Support Resources for Making Quality Online and Blended Courses

Welcome to the presentation “Support Resources for Making Quality Online and Blended Courses.”

After you review a slide, click anywhere to advance the presentation To exit the presentation at any time, press the Escape Key. To go back to a previous slide, press the Backspace Key. Click to begin the presentation.This presentation was given live on February 26, 2015 by L&S Learning Support Services staff: Jonathan Klein, Theresa Pesavento, and Bruno Browning. It is part of a training series coordinated by L&S Administration, intended to connect L&S faculty and staff with topics and information that may be helpful in their positions. More presentations and information about this series of trainings can be found at https://kb.wisc.edu/ls/page.php?id=25131

Agenda

✦ LSS Services

✦ Survey of Course Formats

✦ Successful Patterns for Implementation

✦ Emerging Topics & Discussion

01

Four Person Teaching with Technology Consulting Team

LSS Instructional Technology Consulting team consists of 4 Instructional design and technology consultants. Located in Van Hise, but serve all of L&S.

Teaching & Learning

Technology

Many people might know LSS only through technology support. LSS Consultants work with instructors to navigate the growing area of intersection between tech and teaching & learning and help evaluate factors that are unique to each course/instructor.

LSS Consultant Role

Teaching & Learning

Technology

The next several slides highlight a few of what we consider the core activities and speak to the various ways LSS works within this space.

Select and apply UW learning technology tools with purpose

UW Madison has a growing teaching with technology tool box. We help instructors make sense of the array of tools, evaluate the tools within the unique circumstances of their courses, and implement the technology to the benefit of their students.

Use L&S perspective and approach in strategic collaborations

Academic Technology

UW Schools

& Colleges

Libraries

UW Support Network

MTLE

Using our L&S perspective to form strategic partnerships that move innovation forward.

We work with partners to build campus capacity for technology-enhanced teaching and learning and/or pedagogies. This is a snapshot of only a few of the partnerships

we have as a department.

DIY Consulting Design & Prototype

Partner with instructors to implement creative and scalable teaching & learning innovations

Online Learning | Blended Learning | Web Tools | Media Services

Custom Design Development

This represents the continuum of support available on the UW campus. On the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) end, we know people spend time on their own trying to figure out options. On the other end, there are services (typically fee for service) to aid in the custom design and development of courses.

LSS

LSS works within the middle ground to provide consulting and light weight prototyping of course sites, activity design, and content delivery.

Develop and facilitate learning communities for instructors to explore new teaching & learning approaches

Blend@UW TeachOnline@UW Targeted WorkshopsTeaching Assistant

Training and Support

We participate in designing and facilitating topical learning technology seminars, training sessions, online workshops, and curriculum design training.

Technology is the thing that brings us together, but participants very often leave having new strategies that aid in innovation and deeper learning experiences.

Work with instructors toprotect quality and integrity

We aim to be a synthesis point between professional best practices (advanced by organizations like those on this slide) in teaching and learning and the instructors who are implementing course innovations.

Each organization offers something important to the profession of teaching and we work to integrate those ideas into our practice. As we aim to meet institutional/program goals that offer new flexibilities and generate revenue, we can also keep focus on quality so we preserve (or enhance) the quality of learning we provide.

These are all words or phrases that represent different innovations that are happening on campus. All of the terms have an actual meaning but they are often used interchangeably, which can contribute to a muddy overall landscape.

We’re going to spend just a few minutes unpacking the jargon and highlighting the subtle, but important, characteristics of various models.

Higher Learning Commission:

✦ In distance courses students are separated from the instructor

✦ Distance courses provide 75%+ by distance methods

✦ Distance programs 50%+ of courses can be taken by distance

✦ Support regular and substantive interaction between students and the instructor

Key definitions

Quality

"The institution’s program quality and learning goals are consistent across all modes of delivery and all locations (on the main campus, at additional locations, by distance delivery, as dual credit, through contractual or consortial arrangements, or any other modality)”

Higher Learning CommissionCriterion Three: Teaching and Learning: Quality, Resources, and Support

Flipped

Blended Learning Formats

Credit goes to the UW Blended Learning Fellows for this iconography inspiration.

Flipped

✦ Inversion of lecture and homework paradigm

✦ No fundamental alteration of what students do -- only where they do it

✦ Commonly anchored by lecture audio or video recordings

Flipped ClassroomReverse or changing of where people are doing learning, now it can be done through a more in technical mode.

✦ Structured class meetings focused on independent or group work

✦ Student-centered learning with instructor guidance to answer questions and provide feedback

✦ Typically rely on organized online course modules before work session; session is akin to active study hour

Emporium Model

✦ Retains basic course structure

✦ Thoughtfully selected online enhancements that augment classroom experience

✦ Technology platform provides interaction and activities that prepare and extend learning

Supplemental Model

Over 2,500 active learning sites for students. Creating recourses that aid students when trying to get to class.

Replacement ✦ Aims to reduce “seat time” for students by

moving aspects of a course online

✦ Change in pedagogy to emphasize thoughtful fusion of online and classroom

✦ In-class time focused on active learning and discussion

This could be a change or reduction in what is being done, or a rethinking of how an online course is presented. Not getting rid of original content, but replacing face to face time with time for students to do work outside of class.

