Closing Remarks

In my two-year journey toward earning a graduate certificate in online instructional design, I have written more than 30 blog posts synthesizing research in online instruction.  Nearly all of them have indicated that the role of the instructor is key in establishing the norms for the learning environment, in creating a sense of community in the learners, and in designing an experience that engages and empowers learners.

In my final course in this graduate program, I suffered through a text with dated references and prolix writing.  The text seem to begin by asserting a new pedagogy was needed for online instruction, leading at least this reader to believe that the authors would present this new pedagogy.  Instead, the authors spent long, tedious chapters revisiting what I already knew from dozens of literature reviews - the instructor needs solid teaching ability and online instructional skills.

That being said, I did walk away with powerful "aha" moment.  One single chapter in this book addressed the evolution of a learner in an online environment from taker of information to giver of insight.  Therefore - this role of facilitator - revealed in a single sentence buried in the test - the urgent need to develop digital literacy skills in students.

Now, digital literacy has been around for ages.  As far back as 2003, I worked with Boys & Girls Clubs of America teaching digital literacy to both family and youth members.  That wasn't the aspect of the text that led to an "aha" moment.  Rather it is the understanding that students need digital literacy skills in order to find answers independently.  Like students of Socrates, online students are asked to continually refine their ideas and develop their own solutions.  This can only be done well, if they can be connoisseurs of information.

Ultimately, the excitement of this moment came from my understanding of the power of self-realized learning.  Teaching a man to fish instead of just feeding him fish.  It was fuel on the fire that drives me to bring excellence to the blended programs I design.

That being said, I will end my final post a quick video summary of my favorite points from the text I mention above.  And, I will wish you, my readers a journey that brings you fuel to your fire.

Happy learning friends.

SOS: Save Online Students (from Social Isolation)

All Alone in the World?
In high school I played a devious old woman who poisoned lonely people with arsenic-laced elderberry wine. My character’s famous line was, “All alone in the world?”. It signaled to the audience that another victim had been chosen.

Otterbein University Theatre & Dance from USA
[CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This phrase, no less deadly, seems to play out in online learning. Students in online classes who don’t feel part of a community frequently struggle to ever find success with e-learning. (Berry, 2017; Aghaee, N. et. al, 2016)

Maslow - Enter Stage Right
It should be no surprise that students are seeking a sense of belonging in their online learning environment. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs shows that a sense of belonging is a strong motivator for individuals.
Pick your scientific study: Berry’s work in 2017, Kyvec and Olson’s work in 2013, or even a large research project conducted by the Ph.D Completion Project in 2008; all of them have found that attrition in online programs has largely been identified as stemming from a student’s sense that he/she was not part of a supportive and social learning community.

The Role of “Hero” to be Played by the Instructor 
Aside from the obvious facilitation of learning activities and assessment, instructors in an online environment play a large role in ensuring students find and fit into their online-course communities. Research has shown three basic methods of developing community with online learners:

1. Model appropriate social interaction in asynchronous discussion groups. Students need coached to develop written communication skills and language use appropriate to an online education environment. (Arasaratnam-Smith and Northcote, 2017) Instructors can support this development by scaffolding their involvement in asynchronous discussions. Instructors should focus on appropriate language, positive tone in writing, and use of names in posts to make writing feel like dialogue and not expository writing.
2. Develop opportunities for socializing, not just learning. A 2017 survey of students revealed that e-learners with tools to support socializing with online classmates were more satisfied than those without such tools (Raspopovic, Cvetanovic, Medan, and Ljubojevic, 2017). Instructors could leverage this research by creating social media groups for students to engage in outside of class.
3. Personally connect with students early and often. Earlier this year (2018) Law and Law conducted a study of students in an online MBA course and found that pre-course correspondence from instructors was the number-one rated tactic for increasing a student’s sense of belonging in an online course. Instructors should consider this prior to the start of a course and reach out to their students to meet, greet, and connect with students as individuals. Periodic communication through email, video, and phone calls are also ways to help students break through a feeling of isolation.

