Principles and Practices for Online Courses That Engage

Learners

Campus Technology M02July 25 2011

Judith V. Boettcher Designing for LearningUniversity of Floridajudith@designingforlearning.org

12011

Boston 2003

BECOMING GREAT ONLINE INSTRUCTORS

Developing expertise in any field takes time and is accomplished step by step, experience by experience, skill upon skill

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Where are you on the novice to expert scale of online teaching? What kind of engagement strategies do you find useful?

Guiding principles: Presence, Community and Personalization

FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS FROM ONLINE FACULTY

How can peer review and collaboration work online?

But wait, how will I lecture?

How do I give tests?

How do I know if they understand?

How do I get to know my students if I never see them?

What are the secrets for being a great online instructor?

What activities really engage my online students?

Do I really need to be on my course site every day?

What do I do when a student gets behind?

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1. WHAT IS YOUR TOP QUESTION/CHALLENGE IN ENGAGING YOUR ONLINE STUDENTS? 2. WHAT TOPIC WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO DISCUSS ON KEEPING STUDENTS FOCUSED AND SUCCESSFUL?

Starting our thinking…. Where are we now?

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Directions: Get into groups of 2 or 3 based on proximity. Write your questions/challenges on a color stickie and also in your packet on p.3. We’ll post the stickies on the wall for sharing and for reference.

Social Media Research “Learners are particularly engaged when

they experience feelings of "autonomy, competence, and relatedness.” Katherine Hayles, 2007

Feelings enabled by web 2.0 – 3.0 applications

Apps are more about creating, generating and organizing information and content rather than reading or listening to content

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Foundational feelings for engagement – “An independent person who is developing

skills while connected to others…”

Environment for Engagement

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Who are the members of a course community? The learners and faculty mentor and any content assistants. Why does building a community support learners and learning?

Shared experiences, overlapping goals, mutual support, trust and presence***

Core Learning PrinciplesActive, involved, doing,

zone of proximal development, personalizing

Online Best Practices Presence, balanced

dialogue, core content, continuous assessment

Grouping & Teaming StrategiesInformal small to medium groupings,

collaborative work, peer review

Elements of community

Core Learning Principles and Best Practices That Matter and

That Work

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Neurons -P Z Myers

A Selected Set for Today

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Sources of Ten Learning Principles and Ten Practices• Inspired and derived from research,

instructional design and theory• Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky - My

personal favorite• Also inspired by J. Dewey, J. Bruner• Current researchers, writers, such as

• Daniel Schacter (Memory)• John Seely Brown (Cognitive

apprenticeship)• Roger Schank (Schema theory, knowledge

structures• Instructional design theory and practice• Friends, colleagues, many faculty

Ten CLP2011

Ten Core Learning Principles

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Ten Best Practicesfor Teaching Online

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EVERY STRUCTURED LEARNING EXPERIENCE HAS FOUR ELEMENTS WITH THE LEARNER AT THE CENTER

Core Learning Principle 1

2011 11LEFramework stage

Simplifying a complex process….only four elements of design

Learning ExperiencesFramework • Learner• Mentor-Director• Knowledge-Content-

Problem• Environment-Context

Inspired by Lev Vygotsky…

All the world’s a stage… and learning happens on it.

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GOING DEEPER: LEARNER, MENTOR, KNOWLEDGE AND ENVIRONMENT

Core Learning Principles Two through Five (2-5)

2011 13CLP Learner

When designing for engagement, need to consider all four elements of instructional experiences – what is the role, function of learner, faculty, content and context?

LEARNERS BRING THEIR OWN PERSONALIZED MENTAL MODELS, SKILLS AND ATTITUDES TO LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Core Learning Principle 2

2011 14Learner's mind

What are learners’ baselines? Where are they coming from? Where do they want to go?

VERY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION

In course design, we design for the probable, expected learner; in course delivery, we flex the design to the specific, particular learners within a course.

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“I didn’t know that

anyone cared.”

Impact on Learning and Engagement

• Learners will lean forward, step forward when they are reasonably confident that they can build on what they already know

• Learners volunteer to lead, write, speak, if they have a reasonable expectation of success and not look stupid

• Learners ask questions if they feel safe within the atmosphere of trust and community

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Move from listening and reading to “participating in the flow of action.”

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FACULTY ARE THE DIRECTORS OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND MENTORS OF THE INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS

Core Learning Principle 3

2011 Faculty functions

Roles and Responsibilities of Mentors/Directors

• Designing and structuring the course experiences • Can often be accomplished with a team of faculty

and designers for tutors• Directing and supporting learners through

the instructional events • Absolutely!

