Author Archives: Tanya Walsh

Final Synthesis-ETEC565A-TWalsh

PRECIS OF FLIGHT PATH:

When I began ETEC-565A, my digital media skills were limited to Articulate Studio (a PowerPoint add-on), Desire-2-Learn (D2L), and some voice-editing software. In addition, I was only a novice mobile-device user. So, when I read the ISTE Standard – Teachers (2008) which encourages us to “model digital age work and learning” (p. 1), I recognized that was not fluent in the use of digital-age media. In fact, I often felt like I was playing catch-up in terms of educational technology, so I really hoped that ETEC-565A would introduce me to a wider range of learning software and how best to implement these within my online courses.

At present, I am helping to develop online courses that contain excellent information and give learners plenty of opportunity to actively engage with the content and reflect on their own practice. However, there is no occasion for them to collaborate with other learners. I was hoping to find new ways to introduce collaborative learning activities within our courses. In addition, I wanted to explore some networking tools that would assist healthcare providers to make connections with other professionals so that they could co-manage patients with oral-systemic or other interprofessional healthcare issues.

OVERALL ETEC-565A EXPERIENCE:

Overall, I found that ETEC-565A met its stated objectives, in that we learned to evaluate, select and use various learning technologies. It was helpful to have a venue in which to explore new software. I do hesitate to do so at work, because I can’t afford to start a project without knowing how much time it will take or what the results might be. So, I tend to go with the tried and true instead of taking time to explore other options.

The theoretical frameworks presented challenged us to make informed choices about technology. As is stated in the introduction to ETEC565A Module 1 (UBC, 2016, Module 1), it shouldn’t be a race to keep up with the latest software. Although I certainly feel behind the times in terms of the adoption of new technologies, the longer I am in the field of online learning, the more I realize the importance of doing a few things well and knowing why you are doing them rather than dabbling in many just for the sake of novelty. Always, we are taught, technology must support teaching and learning. Therefore, we must always be thinking about the learning outcomes (i.e., what will the student be expected to do after the course) and whether or not a particular technology will help them achieve those objectives. In other words, as Nel, Dreyer and Carstens (2010) state it, our primary criteria must always be learner-centered instruction. Only afterwards should we consider the secondary criteria of access, cost, and operability.

Learner-centred instruction is also a big theme in this program. I think that I am now starting to wrap my head around the concept. It has always made sense to me in terms of student’ learning style preferences. Therefore, including a variety of learning materials and activities from which to choose increases the likelihood of satisfying learners’ needs by enabling them to engage with the content at varying levels and depths (Bates, 2014, Ch. 8; Nel, Dreyer & Carstens, 2010). As an example, I really appreciated that in this course that we were always free to choose the topic of our projects (i.e., digital story, LMS content) so that the work would be meaningful to ourselves. I was actually thrilled that we could work on this individually and not in a group because otherwise, we’d have to compromise in terms of topic or the age group of the learners, which would prohibit any of us from using the assets later. Instead, we each devoted more hours to our projects but it was time well spent because most of us will now be able to reuse them in our educational practices.

In Module 2, we went on to study learning management systems (LMSs). This is technology of which I am familiar. I have used a computer-aided system of instruction; I have had a lot of training in D2L; and I have now taken six courses in Blackboard. It was wonderful to have the chance to build a course from scratch in a new platform. Coates, James and Baldwin (2005) talk about the drivers behind LMS adoption. I’m quite familiar with these, and at this point, I am not surprised that many students just see the LMS as “a general part of university infrastructure rather than as special tools which add value to their learning” (p. 28). I can’t imagine that there is a major university that does not subscribe to some LMS. At the University of Manitoba, most courses have, at the very least, a shell in D2L where instructors can post their syllabus, schedule and a few learning resources. I have always appreciated the benefit in terms of distance learning and access. I love the fact that you can direct students to one place to see many learning assets. Instead of being limited to showing them videos or other multimedia in class, they can be posted online and students can review them whenever they wish. It has certainly changed the dynamic of communication between students and teachers. Instead of saving questions for designated ‘office hours’, students can post questions whenever they think of them and everyone benefits. It really does give the impression that the instructor is more available and hence reduces that ‘transactional distance’ that Coats, James and Baldwin (2005) describe. This does require that teachers become accustomed to this new form of communication, but I think it puts them in better touch with their students.

However, I also know from first-hand experience that an LMS does not work well in all circumstances. I do not think I would go as far as Porto (2015) or Spiro (2014) who both doubt its future but it certainly isn’t an online learning panacea, and in many circumstances could easily be dwarfed by other platforms, such as social media or mobile instruction. For example, in my field of continuing education (CE), I am dealing with professionals who want to access CE whenever it is convenient for them. They have no time to register at an institute, wait for a student number and university email in order to access our LMS. Instead, they need a system that is as easy to access as a website or an app. If we don’t find a way to respond to this need, we will not get professionals taking our courses.