The Final Act
In 2006 Mishra and Kohler shared the TPACK model with those in the online instruction world. They have asserted with this model that knowledge of content is not enough for effective online teaching. A strong understanding of the pedagogy specific to online learning plays an equally important role for educators. Owning the development of social constructs for e-learners fits into this online-instructional pedagogy.

References:

1. Aghaee, N., Jobe, W. B., Karunaratne, T., Smedberg, Å, Hansson, H., & Tedre, M. (2016). Interaction Gaps in PhD Education and ICT as a Way Forward: Results from a Study in Sweden. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(3), 360-383. doi:10.19173/irrodl.v17i3.2220
2. Arasaratnam-Smith, L., & Northcote, M. (2017). Community in Online Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 15(2), 188-198. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1141773.pdf.
3. Berry, S. (2017). Building Community in Online Doctoral Classrooms: Instructor Practices that Support Community. Online Learning, 21(2). doi:10.24059/olj.v21i2.875
4. Kyvik, S., & Olsen, T. (2014). Increasing Completion Rates in Norwegian Doctoral Training: Multiple Causes for Efficiency Improvements. Studies in Higher Education, 39(9), 1668-1682. doi:https://eric.ed.gov/?redir=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.801427
5. Law, M., & Law, M. (2018). Assessing connectedness in an online MBA course. Journal of Instructional Pedagogies,21. Retrieved from http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/182786.pdf
6. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for integrating technology in teachers’ knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108 (6), 1017–1054
7. Ph.D. Completion Project.(2008)Promising Practices. (Council of Graduate Schools Ph.D. Completion Project).from http://www.phdcompletion.org/promising/environment.asp
8. Raspopovic, M., Cvetanovic, S., Medan, I., & Ljubojevic, D. (2017). The Effects of Integrating Social Learning Environment with Online Learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(1), 141-160. doi:10.19173/irrodl.v18i1.2645

Information Overload - Where to begin as an educator who desires to be a professional e-teacher

Which Way to ELearning Best Practices?
Imagine embarking on a trip from a train station. Every train in the station is going to your destination, but every train is different. Some trains are faster. Some trains are flashier. The interior amenities very greatly. Through the windows you can see passengers engaged in activity that you have been dreaming of. On the walls of the station, posters for each train catch your eye and make you feel like a hungry dog in a butcher shop.

It all looks so good!

You feel excited by the energy in the station and at seeing others board trains so confidently, talking of their great plans. At each ticket booth, the station staff each have a different opinion about which train is best. The benefits and features you overhear make it harder to determine which line to be in. The more you hear the more you question which train is right for you. Others around you start shuffling lines in indecision. Worse yet, looking at a destination mapped with the ubiquitous “You are Here”, you notice that the final destination gets farther and farther from your current location.

Searching for the RIGHT Destination
I don’t know about my readers, but just typing that scenario made my blood pressure rise. I had a similar experience reading "ELEARNING CURRENT SITUATION AND EMERGING CHALLENGES" by Bari, Djouab, and Hoa (2018). Their article described the vast challenges faced by educators in learning about, choosing, and using technology for online and blended instruction. They emphasized that the development of quality practices and pedagogy for elearning is stymied by the broad nature of elearning. From rapidly changing tools for communication and resource management, to implementation practices like gamification and blended learning, Bari, et al. (2018) suggest that there are too many focal points.

Even in sitting to write this post, my research felt enormous. I felt lost on how to capture the changing landscape of elearning let alone help readers find a path through the quickly evolving environment.

If you read my last post, you saw that ample amounts of research point to teacher presence as one of the leading indicators of elearning efficacy. In 2006 Shea, Sau Li, and Pickett published the results of a longitudinal study on the impact of teacher presence on the learning community. Their work clearly highlights teacher presence as a key factor in elearning efficacy. Given this, it would seem that the best way to embark on the journey toward effective e-teaching would be to start with the practices that make the most impact.

That being said, the remainder of this post is going to focus on how to work toward best practices in elearning by focusing on how to use evolving technology to improve teacher presence.

*Tip #1 - To increase your presence as an educator, use the tech tools that will best help you express emotion when giving feedback.

