Category Archives: Online Learning

Strategies to Assist Distance Doctoral Students in Completing Their Dissertations

My colleagues and I recently published an article on distance doctoral students in The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. It’s a Field Notes article, with practices from our experience shared.

Lim, J., Covrig, D., Freed, S., De Oliveira, B., Ongo , M., & Newman, I. (2019). Strategies to assist distance doctoral students in completing their dissertationsThe International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning20(5), 192-210. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i5.4532

Strategies for Three Goals

In the paper, we share strategies and technology tools that meet the following three goals:

  1. cultivate a shared culture of responsibility and commitment
    • a tool to discuss the distance doctoral student’s social network
    • teaching students how to manage their split life
    • a tool to evaluate the student’s readiness for the dissertation process
    • mapping out where dissertation skills are developed in the program
  2. increase effective communication between researchers
    • being available to students
    • giving effective feedback
    • generating trust
    • using humor
  3. grow departmental and institutional services and technologies for faculty and students
    1. the use of online and library resources
    2. campus-wide use of research software
    3. writing retreats
    4. departmental support for research

If these areas are of interest to you in supporting online doctoral students, I encourage you to take a look at our article. It’s open access, so please enjoy!

Book Review: Ecologies of faith in a digital age: Spiritual growth through online education

Recently I had a book review published with the Journal of Research on Christian Education. You can read the full review through your library.

Ecologies of Faith in a Digital Age: Spiritual Growth through Online Education by [Lowe, Stephen D., Lowe, Mary E.]

The book is available through Amazon as a Kindle version or paperback.

I highly recommend that you read the book, particularly if you’re involved in faith-based online education. The book sparked some interesting questions to think about:

  1. What are some examples in the Bible of using nature/creation as an illustration for spiritual growth?
  2. What lessons can we extract from those illustrations in the Bible of what a digital environment should be like in order to support spiritual growth?
  3. What are some ways to do the “one another” phrases from Paul’s writings – together online? i.e. “build up one another”, “comfort one another” as as few examples.

Here’s a snippet of my book review to inspire you:

Lowe and Lowe argue that the natural is not just a metaphor for the spiritual; that Scripture does not support Plato’s division between the natural and the spiritual. God’s methods of gardening are evident both in the natural world and in our spiritual growth and are “identical” between them (p. 41). The proper spiritual ecology will provide the “requisite spiritual nutrients” for growth (p. 48) and several chapters go in depth exploring kingdom growth as described in the Bible using plant ecology and the human body ecosystem (Paul). As Christians, we are expected to “mutually assist each other” (p. 66) even in digital ecologies. As I have personally experienced, and heard others describe, the work of the Holy Spirit connects believers across distance (p. 73). As Lowe and Lowe argue, critics of online community seem to “contradict orthodox Christian theology” regarding the “communion believers enjoy with Christ through the Spirit” (p. 73) by suggesting that community cannot happen online. Lowe and Lowe make the Scriptural case that in fact, Biblical spiritual growth can happen at a distance through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Lim, J. (2019). Book review: Ecologies of faith in a digital age: Spiritual growth through online education. Journal of Research on Christian Education, 28(1), 84-87, doi: 10.1080/10656219.2019.1593009

Your Turn

  • What challenges do you face in faith-based online learning?
  • What do you think we can learn from Paul, as one of the first distance missionaries (think of all his letters as distance education)?
  • What have we learned from research on online communities that connects to spiritual growth online?

Feel free to comment!

Book Published: Adventist Online Education: Realizing the Potential

book cover

I’m excited to announce the publication of a new book! Adventist Online Education: Realizing the Potential. It is a collection of research papers presented at the 2017 Adventist Online Learning Conference, edited by yours truly and Anthony Williams.

I encourage you to check out the book. Hopefully you will find it useful in your online learning work. Below you can find the description from the back of the book.

