Searching for "online teaching"
Survey: Emergency Move Online Forced More than Half of Faculty to Learn New Teaching Methods
Rhea Kelly 04/22/20
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/04/22/survey-emergency-move-online-forced-more-than-half-of-faculty-to-learn-new-teaching-methods.aspx
56 percent of faculty who moved courses online were using teaching methods they had never used before. That’s according to “Digital Learning Pulse Survey: Immediate Priorities,” a study conducted by Bay View Analytics
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Free and Discounted Ed Tech Tools for Online Learning During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Dian Schaffhauser 03/16/20
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/03/16/free-and-discounted-ed-tech-tools-for-online-learning-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic.aspx
here some examples from a long list of free services:
Addigy, a cloud-based Apple device management platform, has announced free 60-day access for colleges and universities. The program helps organizations deploy, manage, and track new and existing Apple devices from a single console; automate IT tasks and implement IT policies related to deploying software, updating security settings, running scripts, managing groups of users, and distributing and updating software; and troubleshoot problems for users remotely and in real-time. https://addigy.com/covid-19-addigy-60/?utm_content=covid-19-addigy-60
Arizona State University’s EdPlus is working with Complexly’s Crash Course on a series of entry-level course videos, starting with English composition. (Complexly and Crash Course are an initiative of the Green brothers, hosts of a popular vlog and best-selling fiction.) The new content in “Study Hall,” won’t offer credit or replace any degree programs, but rather will serve as a supplement for high school or college learners. Each subject will be the focus of about 15 videos 15 minutes long, covering major points in the topic. Those are being hosted on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNrrxHpJhC8mNXjrAL3Ey1Q6iI35cymzl
Babbel is offering three months of free language learning to U.S. students through mid-June 2020 in any of its languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian, and English. https://welcome.babbel.com/en/student-discount/
Gale is offering educators and librarians free access to digital content and resources to enhance instruction and learning. Resources include: interdisciplinary, curriculum-aligned resources to support online learning; live and on-demand training materials; e-books on virtual learning; and more. https://www.gale.com/covid19support.
Through July 1, Google is allowing G Suite for Education customers to use the Hangouts Meet premium functionality for free. People can host virtual meetings with up to 250 people and live streams with up to 100,000 viewers. Additionally, they’ll be able to save recordings of their meetings to Google Drive. https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9760270?hl=en
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more on online teaching in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+teaching
https://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=70701
Online learning is planned, deliberate and thoughtful in the sense that online courses often take months or even years to develop, not days or weeks.
Online learning is far more than online courses and programs. It always has been. While inside the institution it has been difficult to imagine learning as anything other than courses and programs, outside the institution, over the last three or four decades, online learning has been something very different.
the wider internet to introduce educators to things like learning communities, blogs, social software, MOOCs, personal learning environments, and most recently, decentralized technology.
Online learning should be fast, fun, crazy, unplanned, and inspirational. It should be provided by people who are more like DJs than television producers. It should move and swim, be ad hoc and on the fly. I wish educators could get out of their classroom mindsets and actually go out and look at how the rest of the world is doing online learning. Watch a dance craze spread through TikTok, follow through-hikers on YouTube, organize a community in a Facebook group, discuss economic policy in Slack. All of that is online learning – and (resolutely) not the carefully planned courses that are over-engineered, over-produced, over-priced and over-wrought.
I quite agree with what Jim Groom said, that this is not “the time for wild experimentation.” I also recognize that a lot of what is happening today is an emergency response to an unprecedented situation. As Clint Lalonde says, “What is happening right now at many institutions as they are scrambling is grasping at life preservers trying to stay afloat
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https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2020/04/01/emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning/
Erika Sanborne on April 10, 2020
Are you going to teach synchronously or asynchronously? What’s better for your students? What’s better for you?
in the synchronous online classroom you can readily help students remember why they registered for your course to begin with, which can be very grounding.
The most popular reason for choosing this option for your teaching is flexibility regarding when work is done. Asynchronous classes have pedagogical benefits too. They allow students to literally “pause” your class when they are confused or need a break, something only possible in their dreams for in-person and synchronous online classes, which go at a pace not set by them at all. Also, the technology requirements to take in an asynchronous class are lower, and this is therefore more accessible to more students.
An example of “doing both”
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How to Reconnect With Students and Strengthen Your Remote Course
Beth McMurtrie APRIL 09, 2020
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Reconnect-With-Students/248461
how to structure a supportive learning environment, and how that might apply to an emergency situation such as this, where many students struggle to stay focused, or find it difficult to learn with unfamiliar systems and technologies.
- Normalize the abnormal.
- Create an online presence.