• Assessing and certifying student learning outcomes• Normally the case• Robots (automated systems) and rubrics can help • Also integrate and leverage peer and expert

reviews 182011

Impact on Learning and Engagement • Faculty time is best invested in designing,

“teaching presence”, mentoring, coaching and guiding

• As a mentor, they step back and let learning happen, step in when appropriate• Watch for difficulties• Watch for frustration• Watch for success and innovation

• Support thinking, assess with focus on growth and success

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ALL LEARNERS DO NOT NEED TO LEARN ALL COURSE CONTENT /KNOWLEDGE; ALL LEARNERS DO NEED TO LEARN THE CORE CONCEPTS

Core Learning Principle 4

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Core Concepts and PrinciplesCore Concepts and Principles

Applying Core Concepts

Problem Analysis and Solving

Four Layers of Content

Customized and Personalized212011

Content: Impact on Learning and Engagement

• Provide core content experiences as basis of shared experiences

• Provide range of choices for initial applications and problem sets, scenarios

• Design personalized, customized experiences allowing for wide range of content choices and exploration of wide-ranging content

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Shift from “knowing about” things to “knowing how to be” John Seely Brown and others

EVERY LEARNING EXPERIENCE OCCURS WITHIN A CONTEXT OR AN ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THE LEARNER INTERACTS WITH THE KNOWLEDGE, CONTENT OR PROBLEM

Core Learning Principle 5

2011 23Context Examples

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Core Learning Principle 5 - Environment• Design for the when, where, with whom and

with what resources…• All of these elements make up the

environment within which learning occurs

2011Holodeck

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The Holodeck — Rapid Learning and Entertainment

Reflection

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For authentic, situated learning

Dr. Christoph Sensen in the CAVE

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Reflection – Engaging Possibilities

• Stop and think • Putting the learner at the center of the

design• Consider learner as independent,

competent, member of community • Identify one or two impacts of these

principles for your thinking? For your colleagues?

• Find a colleague right next to you…(Pair up )

• Share ideas…actions…2011

Let’s think

27CLP #6 Zone

The Reflection Process • Sharing the ideas and actions

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Be sure to “use your

voice”

Core Learning Principle 6

• A very core, very basic idea from Lev Vygotsky (1978)

• Enhanced by later work on situated cognition and cognitive apprenticeship by John Seely Brown and others (2006)

• Extended by research on embodied cognition (Shapiro, 2010)

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EVERY LEARNER HAS A ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT THAT DEFINES THE SPACE THAT A LEARNER IS READY TO DEVELOP INTO USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

Core Learning Principle 6

2011 29ZPD Definition

30Using the Zone in Design

A student’s zone of proximal development is… “the distance between the actual developmental

level as determined by independent problem solving …and the level of potential development as

determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable

peers”

Vygotsky, 1968

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

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Implications of ZPD for Design • Concept of ZPD is similar to “readiness”

principle• Suggests the likelihood of a fairly narrow “window

of opportunity” or “teaching moment” • What kinds of problems can students solve

independently? Or with help? • What is the "task model" that produces the

evidence that demonstrates proficiency?• When can you design in choices and options so

natural learning can meet requirements? • How is guidance provided?

• “Just enough help so that students feel as if they did it all by themselves.”

2011 Stages of the zone

When learners are ready they want to ”do

it themselves”

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Stages of a Zone…

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Assistance provided by

more capable "others”

Teachers, experts, peers,

coaches

Assistance provided by

the self

From R. Gallimore and R. Tharp, 1992

Internalization, Automatization

FossilizationDe-

automatization

Recursiveness through prior

stagesContinued

assistance… can be

disruptive and

irritating…

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

Using references,

job aids, automonous

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Growing New Concepts• Important what you know

now…these are “receptor cells”

• Growing flowers, bushes, thickets, with sticky “stuff”

• More you know, the more you can know…

• Maybe fast learners are fast because… they have ready templates and receptor cells

• Similar to “mind melds”

Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni2011

CONCEPTS, MENTAL MODELS AND LEARNING ZONES

Customizing learning means designing learning experiences for the learner. To do this we need to know the learner and what the learner knows and thinks

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Each brain is its own world… (Adapted Mexican Proverb)

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Getting to Know Learners – How do you do it?

