Shaping the Future with Online Learning
New ideas and discussions about the challenges of today and in the future for online education were the focus of last week’s conference on "Shaping the Future: New Possibilities for Online Learning." The one-day event, presented by Post University (Conn.) and sponsored by Blackboard and Pearson Learning Solutions, took place at The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn.
In a session on closing the cyber gap in eLearning to increase motivation, Post’s director of instructional design, Mark P. Fazioli, discussed how instructors could use elements of immediacy and social presence to increase motivation for those taking online courses. People work harder to understand material when they feel they’re in a conversation rather than simply receivers of information, argued.
Fazioli suggested using avatars or photos (for both the instructor and students), discussion threads, video, and audio. With video lectures and clips, instructors can also create immediacy by using words such as “we” and “you” to keep it conversational. And, he stressed, instructors should be conscious of hitting both visual and verbal modalities, such as by having a picture of the instructor nearby when there’s a page of text of including audio notes.
He described the ARCS model of motivating students: Attention (something that students can do or see immediately upon logging on), Relevance (to explain why students need to learn a particular concept, Confidence (building it), and Satisfaction (such as through testing their knowledge).
In another session on the explosion of mobile learning, presenters from Blackboard and Post shared data from Educause that shows how colleges and universities are still in the beginning stages of determining how mobile devices can be used for learning. When asked about having a strategic plan in place related to mobile devices in learning, only 30 percent said they had one. Nearly half do not have one started, and 30 percent are just preparing one now. Yet large numbers of students in online courses are likely using mobile devices to access course material. Add the fact that many of them could well be doing so while at work, and this question is left: Are they actually learning anything?
The presenters left the audience with one more stat to ponder: within one year (also according to Educause research), 45 percent of U.S. higher ed students will own and access the internet from a handheld device. Schools such as Medical College of Georgia have learned that if you promote an iPhone app related to their courses, lots of non-students access it as well as students.
In the session “What Can Higher Education Learn from Hollywood?”, presenter Frank Mulgrew, president of Post University Online, argued that higher education course design has traditionally been focused on the what and the who, not on the how. He suggested that the audience ponder how well Hollywood knows how to grab someone’s attention. To make his point, he asked a few people to name their favorite professor from college. Then he would ask them to explain what they learned in week four of the course. Yet, ask someone to talk about his or her favorite movie, and details come pouring out about specific scenes.
Mulgrew’s concern: “We are failing huge numbers of students at the best institutions in the country,” This is in part because there’s a disconnect between things educators love about what they do compared to what they should be teaching students. At non-research institutions, the primary purpose is the betterment of the student, and individual faculty may or may not be focused on that. “It’s about them, not the student,” he said.
He asked the attendees to think about what Hollywood is good at -- from grabbing attention to creating narratives -- and consider what ideas can be applied to online teaching. Then, he suggested this: “If you have one objective [in a course] and you doggedly engage students in that objective, we will have a better student coming out.”
Ed Klonoski, president of Charter Oak State College (Conn.) and introduced as “the father of distance education in Connecticut,” gave the closing talk on current trends in online education. He referred to the 70 percent growth rate in online education as second only to the growth rate in student debt.
With for-profit growth rates of 25 percent while the rest of higher ed is trying to hang on, particularly with declining numbers of 18 to 24 year old cohorts, he stressed the importance of reaching underserved adult students.
He also noted some examples of administrators being lax about adopting new technologies. After making a household technology purchase online with the help of a Dell representative who began chatting with him to help along the order, Klonoski asked his admissions department if they were doing online chats. They were. When? he asked. “Whenever someone is free” was the reply.
“Not good enough!” he said to the audience.
No, it’s not. But as the attendance at this conference showed, there are lots of engaged instructors and administrators looking for new ways to innovate -- both for the sake of the students and the institutions themselves.
In a session on closing the cyber gap in eLearning to increase motivation, Post’s director of instructional design, Mark P. Fazioli, discussed how instructors could use elements of immediacy and social presence to increase motivation for those taking online courses. People work harder to understand material when they feel they’re in a conversation rather than simply receivers of information, argued.
Fazioli suggested using avatars or photos (for both the instructor and students), discussion threads, video, and audio. With video lectures and clips, instructors can also create immediacy by using words such as “we” and “you” to keep it conversational. And, he stressed, instructors should be conscious of hitting both visual and verbal modalities, such as by having a picture of the instructor nearby when there’s a page of text of including audio notes.
He described the ARCS model of motivating students: Attention (something that students can do or see immediately upon logging on), Relevance (to explain why students need to learn a particular concept, Confidence (building it), and Satisfaction (such as through testing their knowledge).
In another session on the explosion of mobile learning, presenters from Blackboard and Post shared data from Educause that shows how colleges and universities are still in the beginning stages of determining how mobile devices can be used for learning. When asked about having a strategic plan in place related to mobile devices in learning, only 30 percent said they had one. Nearly half do not have one started, and 30 percent are just preparing one now. Yet large numbers of students in online courses are likely using mobile devices to access course material. Add the fact that many of them could well be doing so while at work, and this question is left: Are they actually learning anything?
The presenters left the audience with one more stat to ponder: within one year (also according to Educause research), 45 percent of U.S. higher ed students will own and access the internet from a handheld device. Schools such as Medical College of Georgia have learned that if you promote an iPhone app related to their courses, lots of non-students access it as well as students.
In the session “What Can Higher Education Learn from Hollywood?”, presenter Frank Mulgrew, president of Post University Online, argued that higher education course design has traditionally been focused on the what and the who, not on the how. He suggested that the audience ponder how well Hollywood knows how to grab someone’s attention. To make his point, he asked a few people to name their favorite professor from college. Then he would ask them to explain what they learned in week four of the course. Yet, ask someone to talk about his or her favorite movie, and details come pouring out about specific scenes.
Mulgrew’s concern: “We are failing huge numbers of students at the best institutions in the country,” This is in part because there’s a disconnect between things educators love about what they do compared to what they should be teaching students. At non-research institutions, the primary purpose is the betterment of the student, and individual faculty may or may not be focused on that. “It’s about them, not the student,” he said.
He asked the attendees to think about what Hollywood is good at -- from grabbing attention to creating narratives -- and consider what ideas can be applied to online teaching. Then, he suggested this: “If you have one objective [in a course] and you doggedly engage students in that objective, we will have a better student coming out.”
Ed Klonoski, president of Charter Oak State College (Conn.) and introduced as “the father of distance education in Connecticut,” gave the closing talk on current trends in online education. He referred to the 70 percent growth rate in online education as second only to the growth rate in student debt.
With for-profit growth rates of 25 percent while the rest of higher ed is trying to hang on, particularly with declining numbers of 18 to 24 year old cohorts, he stressed the importance of reaching underserved adult students.
He also noted some examples of administrators being lax about adopting new technologies. After making a household technology purchase online with the help of a Dell representative who began chatting with him to help along the order, Klonoski asked his admissions department if they were doing online chats. They were. When? he asked. “Whenever someone is free” was the reply.
“Not good enough!” he said to the audience.
No, it’s not. But as the attendance at this conference showed, there are lots of engaged instructors and administrators looking for new ways to innovate -- both for the sake of the students and the institutions themselves.
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