Office Chat: Strategy Instruction

In this office chat, Dr. Norah Hooper describes two systems of visual organizers in use in her field of special education. Again, as I have mentioned before, the topics covered in these office chats have application to online instruction as well. If we listen with our minds open, Dr. Hooper is describing a deliberate and methodical approach to learning and teaching that may be leveraged as part of our teaching tool set.

The first system of graphic organizers which Hooper discusses are “Thinking Maps” as developed by David Hyerle and published in his 1995 book, Thinking Maps: Tools for Learning. She mentions that such meta-cognitive tools are helpful in working with students with learning difficulties. One thing that makes these maps work is that they are constructed by the learner rather than “hand-outs” from the teacher.

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Office Chat: Understanding by Design

We have a tremendously talented faculty here at the University of Mary Washington. Dr. Beverly Epps teaches in our College of Graduate and Professional Studies in the area of education. I sat down with Dr. Epps the other day so she could share her insights into “Understanding by Design.”

What strikes me in these conversations with our education faculty is how these principles, which are being taught to practicing or future school teachers, are just as applicable in teaching university students both in the traditional classroom or online.

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Office Chat: Differentiated Instruction

It is often beneficial to step back from our current processes and look at what we do through the lens of others – from a different perspective. Just as inventions developed for space exploration have been adapted for use in our daily lives we in distance learning can benefit by looking into the common practices of educators in other areas.

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Distance learning: It’s NOT about the technology!

The phrase “distance and blended learning” is sometimes used as a synonym for “online instruction” or classes delivered over the Internet. While it is true that the web is the predominant delivery medium, we must not let the medium be the message. Sure, as McLuhan postulated, the medium (the Internet in this context) has become pervasive in modern society.

The Internet has changed the way people think, the relationship between generations, and the availability of instruction. However, it is the learning that matters.

… it is the learning that matters.

As Ruth Colvin Clark and others have found, the interaction with modern technology presents challenges to student cognitive load that must be considered when designing effective online courses. David Jonassen and others have found that technology enables a different type of social constructivism than might be found in a face-to-face classroom.

But in the end, just as in the traditional classroom, it is the quality of the relationships among the professor, the content, and the student which affects learning. As in the on-ground class, the professor presence establishes the atmosphere in which the learner may interact with the content and other learners.

Video Short: Personality Types

This is a clip from a talk I gave in November ‘07 at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Tennessee. The topic is personality types and generational learning styles and has been addressed much more fully in other venues.

The intent of this short clip is to give an illustration using real people – myself, my daughter, and my granddaughters.  The clip refers to the Myers Briggs Personalty Type Indicator and to the  Oblingers’ information on Educating the Net Generation.

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Considerations for Assessing Online Courses

Part of my raison d’être here at the University of Mary Washington is to assist the institution in formulating a set of guidelines and policies for distance and blended learning which apply here at UMW. This process is just beginning and will take some time to have a first draft and will become a continuing practice thereafter. Until that time, individual faculty have approached me asking for me to review what they are currently doing online. The following are bullet points I use in talking with faculty about their online courses until formal policies are reviewed, adopted, and published. This points (references at end of post) are from the Maryland Quality Matters web site and from research done by Chickering and Gamson. Additional points are added which we found useful in my previous career at the Tennessee Board of Regents Online Degree Program.

Quality Matters*

1. Course Overview and Introduction
2. Learning Objectives
3. Assessment and Measurement
4. Resources and Materials
5. Learner Engagement
6. Course Technology
7. Learner Support
8. Accessibility

Chickering & Gamson’s Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education** (sub-bullets possible applications to online teaching and learning, all may not apply in a graduate level course)