In the process of considering other web-based approaches to online learning, we were assigned to create an online delivery platform rubric. This was my least favourite part of the course. In retrospect, I appreciated doing some hands-on work with a framework such as Bates’ (2014, Ch. 8) SECTIONS, because doing this exercise solidified the framework in my mind. However, I didn’t like that we were creating a rubric for a non-specified platform. I think it would have been more practical to have a small group discussion around a real platform and use the SECTIONS model as a framework to rate it.

In Week 5, we moved on to mobile technologies. I have a psychology degree, and took a full course in motivation, so Ciampa’s (2013) work was a review. The idea that technology is intrinsically enjoyable and thus, motivating is debatable because of the novelty factor that existed when the study was created. In addition, the forces at work to motivate a class of grade 6 students are not the same as the ones motivating working professionals. The people who take our courses are motivated by their respective colleges to collect continuing education credits. We hope that the subject matter of our courses will peak their curiosity, but most of the time, we struggle with the fact that physicians and other professionals tend to take courses in things at which they already excel. To get them learning about topics that encompass their unperceived educational needs (such as the improvement of their communication skills), we often have to plug content inside a physiology course (such as new findings in heart disease). That said, a few ideas of Ciampa’s were helpful. It was good to be reminded that we can tap intrinsic motivation by challenging learners with goals that are personalized to their own learning needs and by giving them control over their learning by enabling them to independently access our resources. For my audience, the more control I can give them, the better because, often, professionals are either looking for specific nuggets of information that they can apply to their practice or need to go in depth into an area that they have only passing knowledge of. I need them to be able to navigate freely to get either benefit.

Module 3 began with communications tools and reviewed the key interactions for learning. Garrison, Anderson and Archer (1999) explored essential elements in educational transactions. Naturally, it is necessary to have (1) a teaching presence which is evidence both in the design and facilitations of a course. I am impressed with the amount of student-teacher interaction we get in the MET program in general, and in this course in particular. I appreciate that you are quick to reply to emails and very positive in your acceptance of where we are in our journey and what we may need to learn next. It must be a challenge as an instructor to come across as if you were running a course for the first time, to keep things fresh. Then, (2) a social presence is important so that participants can connect with each other as real people and develop personal connections. Finally, (3) a cognitive presence happens as participants use their communications to construct their own meaning of the course concepts. An outsider to elearning might find it difficult to believe that a community of inquiry can be established online. However, Garrison, Anderson and Archer (1999) remind us that unlike the fast pace of oral communication, text-based communication enables participants time to reflect and thus practice higher-order thinking skills. Also, since online discussions are mandatory, everyone’s point of view is represented, instead of just those of the assertive few, as is often the case in a face-to-face classroom setting.

Anderson (2008a), in “Towards a Theory of Online Learning”, also discusses crucial online interactions. For him, interaction is “the defining component of the educational process that occurs when students transform the inert information passed to them from another and construct it into knowledge with personal application and value” (p. 55). Anderson emphasizes the importance of creating a safe environment for learners to share their understandings and thus increase their sense of efficacy with the content and in the online environment. Each discipline has its own way of approaching their knowledge and since the Internet provides almost unlimited resources, it is important for an instructor to provide big-picture scaffolding. The community component allows others to support and challenge members of the group, and finally, the assessment component helps to motivate and provide feedback to both learners and instructors. It is recommended that learner to reflect on their own learning and acknowledges that often assessment activities are project and/or workplace based. Certainly this course has given me many opportunities to assess my own learning. At the end of the day though, the real test is whether I think I have made improvements to my course-design skills. We have been assessed many times within this course and within the program in general, but in reality, we are being testing in the outside world, by our employers, by our students, by our own standards. Certainly, being in the course is causing me to raise my own standards and expect more of online-learning in general.

Anderson only touched on the importance of assessment, but we then spent a whole week on the topic. I was very pleased to find such a detailed unit on the importance and effects of assessment. I am an educator by trade, but I was never trained as a teacher. So, this is an area where I have very little experience. It could be argued that it is the area where I need the least training because there is very little assessment in the CE world. Indeed, as I mentioned in my discussion post, in some instances it is actually prohibited. That said, I found assessment methods to be a hole in my education and I can easily say that this is the best learning unit I have had on assessment thus far.

I had to chuckle when Bates (2014, Appendix 1:A.8) in “Assessment of Learning” comments that “assessment always comes at the end, almost as afterthought” (p. 1). That is how I have often thought of it. You build a learning module and only at the end think, alright, now how am I going to test them on this content? It was good to be reminded of the purposes of assessment: (a) to extend students’ learning, (b) to assess competence in desired learning outcomes, and (c) to provide feedback on the effectiveness of teaching. This last part I am very familiar with because evaluation is a necessary part of every CE program. In fact, all colleges require that a formal course evaluation take place in order for a program to be accredited. However, we often fall into Bates’ ‘No Assessment’ category. At CE events, learning can be quite informal and in the end is all about self-assessment and responsibility for one’s own competency. In our courses, we use some computer-based multiple-choice questions but just as a form of self-assessment and to highlight for learners the most important areas of the content. Despite the fact that formal assessment plays a very small part in my practice, I do not think I will ever forget Bates’ comment that “Nothing is likely to drive student learning more than the method of assessment” (Bates, 2014, Appendix 1:A.8, p. 4), especially because it is so well supported by the next article we read by Gibbs and Simpson.