- Explain, and then explain some more.
- Take advantage of the technology.
- Foster community.
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more on synchronous vs asynchronous in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=synchronous
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinelearningcollective/permalink/557378281559541/
A Facebook group thread:
Qualitative researchers: Does anyone have any general pointers on conducting qualitative work in this environment other than doing interviews or focus groups over Zoom? Example: I (normally) do a lot of participant observation work. Where and how will I do this or do it as well as I have done it?
At this moment, my focus is all on teaching. But if this situation becomes more prolonged, I need to figure out how to keep the research going too.
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Qualitative Data Analysis Tools
https://libguides.mit.edu/anthro/qda
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more on qualitative research in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=qualitative+research
6 Steps to Prepare for an Online Fall Semester
https://www.chronicle.com/article/6-Steps-to-Prepare-for-an/248463
John Villasenor APRIL 08, 2020
Here are some steps colleges should take to help prepare for fall 2020 and beyond:
- Survey students now to find out how many would decline to participate in an online-only fall 2020 academic term.
- Rethink large lecture courses if fall instruction is online.
- Leverage teaching resources and expertise across colleges.
- Plan for a multiyear impact.
- Be transparent and engage the student and family communities.
- When it comes to equity, walk the walk.
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more on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning
https://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/does-it-work
One of the most frequently and persistently asked questions about online education is “does it work” or “is it effective.”
The question is meaningless because there cannot be any definitive answer for a number of reasons.
First, online education (and its variants such a online instruction, online teaching, distance education and distance learning) is a big umbrella that covers a wide array of different practices, which vary a great deal in terms of quality. Comparing the effectiveness of online education with face-to-face education has been the most common research approach to examine the effectiveness of online education. And the answer has been, for a long time, that there is no significant difference between the two. This answer, however, does not mean online is effective or not, it simply means there are plenty of effective and ineffective programs in both online and face-to-face education. In other words, the within variation is larger than the between variation.
Second, another reason that there cannot be a definitive answer to this question is the diversity of stakeholders in online education.
And unfortunately what works for one stakeholder may not work for the others.
Third, even within the same program and with only students as the stakeholder, there cannot be a definitive answer because no program can possibly have the same effects on all students equally.
Fourth, yet another reason that the question cannot have a definitive answer is the multiplicity of outcomes. Education outcomes include more than what has been typically measured by grades or tests.
Fifth, the rapid changes in technology that can be used to deliver online education add to the elusiveness of a definitive answer to the question. While pedagogy, design, and human actors certainly paly a significant role in the experiences of online education, so does technology.
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more on online education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+education
https://www.mapping-access.com/blog-1/2020/3/10/accessible-teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19
ONLINE TEACHING AND ACCESSIBILITY
IF YOUR COURSE IS LECTURE-BASED… (see link the above for more details)
IF YOUR COURSE IS DISCUSSION-BASED…
(see link the above for more details)
IF YOUR COURSE ASSIGNS TESTS, QUIZZES, AND PAPERS…
(see link the above for more details)
IF YOUR COURSE ASSIGNS PROJECTS…
(see link the above for more details)
IF YOUR COURSE ASSIGNS PRESENTATIONS…
(see link the above for more details)
AS YOU PREPARE FOR ONLINE TEACHING:
(see link the above for more details)
USE A QUESTIONNAIRE TO CHECK IN WITH STUDENTS
SAMPLE QUESTIONS:
CHECKING IN ABOUT NEW ACCESSIBILITY NEEDS
CHECK IN ABOUT INTERNET ACCESS AND TECH AVAILABILITY
CHECK IN ABOUT WELL-BEING AND BASIC NEEDS
CONDUCT A SYLLABUS HACK-A-THON OR DESIGN CHARRETTE
BUILD SOLIDARITY, MUTUAL AID, AND FEELINGS OF CONNECTION
SUPPORT DISABILITY JUSTICE
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more on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-06-12-the-number-of-students-taking-in-online-courses-is-quickly-rising-but-perceptions-are-changing-slowly
The Babson Survey Research Group, an organization that tracks online enrollment, notes that between 2012 and 2016 the percent of online enrollment in universities increased 17.2 percent while overall enrollment decreased. But that expansion doesn’t necessarily correlate with how the public perceives the quality of online courses, historically questioned for its lack of rigor and limited measurable learning gains.
A Gallup poll conducted back in 2015, found that 46 percent of Americans “strongly agree” or “agree” that online colleges and universities offer a high-quality education—up 30 percent from when the poll was conducted in 2011.
However, researchers caveat these findings, noting that these perception changes happen within particular pockets and are sometimes the result of strategic practices, such as universities not listing the medium of learning on student transcripts.