• encourages contact between students and faculty,
  • communication protocols established including appropriate venue (email, threaded discussion, telephone, fax, blog, wiki, etc.)
  • quantitative & qualitative expectations established for student AND professor
  • importance of communication and impact on grading established
• develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
  • communication protocols established including appropriate venue (email, threaded discussions, blog, wiki, etc.)
  • incorporation of large or small group activities
  • quantitative & qualitative expectations established for student AND professor
  • importance of communication and impact on grading established
  • notice and expectation for professor participation and monitoring of student communication
• encourages active learning,
  • incorporation of student projects, presentations, demonstrations, or other authentic assessment activities
  • incorporation of peer review, critique, or other assessment activities
  • frequency and manner of student engagement with course content and impact on grading established
• gives prompt feedback,
  • professor indicates expectation to acknowledge student inquiries as recieved
  • professor indicates expectation to provide meaningful feedback to student inquires within 36-48 hours
  • professor indicates expected time lapse between student assessment activities and return of evaluative response from professor
  • professor indicates a commitment to provide the student with period performance reviews of overall course performance
• emphasizes time on task,
  • course content is clearly organized
  • professor presents a clear and reasonable timeline for course participation and successful completion of course activities
  • professor has used a calendaring system to publish course schedule
• communicates high expectations, and
  • syllabus is complete and consistent with departmental objectives and published student catalog
  • course objectives (learning outcomes) are the same as the same course taught in a traditional format
  • professor’s expectations for student performance are clearly stated and presented at the beginning of the term
  • professor indicates time commitment (in terms of both engagement directly with course materials as well as independent work) required for student success
  • time commitment is reasonable and consistent with the total time spent in a traditional course inside and outside the classroom
  • grading criteria are clearly stated
  • assessment activities are appropriate for an online course and require the same level of student achievement as traditional courses
• respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
  • professor provides opportunities for student choice in discussion topics, presentation or project topics, paper topics, etc. where appropriate
  • professor arranges for alternate textual presentation of materials for any student with a hearing or visual issue preventing consumption of material in a audio/visual format
  • professor presents content oriented to diverse learning styles where feasible and appropriate
  • professor applies technological resources appropriately with respect to student capabilities to receive and familiarity with such technologies without placing an undue burden
  • professor has appropriate level of expertise with technologies used in course
  • professor has incorporated supplemental and remedial materials as available including up-to-date web resources and learning objects in the public domain (or with permission of copyright holder)

* http://www.qualitymatters.org/Rubric.htm

** http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm

Office Chats

A new feature on the Online Learning blog is a series of informal conversations with faculty on teaching and learning online. Our first chat asks Dr. Mukesh Srivastava, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems, for his understanding of social constructivism as applies to professional students at the University of Mary Washington College of Graduate and Professional Studies.

The video is available from the “Featured Video” section on the right of the blog home page or directly from YouTube or shown below:
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SharePoint LMS Feature List

Looking for a full explanation of Microsoft SharePoint Learning Management System?  The SharePointLMS.com site (third party consulting company, ElearningForce, Inc. – no endorsement intended) contains a nice overview of SharePoint LMS features and a pdf document with more details.

SharePoint LMS at Queens University

An interesting case study is available on the Microsoft site which details the adoption by Queens University (Charlotte, North Carolina) of SharePoint Learning Kit as an enterprise LMS. Looking to avoid the major expense of thier previous LMS (Blackboard), Queens adopted SharePoint both as an enterprise network framework and as an LMS. Like UMW, Queens had been a Novell installation.

A few years earlier, Queens had traded its Novell directory for the Active Directory® service, its Novell-based file and print servers for servers based on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system, and its open-source e-mail messaging system for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003.

Dr. Williima Clyde, Queens VP of Academic Affairs, explains his pardigm shift by stating:

Many of the LMS solutions began as kernels written by graduate students back in the 1990s. They’ve been expanded by different people at different times using different code, resulting in products that were not strategically planned or designed to work well together.

Good point. Microsoft does have enterprise level solutions for authentication, document management and collaboration, meeting scheduling, email, calendaring, live conferencing, etc.  Of course, adopting an LMS not specifically designed for the support of distributed learning does give pause to an old dog like me. There do seem to be definite advantages and SharePoint Learning Kit has improved recently to include features such as a grade book utility which moves it more into the realm of an actual LMS.

Being an Iconoclast is such a burden – due diligence and all.

SharePoint LMS at Washington State

NIls Peterson at UWS comments on the Washington State move to Microsft Sharepoint LMS in One small step for man. Project started in 2003 (?) and this posting is from November, 2007.