This collection of research by Adventist online educators will be useful to many online educators, including those interested in the intersection of faith and online learning, and online learning in faith communities. This research spans four major areas of online delivery:

(1) the pursuit of Adventist distinctiveness and the Adventist experience within online delivery, applicable to all those considering the connection between the mission of an institution and it’s online delivery;
(2) the empowering and enabling of students, staff, and faculty for advising, monitoring, and resourcing quality online experiences;
(3) the power of technology to support collaboration among our institutions, our faculty, our teams; and
(4) the supports, training, and methods needed for the effectiveness of online delivery.

If you are an administrator, online program director, or teach in an online program, this book will serve as a professional resource that can help ensure that programs offered effectively meet the needs of students while supporting and extending the school’s mission. 

Setting Your Own Pace and Sequence: Self-Direction in Digital Learning

This blog post accompanies my presentation, Setting Your Own Pace and Sequence: Self-Direction in Digital Learning for National Conference of the United States Distance Learning Association.

PowerPoint presentation: Setting Your Own Pace and Sequence

Description: Self-paced learning isn’t dead! Learn the surprising results of research showing how students are more successful when at least one assignment is done out of the intended sequence. Explore modes of flexible self-directed learning in informal and formal education. Learn and share strategies for student success.

My Research

  • Lim, J. (2016). Predicting successful completion using student delay indicators in undergraduate self-paced online courses. Distance Education, 37(3) , 317-332. doi:10.1080/01587919.2016.1233050
  • Lim, J. (2016). The relationship between successful completion and sequential movement in self-paced distance courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(1). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2167

Resources

Bibliography

  • Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 4(2). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/149/230
  • Delfino, M., Dettori, G., & Persico, D. (2010). An online course fostering self-regulation of trainee teachers. Psicothema22(2).
  • Lin Hsiao, J. W. D. (1998). The impact of reflective facilitation on middle school students’ self-regulated learning and their academic achievement in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. (Ph.D.), The University of Texas at Austin, United States — Texas. ProQuest Digital Dissertation database.
  • Mager, R. F., & Clark, C. (1963). Explorations in student-controlled instruction. Psychological Reports, 13(1), 71-76.
  • Panadero, E. (2017). A review of self-regulated learning: Six models and four directions for research. Frontiers in Psychology8, 422. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00422
  • Perna, L. W., Ruby, A., Boruch, R. F., Wang, N., Scull, J., Ahmad, S., & Evans, C. (2014). Moving through MOOCs: Understanding the progression of users in massive open online courses. Educational Researcher, 43(9), 421-432. doi:10.3102/0013189×14562423
  • Roe, K. V., Case, H. W., & Roe, A. (1962). Scrambled versus ordered sequence in autoinstructional programs. Journal of Educational Psychology, 53(2), 101-104. doi:10.1037/h0047185
  • Schraw, G., Crippen, K., & Hartley, K. (2006). Promoting self-regulation in science education: Metacognition as part of a broader perspective on learning. Research in Science Education, 36, 111-139. Retrieved from  doi:10.1007/s11165-005-3917-8

Live Online Sessions: Designing for Interest and Interactivity

This blog post accompanies my presentation, Live Online Sessions: Designing for Interest and Interactivity for the Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference.

PowerPoint presentation: Live Online Sessions

Resources

Shared in the order presented.

Jazz Up Student Engagement in Your Online Courses

This blog post accompanies my session, Jazz Up Student Engagement in Your Online Courses, presented at the 2018 Nebraska Distance Learning Association Conference.

PPT

 

 

Note that I have deliberately not included tons of sites and ideas because I wanted this to be simple and not too overwhelming. To pique interest.

Learn about Designing Significant Learning Experiences

Learning How to Learn

Caring

Human Dimension

  • Blog or discuss ways in which one’s personal life affects and is affected by the subject via WordPress, VoiceThread, Weebly, Edublogs.
  • Be an ethical, responsible member of a team serving others; tools to support groups: GoogleDrive and similar tools to support collaborative learning.
  • Observation of real-life human experiences related to the content; report back to the class.

Integration

Application

  • Analyze and critique an issue or case study, and organize and present it via Padlet.
  • Apply the skills in context; document ability with video via YouTube, Videoscribe, FlipGrid, or Animoto.
  • Create a recommendation for a corporation in a real-world problem/situation, build and present on GoogleSites or PowToon.