Research: In 2017 Borup, Thomas, and West (2017) conducted a study to investigate practices that have the biggest impact on student perception of instructor presence. Their work revealed that the real game changer was an instructor’s ability to convey emotion. With this understanding, it is easier to understand why their work revealed that video feedback had the greatest impact due to the richness of the medium. (Borup, et al. 2017)

Implications: The best part of this news is that emotion can be expressed in low tech ways with punctuation and emoticons. Teachers can also focus on identifying tools that allow them to incorporate video and audio clips of themselves for feedback, check-ins, announcements, etc.

*Tip # 2 - More is better. To build social presence meet with students frequently.

Research: In 2018, Lee and Huang (2018) tested the impact frequency of teacher/student interactions had on perceived social presence. Their work showed a direct correlation between the number of instructor interactions with students and the perceived instructor presence. 

Implications: This research should direct eteachers to find ways to use their current tools to engage with students. This could be scheduling synchronous classes with web meeting technology. This could be incorporating and personally engaging in asynchronous class discussions. Video check-ins with tools like Flip Grid, scheduling student meetings, and providing assignments where instructor feedback gives guidance are also all ways for instructors to meet frequently with students.

Tip # 3 - To increase instructor presence, find ways to maximize non-verbals in the online environment.

Research: In 2016, a team from Purdue University embarked on a study into uncharted territory. They created an experiment to identify and measure the impact of non-verbal communication in an online learning environment. Typically, when a person thinks about non-verbals, they consider body language and tone of voice. In an online environment, Dixon, Greenwell, Rogers-Stacy, Weister, and Lauer (2016) identified non-verbals as tone, chronemics, and feedback.

Implications of Tone - Text-heavy resources convey a cold tone. Whereas video resources express a warm tone. As teachers build out resources for students in their online courses, using a blend of resources conveys a positive tone to students.

Implications of Chronemics - To build instructor presence in online classes, instructors should focus on timely responses when answering student questions and when providing feedback. They should also take the time to ensure their messages are well crafted and show students that time was taken to craft the message.

Implications of Feedback - This study reiterated the work cited by Thomas et al (2017). To increase social presence, teachers should focus on providing feedback that is meaningful, specific, and rich. Again, Dixon et al (2016) define rich as multi-sensory (video and audio).

The Final Word
In online teaching, developing quality practices is a challenge given the need to understand tools, methods and technologies that keep evolving. Focusing on tactics that are proven to increase student engagement and perception of learning is one way of narrowing the scope of work on the journey to become an effective e-educator. In fact, when reviewing the research, the scope becomes very narrow when looking at what technology a teacher needs to develop fluency in:

Since many of the best practices rely on low-tech aspects such as timing and frequency, an easy first step for instructors is to begin their journey by finding ways to increase media-rich encounters with their students.

Happy Travels Friends

References:

1. Bari, M., Djouab, R., & Hoa, C. (2018). ELEARNING CURRENT SITUATION AND EMERGING CHALLENGES. International Journal of Social Sciences,4(22), 97-109. Retrieved October 21, 2018, from https://grdspublishing.org/index.php/people/article/view/1395/1178. 
2. Borup, J., Thomas, R., & West, R. (2017). An analysis of instructor social presence in online text and asynchronous video feedback comments. The Internet and Higher Education, 33, 61–73. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2017.01.003
3. Dixson, M., Greenwell, M., Rogers-Stacy, C., Weister, T., & Lauer, S. (2017). Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors and Online Student Engagement: Bringing Past Instructional Research into the Present Virtual Classroom. Communication Education, 66(1), 37–53. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2016.1209222
4. Lee, S.J. & Huang, K. (2018). Online Interactions and Social Presence in Online Learning. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 29(1), 113-128. Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved October 20, 2018 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/173242/.
5. Shea, P., Sau Li, C., & PIckett, A. (2006). A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and web-enhanced college courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 9(3), 175–190. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.06.005

Using a tool versus using a tool effectively; online teaching for dummies*

*This blog post has no endorsement from the publishers of the very popular "..for dummies" series of books.  I just liked the sentiment.