Distance

MOOC Synchronous

Facilitated OnlineSelf-Paced Online

✦ Online venue for no or low-cost learning from major universities and star faculty

✦ Shape perceptions of all online learning

✦ Offer important, but limited, lessons for timetable undergraduate courses

Massive Open Online Courses

MOOC

Self-Paced Online

Self-Paced Online

✦ Students can complete course on their own timeline, often with little interaction

✦ Most useful for learning that is ancillary or in support of a for-credit course (skill development and training)

✦ Organized in self-contained online modules

Facilitated Online

Facilitated Online

✦ Online course with defined pace and structure for a cohort to learn and interact

✦ Thoughtfully designed and actively facilitated by qualified instructor

✦ Online course that is typically implemented via a learning management system

Synchronous

Synchronous

✦ Live distance courses with real-time communication, often via video conference

✦ Effectively links students with courses not offered at their institution (ex. language courses)

✦ Commonly offered though CIC CourseShare

Successful Patterns for Implementation

During this section we will highlight patterns, strategies, and approaches that we have seen, developed or recommend to help ensure good success in working toward implementation of an online or blended course. This is a synthesis of our experience and awareness of recommendations and research-informed practice.

✦ Educational Innovation Blended & Online

✦ Summer Term Online

✦ Departmental & Individual Initiative

Three Main Areas of LSS Consulting Effort

Each category is explained in subsequent slides.

Educational Innovation Online & Blended

Goals:

✦ Pivot the student experience to pervasive active learning

✦ Build institutional capacity for teaching and learning innovations

Support:

✦ Currently grant funding of up to $15,000

✦ Follows a call for proposals process

Jewish Studies 319Yiddish Song & the Jewish Experience

Project:

Redesign course that fulfills multiple breadth

requirements (Ethnic Studies, Humanities,

CommB) for active blended course.

Goals:

Reinvigorate a traditional lecture course

Engage students through active learning

sessions in WisCEL classroom

Example of Educational Innovation course design collaboration.

Summer Term Online

Goals:

✦ Offer courses that meet flexibility needs in Summer Term

✦ Help shorten time to degree

Support:

✦ Typically involves faculty funding for development time

✦ Typically follows a call for proposals process

Gender & Women’s Studies 103 OnlineWomen, Their Bodies, Health & Disease

Project:

Redesign large enrollment lecture course

for online delivery in Summer Term.

Goals:

Improve access to address large &

ongoing waitlist

Engage students through active online

assignment design

Project Partners:• Professor Jenny Higgins & Dr. Araceli Alonso

• Division of Continuing Studies

• L&S Learning Support Services

Example of Summer Term Online course design collaboration.

Departmental & Individual Initiatives

Goals:

✦ Meet strategic needs of programs, departments, and instructors

Organization:

✦ LSS support in alignment with project needs and availability

Languages & Cultures of Asia 252

Civilizations of IndiaProject:

Redesign popular lecture course for

online delivery.

Goals:

Extend course to broader UW

Madison audience and eventually

attract UW System students

Facilitate online active critical

thinking principles fundamental to

culture and society course

Project Partners:• Professor Lalita du Perron

• L&S Learning Support Services

Example of Departmental & Individual Initiative course design collaboration.

Making the transition: Instructors

✦ Experiment in small scale and iterate

✦ Consider a full redesign a major project

✦ Engage with partners early

✦ Seek a community or colleagues with relevant experience

It is important for the instructor to have clarity of purpose in mind for course before contacting LSS. This will ensure the instructor can better relate their ideas and needs to LSS from the start.

Strategies that have helped instructors approach an online or blended course redesign project.

Experiment in small scale, if possible (try something in face to face course before making a full transition). Allow for iteration and a few semesters to find your ideal balance; consider elements to be experimental or piloting to see if good fit.

Consider a full redesign a major project: redesign is major pedagogical overhaul, quality matters! Organization provides framework for peer-review of course quality and they do not allow review until a course has been offered several times. Consider the first implementation to be a high-quality draft.

Engage with partners early - Those of us who support courses have increasing demand and need to plan months in advance to ensure we are available to help during critical points in the process.

Seek a community or colleagues with relevant experience; leverage campus, department, and support resources and experience. There is a growing network of instructors and support people on this campus how have tried new ideas. They are most often very eager to talk with others.

Making the transition: Students

✦ Students assume more responsibility for their learning

✦ Clear expectations help students adjust to non-traditional courses

✦ Students are not digital natives in academic contexts

Changing the format involves accounting for challenges to realize deeper learning . New formats require students to assume more responsibility for their learning while mitigating student

expectations and teaching them how to learn in this environment. Students’ response to non-traditional learning is dependent on their clarity of expectations and their role in their learning (ECAR 2013; Vaughan 2011).

Students need guidance for how and when to use technology for academic purposes (they are not academic digital natives) (ECAR 2013). Most students look to their instructors for tech training and tech integration that applies to their coursework (ECAR 2013).

Design Tools & Trends

✦ Backward design

✦ Course mapping

✦ Active learning

✦ Enduring ideas

Backward design: major part of campus conversation. Learning Objectives drive design, not content.

Course mapping: alignment and focused planning that charts path forward.

Active learning, class sessions that emphasize activities, not lecture.

Enduring Ideas: Inspirational device -- imagine students 5-10 years from now. What would you want them to know or remember?

✦ Pedagogical trends

✦ Student experience

✦ Market forces and competition

Emerging Topics

✦ Quality assurance

✦ Scalability

✦ Sustainability

Thank You

Jonathan Klein jbklein2@wisc.edu

Theresa Pesavento pesavento@wisc.edu

Contact L&S Learning Support Services: http://lss.wisc.edu/contact