Foundational Knowledge

  • Create and share/narrate a mental map or conceptual structure of major concepts. Bubbl.us or Mindly the app or MindMeister.
  • Create a presentation: Explain & predict concepts and ideas. i.e. Prezi
  • Have students access and interact with primary sources of content – i.e. TedEd, Library of Congress, and more.

Online Tools

Fink Taxonomy and Tools v2 PDF Handout – Permission granted to reprint freely. Please share any adaptations.

What would you add? Feel free to comment and share. 

 

Building Your Online Learning Strategy

This post accompanies my workshop, Building Your Online Learning Strategy, for the Adventist University of Africa, January 16, 2018.

PPT: AUA Online Strategy Presentation

Standards

Faculty Support

Student Services

A few references

 

Intersubjectivity and Discussion Characteristics in Online Courses

Just a quick notice of a new article published:

Lim, J., Hall, B., Jeong, A., & Freed, S. (2017). Intersubjectivity and discussion characteristics in online courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education. 18(1). 29-44.

Abstract

This study explores the combination of course structure, prompt type, and characteristics of discussion posts and their relationships with intersubjectivity. A content analysis measured the intersubjectivity of peer responses by analyzing the interaction analysis model (IAM) phase of each post and comparing with the IAM phase of the previous post. Results found that the type of discussion activity generated significant differences in levels of intersubjectivity. Some characteristics of the posts created higher IAM scores, providing clues for the emergence of intersubjectivity. Instructors desiring higher levels of intersubjectivity in discussion forums should consider the course structure and prompt type.

And a little snippet from the conclusion:

This study found the dialogue format generated significant intersubjectivity and role play was effective in creating dissonance. Intersubjectivity was more likely to emerge in the second week of the discussion forum. Discussion prompts beginning with the Understanding level of Bloom’s taxonomy, previous posts with fewer words, and peer responses addressing multiple classmates each generated higher levels of intersubjectivity.

Find it in your library, and let us know what you think! Feedback and comments are welcome!

The Community of Inquiry Framework in Practice

I’m attending the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning 2017 in Toronto, Canada and blogging the sessions I’m attending.

This collection of sessions are about the Community of Inquiry model.

Social Presence in Two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

by Matthew Stranach, University of Calgary

He used the case study methodology. He looked at courses as a whole. The courses aligned with the xMOOC format (proprietary learning software, behaviorist / cognitivist approaches to teaching and learning).

Participants self-reported via the COI instrument.

Key findings included: social presence was in both courses; personal interest was why people participated in the MOOCs – they weren’t really there for academic or professional reasons; similar levels of teaching and cognitive presence in the courses; but social presence was the last experienced. Participants didn’t generally view themselves as part of a learning community. Social presence did help participants further individual learning goals.

These findings are consistent with the COI literature. Social presence played a supporting role to cognitive presence.

Comment that synchronous elements and social media are areas that can contribute to the MOOC format.

The Importance of Teacher Presence in Creating an Invitational Educational Environment

Presenter(s): Margaret Edwards and Beth Perry – both from Athabasca University

She’s been using the COI model since 1999 in online programs she works with at Athabasca.

This research is around characteristics of exemplary online educators, and they’ve looked at it online 10 years ago, again, as well as in face to face classes previous to the 1990s.

Methodology: students wrote narratives regarding teachers that they considered exemplary.

Exemplary online educators:

  • Encourage interaction
  • Establish social presence
  • Cultivate a sense of community in educational environments
  • Ensure teacher presence – teacher intentionally instead of teaching

Specific ways teacher presence was created:

  • students know there is an engaged, enthusiastic, interested, credible instructor
  • participating in the discussion, addressing issues, answering questions, triggering debate, providing leadership
  • presence of humor (not a comic, but a sense of light-heartedness)
    • invitational language – you are invited to share your thoughts; vs. you are required to write two posts
  • presence of humanity
    • authenticity of the teacher; that you’re not perfect; that there’s a humanness to you; telling stories, being real when you answer, leave the ums and the ahs in your audio/video
  • presence of expertise
    • not a “look at me the expert”, but instead seeing the knowledge and experience that we have as educators as a gift we can give to students

Instructional designers think a lot about learning strategies …. but, as the teacher, you are an instructional strategy!