Part I: Effective Tool Use

In a past life I used to teach students in a construction apprenticeship program. One of the first lessons students were taught in that program was how to use a hammer. It seems like an intuitive tool right - hold handle, use metal head to pound nail. However, there is some real physics to be explored if you want the hammer to do the work, not your forearm.

In my present iteration of “Amanda the Professional”, I help teachers and students use online tools to enhance their teaching/learning. Same concept as my previous job, I spend time helping others use tools effectively.

In a prescribed literary review examining the value on online learning, I wasn’t surprised to see the same theme I encounter everyday - tools aren’t effective if you don’t know how to use them.

Part II: Marketing Schemes

“Touted for its cost effectiveness and convenience, online learning provides opportunities for more learners to continue their education in various settings (Oliver, 1999).”

“Technology now enables schools to offer online programs with better student and instructor collaboration, flexible (asynchronous) learning, problem specific feedback, automated interactive lessons or presentations, and simulations of almost anything conceivable (Byrd, 2012).”

Written a decade apart, these two papers reviewing online learning tout the value of e-learning in terms of features, not effectiveness.  There is nothing wrong with buying a product for its features.  As an ed tech professional, I would just like to encourage others to then pursue how to use such products to improve their efficacy.

Maxpixel Under CC0 Public Domain

So, buckle in. I’d like to offer you a short lesson on how to make online learning effective; because I think by now, we all get that educational technology tools can be fun and flashy and offer flexibility to our instructional practices - but if we take a moment to learn how to make these tools effective everyone wins.

Part III: A Short Ride to Success

Have faith, this will be a short ride as there are only two major themes for effective online learning:

• Student engagement
• Teacher involvement

Let’s start with student engagement. Research shows that students who feel engaged with their coursework perform better(Koc, 2017), enjoy the class more(Burke, 2017), and are more likely to stick with their education(Shea 2006). Specifically, students who are given responsibility for their learning feel more engaged. One way to increase responsibility is to require students to reflect on what they have learned(Angiello, 2010). Competency-based education practices that help students identify learning targets and then empower them to seek information and experience to prove mastery of learning also favorably ramp up student engagement(Mayeshiba, 2010).

Now, if the key to effective online learning is student responsibility and engagement, then you may be asking - “what then, is the role of the teacher”. Abundant amounts of research show that an instructor in an online class brings the most value through creating an online community where learners can feel safe exploring thoughts, asking questions, and seeking feedback(Majeski, 2017). “...a strong and active presence on the part of the instructor—one in which she or he actively guides the discourse—is related both to students sense of connectedness and learning(Shea, 2006).

Part IV: The Final Destination

Casey, A.(2014). End of the Road
Licensed Under CC-BySA 2.0

I mentioned that this was to be a short ride, right? This is the end of the line. Teachers seeking to create EFFECTIVE online learning environments should work toward identifying ways to promote student responsibility for learning so as to free him/herself to be responsible for the development and maintenance of a safe and active online learning community.

To slaughter a perfectly good movie line:

If you build it (the community), they will learn.

References:

1. Angiello, R. (2010). Study Looks at Online Learning vs. Traditional Instruction. Education Digest, 76(2), 56–69.
2. Burke, A., & Fedorek, B. (2017). Does “flipping” promote engagement?: A comparison of a traditional, online, and flipped class. Active Learning in Higher Education, 18(1), 11–24.
3. Byrd, R. (2010). Using Appropriate E-learning Systems to Optimize Teaching and Learning. GSTF Journal on Computing, 2(3), 47–52.
4. Koc, M. (2017). Learning Analytics of Student Participation and Achievement in Online Distance Education: A Structural Equation Modeling. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 17(6), 1893–1910.
5. Majeski, R., Stover, M., Valais, T., & Ronch, J. (2017). Fostering Emotional Intelligence in Online Higher Education Education Courses. Adult Learning, 28(4), 135–143.
6. Mayeshiba, M., Jansen, K., & Mihlbauer, L. (2018). An Evaluation of Critical Thinking in Competency Based and Traditional Online Learning Environments. Online Learning, 22(2), 77–89.
7. Oliver, R. (1999). Exploring strategies for online teaching and learning. Distance Education, 20(2), 240–254. doi:10.1080/0158791990200205