• How do I know my learners? • What is your favorite strategy for finding out what

learners know? • Automated quizzes• Pretests at course beginnings• Open discussion on concepts• Project proposals• Informal questions • Analysis of their questions, comments

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Crowd-sourcing – have students develop the tests and suggest key concepts

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How Do You Know Your Learners’ ZPDs? (1)

• Listen to what they think • Get them talking and writing about what they know,

think they know, might know• Why do they know what they know? • What evidence or data supports that "knowing?"• Structure task scenarios

• Ask questions• “Fire” their brain cells• Find their point of knowledge, find their weeds,

plants, nodes on which to grow, extend their knowing…

2011 Bloopers

Let’s brainstorm a few ideas and what works and doesn’t work for you

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How Do You Know Your Learners’ ZPDs? (2) • Have them “do” things — evaluate and

create• Work through processes • Adopt different perspectives • Suggest solutions • Modify problems• Role play, assume different identities

• Develop metacognitive skills • Get them thinking and discussing and asking

questions about how they are learning • Ask them to plan their next steps on making the

knowledge useful to them

2011 Bloopers

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Peeking inside the Brain• Most of the houses in France are made of

plaster of Paris• Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend

one or both of them • The death of Francis Macomber was a

turning point in his life…• Definitions

• A vacuum is a large, empty space where the Pope lives

• A virtuoso is a musician with very high morals• One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to

drag a horse 500 feet in one second• To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow. • Republicans are some of the sinners featured in the

bible. 2011

Statements such as these can reveal the state of concept development

CONCEPTS ARE NOT WORDS; CONCEPTS ARE ORGANIZED AND INTRICATE KNOWLEDGE CLUSTERS

Core Learning Principle 7

2011 39Concpt Principle 8

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Core Learning Principle 7• Concepts are more than words. Concepts

are organized and intricate knowledge clusters. • Concept formation occurs as a series of intellectual

operations between the general and the particular with ever-increasing differentiation. (Vygotsky)

• Words, words, words…(Hamlet) only symbols, where is the meaning?

• Practice of “making a learner’s thinking visible” helps to determine the state of maturity, richness, completeness of a concept. This practice can show/reveal how the concept formation is progressing... "One-minute summary"

2011 Flash of Insight… event

Concept acquisition is a journey, not a one-time event

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Concept

Words

MeaningUseful

concept

Osmosis, diversity, mediation

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Concepts vs. Words

• "Words take over the function of concepts and serve as means of communication long before they reach the level of concepts characteristic of fully developed thought." Russian Georgian psychologist Dmitri Uznadze

Kozulin, Alex. (1990) Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas

It’s easy to be misled into thinking students have developed useful concepts. They can often use the

words, but they do not understand or know what they mean.

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Concepts are Building Blocks of Mental Models • "Mental models are deeply ingrained

assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.”

Peter Sengewww.solonline.org

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline 1990

Mental Models – also called frames, scripts, patterns

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Processes for Creating Mental Models

• Case-based reasoning research suggests…• Learners iteratively apply what they are learning

with real feedback and persist until they are successful

• Learners reflect on their experiences, extract what they are doing and articulate it for self and others

• Useful resources and activities include• Well-indexed libraries of expert cases and ideas and

lessons of other learners• Writing, reading and preparing cases

Kolodner, J. L. 2006 2011

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Summary: Knowing Our Learners• Understanding our learners means

understanding• What they know, what they think they know and

what they are able to express• What they think they want to know

• Their understandings are encoded in their brains (Jungle or Tundra) • In their concepts, representations and

perspectives of the world • Learning is growing and shaping those

encodings and representations

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Knowing Your Learners • Learners

• Goals - Grow personalized and customized knowledge; not standardized brains…

• Consider their brains — a jungle, a tundra or prairie, a small garden, a flowering plant? • How complex is their network of neurons and

dendrites? • How complex and intricate are the images and

patterns of their knowledge? • How are their life experiences expressed in their

knowledge structure? • What are their “zones of proximal developments?”

2011 Fish is Fish

Challenges in Designing Engaging Learning

Design learning experiences where learners are apprenticed to experts and

can engaged in "doing" within a cognitively rich and stimulating environment fit to their

zone of proximal development. It may be that simple and that difficult.

Challenges - What are the future skills and where are the experts?

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• Have we answered any of our

questions? • What potential insights on our

challenges? • What do you expect of your learners?

Reflections and Questions

That’s why XXX works or might work!