The last academic leader perception survey released by the Babson Research Group was in 2016.
“We’ve had more and more of the group in the middle that said, ‘I’m not sure’ move into a pro online learning stance,” says Seaman, speaking of the academic leaders he surveyed in the past. “The negative group [those who viewed online learning negatively] had not wavered at all. The positive group did not waiver at all, but we had a steady migration flow of academic leaders in the middle.”
Lowenthal has also researched student perceptions of online learning in the past, finding that learners tend to give such courses more negative evaluations than in-person courses. He says that the findings may represent the lack of experience some educators have teaching in online classrooms. He expects that to change over time, noting that good teachers in person will eventually become good teachers online.
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more on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning
Online Learning’s ‘Greatest Hits’
Robert Ubell (Columnist) Feb 20, 2019
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-02-20-online-learning-s-greatest-hits
dean of web-based distance learning
Learning Management Systems
Neck and neck for the top spot in the LMS academic vendor race are Blackboard—the early entry and once-dominant player—and coming-up quickly from behind, the relatively new contender, Canvas, each serving about 6.5 million students . The LMS market today is valued at $9.2 billion.
Digital Authoring Systems
Faced with increasingly complex communication technologies—voice, video, multimedia, animation—university faculty, expert in their own disciplines, find themselves technically perplexed, largely unprepared to build digital courses.
instructional designers, long employed by industry, joined online academic teams, working closely with faculty to upload and integrate interactive and engaging content.
nstructional designers, as part of their skillset, turned to digital authoring systems, software introduced to stimulate engagement, encouraging virtual students to interface actively with digital materials, often by tapping at a keyboard or touching the screen as in a video game. Most authoring software also integrates assessment tools, testing learning outcomes.
With authoring software, instructional designers can steer online students through a mixtape of digital content—videos, graphs, weblinks, PDFs, drag-and-drop activities, PowerPoint slides, quizzes, survey tools and so on. Some of the systems also offer video editing, recording and screen downloading options
Adaptive Learning
As with a pinwheel set in motion, insights from many disciplines—artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, educational psychology and data analytics—have come together to form a relatively new field known as learning science, propelling advances in a new personalized practice—adaptive learning.
MOOCs
Of the top providers, Coursera, the Wall Street-financed company that grew out of the Stanford breakthrough, is the champion with 37 million learners, followed by edX, an MIT-Harvard joint venture, with 18 million. Launched in 2013, XuetangX, the Chinese platform in third place, claims 18 million.
Former Yale President Rick Levin, who served as Coursera’s CEO for a few years, speaking by phone last week, was optimistic about the role MOOCs will play in the digital economy. “The biggest surprise,” Levin argued, “is how strongly MOOCs have been accepted in the corporate world to up-skill employees, especially as the workforce is being transformed by job displacement. It’s the right time for MOOCs to play a major role.”
In virtual education, pedagogy, not technology, drives the metamorphosis from absence to presence, illusion into reality. Skilled online instruction that introduces peer-to-peer learning, virtual teamwork and other pedagogical innovations stimulate active learning. Online learning is not just another edtech product, but an innovative teaching practice. It’s a mistake to think of digital education merely as a device you switch on and off like a garage door.
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more on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-04-19-online-courses-shouldn-t-use-remote-proctoring-tools-here-s-why
when the option between taking a course online or in-person is provided, studies show students are more likely to stay in college.
Since the early days of online instruction, the response of many new instructors has been to figure out how to transfer elements of their face-to-face class into the online format. In response, education technology companies have been quick to create products that attempt to replicate in-person teaching. Some examples include learning management systems, lecture capture tools, and early online meeting systems.
online proctoring systems, such as ProctorU or Proctorio, replicate a practice that isn’t effective in-person. Exams are only good for a few things: managing faculty workload and assessing low level skill and content knowledge. What they aren’t good at is demonstrating student learning or mastery of a topic. As authors Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt discuss in their book “Assessing the Online Learner: Resources and Strategies for Faculty,” online exams typically measure skills that require memorization of facts, whereas learning objectives are often written around one’s ability to create, evaluate and analyze course material.
Authentic assessments, rather than multiple choice or other online exams, is one alternative that could be explored. For example, in a chemistry course, students could make a video themselves doing a set problems and explain the process. This would allow instructors to better understand students’ thinking and identify areas that they are struggling in. Another example could be in a psychology course, where students could curate and evaluate a set of resources on a given topic to demonstrate their ability to find, and critically analyze online information. (see Bryan Alexander‘s take on video assignments here: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=bryan+alexander+video+assignments
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more on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning
more on proctoring in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=proctor