My favorite quote of the student comments she shared at the end:

Good online teachers play ball. When you are on an online student you toss the ball and you hope there is someone out there who will catch the ball and toss it back. My best teachers return the toss and make me jump to catch it.

TEL MOOC Participant Response to the Community of Inquiry Theoretical Framework

Presenter(s): Martha Cleveland-InnesSarah Gauvreau
Co-Author(s): Nathaniel Ostashewski (Athabasca University), Sanjaya Mishra (Commonwealth of Learning), Gloria Richardson (Confederation College)

Technology Enabled Learning MOOC

This MOOC was an iMOOC – a course based on inquiry learning, as defined by the community of inquiry. Athabasca was testing this format.

The course covered TEL frameworks, integrating technology, OER, creating TEL lessons, review and summary, and participants created an OER resource.

The report today is about the participant response to it.

The design and organization needed the right blend of direct instruction and facilitation – which is part of the teaching presence definition.

The videos were recorded in studios; the videos were less than 5 minutes; they focused on the material and the learning process. It was more than a lecture of the material.

They offered two types of facilitation:

  • The inspirer – a video offered at the beginning of each week that inspired them to work with each other; and summarized each week with another video; they were the inspirer and motivator; they occasionally posted
  • One facilitator for each of the 500 students; they were troubleshooting; they reminded the students of what the other students were doing; for the COI model, students need to learn from each other; the facilitators job was to smooth the learning and connect participants to each other

Results of the study, looking at participant response to COI in the TEL MOOC, included the positive benefits of the COI model.

Fostering Social Presence on Virtual Learning Teams at Royal Roads University

Presenter(s): Elizabeth Childs; Author(s): Jennifer Stone (Royal Roads University)

Jennifer did the research and Elizabeth is reporting on it. This was action research; some items have been incorporated into the university practice from her research.

The majority of their Masters programs are online or blended with short intensives on campus.

She looked at faculty, students, adjuncts, staff, representatives from the teaching and learning group; across three specific Masters programs.

The total n was 45, which was small but fit the institution well.

Mixed method approach; interrater reliability; interviews etc.

Study findings and themes:

  • Understanding of social presence: 100% found the value of social presence; 93% foudn it ciritcal to the level of connection
  • Roles and responsibilities: 86% believed that it was the role of the instructor to initiate and maintain social presence
  • Intentional learning design: Clearly communicated rubrics, assessments, virtual team assignment design
  • Technology and virtual space: Limitations within the LMS for cultivating what the expectation was for social presence

There were 60 different understandings of what social presence was. Whose job is it to ensure the social presence? Where do the roles and responsibilities fall? Whose job is it to ensure that social presence is designed into the course? Is the current technology enabling us to embrace fully the social presence we want?

Her recommendations were to:

  • Determine an operational definition of social presence and decide to what extent the programs wish to prioritize it
  • Consider professional development for instructors on how to develop and role model social presence
  • Incorporate course design that supports the intentional development of social presence and interpersonal relationship building
  • Consider the efficacy of the current learning management systems and how they support the development of social presence

Based on this action research, the institution is updating their learning and teaching model to incorporate social presence. What an awesome result to a student’s research!

Discussion

After the presentations, then discussion! And sharing of resources:

People really want to talk to real people – humanity, expertise, authenticity.

Interesting that some students don’t want learning community. The presenters commented that students are at different stages in their life, different levels of agency. They may need the engagement, and someone are just wanting to get in and get out to get the required work done.

Cognitive engagement can look like social presence, but it’s on the academic side. The important thing is to offer multiple opportunities for students to have choice. The concept of choice came up also in giving students places for social presence, with and without marks.