Let’s Collaborate and Innovate…

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Next Session – Session 2 — Linking Principles and Practices to the Questions/Challenges

Appendix Slides

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THREE (OF TEN) BEST PRACTICES

Practices 1, 2, & 3

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Presences – Social, Teaching and Cognitive

Really, really clear expectations and directions – “Teaching presence”

Build a learning community

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For Today — Practices 1, 2, & 3

• Be present at the course site• Being there” for your students — your social, teaching and

cognitive presence • Create a supportive online community where learners

are responsible for each other • Build and use community with learner support and dialogue

• Develop a set of explicit expectations for your learners and for yourself• Being very very clear regarding expectations and reinforcing core

concepts, and teaching with discussion wraps and a weekly rhythm

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Garrison

Brookfield

Anderson

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Best Practice 1: Be Present at the Course Site• Launch a course with a strong social

presence • Become a 3D person, not just “the expert voice”

to your students • Liberal use of tools — announcements and

discussion board postings –• Communicate that you

• Care about who your students are• Care about their questions and concerns• Be generally "present" to do the mentoring

and challenging that teaching is all about.

2011BP1 - Be present 2

RULE OF THUMB

All communications – except confidential messages — are visible on the course site!

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Policies on Presence • Be very clear about how often you and your

learners will be "in" the course site/classroom• You — posting/reading/being there every day if

possible; "obviously, significantly present" by posting three-four times a week

• Learners — minimum of three-four days a week, although highly variable

• Be specific about how learners are to "be" present in discussion postings, supporting learning and each other

• Institutional policies • Responses within 24/48 hours • Students’ presence in the course site • FAQ Forum, place for peer questions and help

2011 Note: "Teaching Presence" refers to the design, direction, facilitation and feedback, from a faculty in a course.

Have a forum for questions to diversify dialogue and extend responsibility for learning support

A Good Practice

LOTS ABOUT PRESENCE - THE THREE PRESENCES

The three presences are based on Online Collaboration Principles by D. R. Garrison (2006) and Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000)

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Social Presence Teaching Presence Cognitive Presence

562011

How do you “make yourself known” to your students? As an expert, as a mentor, as a 3D person?

• Being a person, being "real" to your learners• Social presence - the ability to project

oneself socially and affectively in a virtual environment

• Some Ideas• Picture — in context • Short bio • Favorite food• Interesting stories• How you relax…

Social Presence - Faculty

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Social Presence – Learners …Launching Your Course Community

• An initial get-acquainted discussion forum for learners to get acquainted

• Have learners share…• “My favorite movie, or book, or meditation or

relaxation is….” • Post one/more of their favorite pictures

• Share a pix of where they study/work/learn• Describe their morning commute.. :-)

• Where they are in their program, where they work, their strengths, weaknesses, needs

• A significant or favorite life experience related to the course to come

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Teaching Presence – Ready for Action

• Materials prepared in the design and development of the course • Syllabus• Assessment plan with assignments and

rubrics• Course framework• Mini-lectures, tutorials, concept

introductions, using text, YouTube, podcasts

• Posting questions • Project description• Bibliographies, resources, selected texts • Week-by-week overview

2011 Note: "Teaching Presence" refers to the design, direction, facilitation and feedback, from a faculty in a course.

Syllabus

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Teaching Presence – Suggesting, Guiding, Challenging Showing the Way • Group presences

• Announcements, reminders, guideposts • Supportive, monitoring, questioning, affirming

comments in the discussions and forums and blogs etc.

• Q&A sessions• Individual presence

• Encouraging and shaping of individual and small team projects

• Individual feedback, support as may be appropriate

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The three presences “ebb and flow” over the phases of a course (Akyol and Garrison, 2008)

https://voicethread.com/?#q+http:voicethread.comq.b3352.b3352.i28616

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COGNITIVE PRESENCE

"Cognitive Presence" refers to the construction of meaning through sustained communication in a climate of trust.

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What works for you in getting “inside” your learners’ heads?

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Creating a Climate for Building Meaning - "Cognitive Presence"• Get to know your learners "cognitively" as

well as socially• Get to know what learners know now;• In Vygotsky's terms, what are their zones of

proximal development? What are they ready to learn?

• Identify the knowledge and skills they want to develop

• One strategy - Entry Statements• 200-300 words• Personal goal statements • Adapting, making personal course outcome

goals2011

Entry Statements — Why are you here? What do you want to learn to do? What difference will this make in your life?

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Best Practice 2: Create a Supportive Online Course Community

• Design a course with a balanced set of dialogues• Faculty – learner; learner to learner; learner to

resource • Design phases of community

• Getting acquainted and sharing goals• Accessing, researching and discussing content

activities• Collaborative work on problems, projects, products• Peer-to-peer review and support

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Best Practice 3: Develop a Set of Clear Expectations• How you will communicate, how often and

response times and methods • How students should be communicating

and participating • How much time approximately students

should be working on the course each week.

• Weekly guide and overview• Set up a "weekly rhythm" for your course

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How many hours per week is an average expectation in your institution?