
Evaluates support received
Collaboration, scaffolding & mentoring

Future areas for improvement

Community of practice

Engaging adjunct instructors teaching online courses and provide w/community
Engaging discussion
Creating community
Recognize adjunct faculty
Benefits beyond pay

Day One @OLC 2014

October 31, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

The Online Learning Consortium 20^th Annual International Conference #ALN14 is being held at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando at the heart of Walt Disney World. Founded back in 1992 from funding by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation [formerly known as the Sloan Consortium], this year Sloan has undergone some rebranding as @OLC moves into new markets worldwide. This name change signifies where Sloan has been and where it is headed-online.

Leadership & Administration and Faculty & Student Engagement are the primary tracks this year with the all-encompassing Undefined track serving to contain the balance of the hundreds of sessions offered this year. One event coordinator told me there were 2200 attendees with more offerings than any previous year.

I arrived interested in hearing more about:

Mobile learning
Competency-based learning
How others have been tackling the issues of orientating faculty into online learning?
What others are doing to incorporate online community for their faculty?

Day 1 Wednesday, October 29, 2014 did not disappoint.

I started #ALN14 by listening to Jason Rhode of Northern Illinois University speak about Designing Competency-Based Self-Paced Online Workshops for Introducing Faculty to Online Teaching Technologies.

Granted Northern Illinois University [NIU] has a much larger ‘scale’ than Bay Path in their approach to orientating their faculty to online learning-however, they do many things we already do:

survey faculty for prior knowledge,
allow faculty to work in a sand-box [or Master] course,
create an individualized plan. We do this, albeit a little less formally than NIU,
and offer a self-paced learning environment.

A few takeaways I would like to see us implement in our online faculty orientation are:

Offer a slightly more formalized ‘learning contract’ for our online faculty. This might be a little more time consuming [however, I’m sure we could find some technology to track] and I believe it would legitimate the process. We could augment our orientation with a couple of ‘free’ perks as well, such as offering:
- a little more ‘pre-start’ guidance and objectives for the incoming faculty
- badges for completion
- an approach to the potential of an online certification. This might dove-tail into feeding faculty into the MHE program.
- a gateway leading faculty to our ‘newly developed’ online community.

I attended a session entitled, Building Online Academic Communities with the Commons in a Box, by Matthew K. Gold from City Tech and Grad Center of CUNY. I have been working with WordPress since 2009 and believe it is a great solution for containing an online community [as well as ePortfolios].

Commons in a box is great solution that would give us everything we need to create our own BPU academic online community- and it’s free. We like free.

This would give faculty, student groups, departments etc. virtual space to create:

profile pages
groups
committees
blogs
academic journals and other research
links to social media feeds
a showcase of examples

With the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing Program at the top of my mind, I can easily envision an MFA Cohort page for faculty and students alike, to congregate and share all sorts of information.

Of course, there would be challenges:

maintenance- who is responsible? How often?
interaction fatigue –would this be used by the community? Or, is it overload?
tracking and surveillance-for the community

Yet, the possibilities are:

Communities ARE our Resources- they create our stories
They become our human microphone

This session ended with an interesting quote, by Jim Groom,

‘It ain’t a community without love, feedback, and being there.’

The afternoon keynote speaker Dr. John Medina was one of my favorites of the day. Speaking to an audience of at least 800 people, once he started talking, John barely stopped to breathe. John’s premise revolves around the 12 brain rules. In his talk he spoke about a couple.

Survival: The brain is a survival organ. It is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet but we developed the strongest brains, the key to our survival.

Isn’t it interesting how learning often revolves around sitting still, in a classroom? How might we incorporate some of these brain survival rules into online learning? John went on to explain the impact of exercise.

Exercise: Exercise boosts brain power. The human brain evolved under conditions of almost constant motion. From this, one might predict that the optimal environment for processing information would include motion. Indeed, the best business meeting would have everyone walking at about 1.8 miles per hour. At work, we are in our own way, by incorporating our standing desks!

To get a little sense of John’s energy have a look at this quick video. I think John’s book[s] are a must for my library.

This was just Day One!
How did Leanna and Mary’s presentation on Collaborative Creation go?
Stay tuned for more details.

Online Learning at the Swan & Dolphin

October 29, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

After a long day of travel from the north, I was delighted to be able to step out onto my balcony at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel, in 80 degree weather, to view this sight. I immediately turned off my AC and kept the sliding door open to fresh air and sunshine.

The impeccable groomed grounds Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Disney

Getting a ‘lay of the land’ [which feel to be spread out over acres of flawless green grass and ground, shining pools and palm trees] is a bit of exercise. I’m glad I packed my pair of Converse. After an evening of outdoor relaxation the stroll back to my room I encountered this ‘avenue of the pink palms.

Avenue of the pink palms

Back at my room, I studied the session guide which kept me up well past my usual bedtime. It looks to be a very lively time here at the Online Learning Consortium International Conference 2014.

Evening image of Swan and Dolphin Hotel

OLA in FLA @ Disney World

October 28, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Online Learning Consortium 20th Annual Conference 2014

Online Learning Consortium International Conference 2014

I am preparing to head out to #ALN14 to present @OLCToday . If you wonder how creative you need to be to launch a fully online program? Catch us http://bit.ly/1yGnnig

Got my traveling shoes on…

Leanna James Blackwell and I will be presenting our ‘story’ of how we have creatively collaborated in the launch of the fully online Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing at Bay Path University.

I will be rehearsing on the flight down.

OLC Presentation Coming Soon!

September 24, 2014 by mwiseman@baypath.edu

At my desk

On October 30 @ 9:30am Leanna James Blackwell and I will be presenting a workshop entitled: Collaborative Creation: Challenges & Logistics of Launching a Fully Online Graduate Writing Program at the Online Learning Consortium [formerly SLOAN] 20th annual conference. This year’s conference is being held in Orlando, FL at Disney World and we are both looking forward to the conference and sharing the successes and challenges we have encountered over the past year.

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