The Future of Learning Management Systems – Development, Innovation and Change

I’m attending the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning 2017 in Toronto, Canada and blogging the sessions I’m attending.

Phil Hill presenting. His slides are online here:

 

Phil commenting on the hype of MOOCs, the hype of higher ed going away entirely, the lack of business models for educational technology start ups. He recommends healthy skepticism on new trends such as adaptive learning.

Phil suggests that ed tech people have been children happily playing in the corner, but now the children are loose in the house. Funny metaphor – interesting how twice this morning I’ve heard that ed tech people just talk to each other (playing in the corner).

Online Students Survey by LearningHouse – good to understand student views of online learning.

Students want their own pace, but also instantaneous feedback. – PPIC, Successful Online Courses in California’s Community Colleges report

A problem-based learning method used in Habitable Worlds, a science course for non-science majors by Arizona State University – an example of the new direction of online learning that we need to consider. Focused on the big concepts, not the details. It’s multidisciplinary too – physics, sociology, etc. Students said, it was the best course I’ve ever taken. This course was built on Piazza – a wiki based discussion space.

Phil’s question – how can the LMS support this kind of course. This course was not in an LMS, because the standard LMS could not support what they wanted to do.

Some areas to consider: competency-based, gamification, adaptative, personalized learning. These are areas where people are trying to innovate in LMSes.

Having an LMS is like having a minivan – you’re not proud of it, but you have it. You buy it because you need it – it solves a particular job. A metaphor goes a long way to explaining a point!

A course management system is a better description – how do you take a course and how do you manage it? Learners are a list of people inside the course. They aren’t really “learning” management systems. The LMS isn’t really thinking about the learner outside the course or across the courses.

Phil has a slide with both LMSes and free consumer tools (i.e. blogger, wordpress, ning, pinterest, etc.). Interesting that we have both – faculty want these in the LMS or we expect the LMS to be easy to use like the cool tools. 

Some info on LMSes: Moodle has the largest installed base; Canvas is currently the fastest growing and the dominant for new implementation. Interesting comments that the competency based attempts aren’t very successful, not enough market. 

Cloud hosting or externally hosting is a huge new trend. A big issue – LMS going down on exam week or the first week of school. That is partly what’s driving the move to the cloud – to be able to scale up resources as needed. Security concerns also drive hosting decisions.

In North America, it appears that open source LMSes – Moodle and Sakai – installed base peaked about 2013, and is going down. Also that open source for open source’s sake is no longer such an issue.

Phil talks about the tension – what should be in the LMS vs. “cool tools” but then should those be inside the LMS? Initiatlly LMSes were a walled garden: forum, assignments, announcements, syllabus, etc. Nothing in or out. Over time though, there are consumer tools faculty and students want to use – blogging, social networking as two examples. Initial reaction by the LMSes was to give you a terrible version of it inside the garden. Lots of laughs from the audience. Feature bloat. Too many tools crowded in that were poor imitations of the outside. The new trend is LTI integration – we don’t have to have all activity. The LMS provides the basics, and hooks in other tools via LTI to connect to other items.

Now we think, the LMS is central; but it should enable me to use third party tools, but without being too confusing for students or too many logins!

Other tools coming to integrate are XAPI and Caliper – so in the future – we should have interoperability standards where we toss out the imitation tools from the LMS, and integrate easily with third party applications. Most competency based systems though are sticking with the walled garden idea.

Phil thinks that Canvas is pushing the competition – to reduce feature bloat and get a cleaner design.

Corporate learning is doing better with integrating tools; in the education market the integration of tools is more basic and somewhat clunky. The education market could learn from corporate learning.

Re mobile: The LMSes are moving their slowly. Offline access and responsive design for mobile are two major areas they are working on. It’s just slow.

Re learning and data analytics – the movement is more towards – we want the data, but we aren’t as interested in your graphs and learning analytics. Given our work in Intelliboard, I see this. What the data means depends on course and institution policies – and it’s better for the institution to be building up the meaning around the data.

Great session to get an update on what’s happening with LMSes. The evidence seems clear that LMSes are not dead nor dying.