The article “Conditions under which Assessment Supports Students’ Learning” (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004-2005) was very interesting because many of its statements hit home. I have been a student on and off for a long time and the greatest influence on any course for me, was how I was going to be assessed. It never occurred to me that the learning that takes place when completing coursework has much greater long term effects than the involved in cramming for exams. However, I can say with confidence that I still remember details from my first-year Greek theatre recreation project back in 1987, but remember virtually nothing from what I crammed into my head for the final exam on theatre history in the same course. According to Gibbs and Simpson, the trick when designing assessments is to generate engagement with the learning tasks without generating piles of marking. Since they also noted that students pay more attention to feedback and use it to guide their learning when it is given without an assigned grade, I decided to get students to give each other feedback on their long-answer test questions. This works because I just wanted the participants to reflect on the issues raised by the content. I did not need to generate a mark for them.

In Week 9, we moved onto Module 4 on social media. I have been waiting for this module for a long time! Bates (2014, Ch. 7) describes the main difference between social media and computer-based learning as the amount of control social media offers to learners. As our Module 4 notes say, it “moves us beyond the notion of clicking (or consumption) towards a space where anyone can edit and create (contribute)” (UBC, 2016, Module 4, para.7). The overall effect is a blurring of the boundary between formal and informal education. This is important for professionals who are committed to being lifelong learners and never know when they may need access to a new piece of information.

The issue is that as learners are empowered to access resources and manage their own data there is less control over the content by an institution (Bates, 2014, Ch. 7). This is only a problem if the institution is trying to control how users access and apply course information. However, CE learners are only going to bother accessing information if it serves their own needs. So there really will come a point for us when we have to surrender the old controls and acknowledge the ‘democratization’ of the web. I very much want to see self-organising groups of learners using our learning assets beyond the institution’s boundaries. Our customers are independent learners. They are more than capable of judging the quality of resources on their own and deciding what is worthy of being passed onto members of their learning community.

I was hoping that during the course, I would be able to devote some more time to discovering how professionals network online. To that end, I attended a seminar on Twitter and another on eChart Manitoba (2016) which is a new system wherein heathcare professionals can access patient information. I also checked out the eReferral Service that I found on the Canadian Dental Association webpage (2016). However, it appears to be a service wherein general practitioner dentists can digitally refer their patients to dental specialists. In theory, and in time, it should also be a way that medical and dental professional can cross-refer and share patient information, but at this point it doesn’t appear that many are using it for that purpose. I was really hoping to find what Bates (2014, Ch. 8) calls ‘self-managed learning groups’ but in the end, the best I could do was include a Twitter feed in my course and hope to see that social media site grow as more and more people take our courses.

In Week 10, we discussed copyright and I really appreciated reviewing the “Fair Dealing in Practice” document (UBC, 2015). It helped me to understand the ways in which copyright-protected materials can be used with university LMS systems. I am personally frustrated because our courses do not, at present, fall under such a dealing. We are not-for-profit, but we publish hard copies of our courses through a commercial copy shop because the university print shop cannot give us the quality we need. In addition, our online courses are on a website not controlled by the university and so not protected under the fair dealing policy either. Consequently, I was truly appreciative of the ‘records safeguards’ on page 10 of the guide because it confirmed that I am properly documenting our ‘transactional permission’ for our copyright requests.

In Week 11, we moved onto multimedia. Let’s face it, multimedia is fun. However, it does not create itself and most of us, even though we may be creative, cannot build our media-creation skills overnight. So before we even start, it is certainly worthwhile to consider the most important question “What will this add to the learner experience?” If the answer is nothing, but I thought it might be fun, then go seek entertainment kick elsewhere because this is going to sap a lot more of your time than you think.

After having the experience of creating my own digital story, it no longer surprises me that so few MET instructors bother to create their own multimedia, though many use educational videos on the Net. Boyes, Dowie and Rumzan (2005) are quite right when they identify the primary costs of multimedia as software and development time. I do not know if I agree with their belief that students today expect media-intensive environments (p. 2). However I do believe that flash objects and other multimedia can offer a nice relief from text-based instruction (p. 4). For me, it is all about presenting, whenever possible a variety of learning formats, just as Siemens (2003) states: “Proper integration of media formats presents students with rich, varied learning” (p. 3).

Our last challenge was to imagine what the future of educational technology would look like. Bates (2014, Ch. 5) gives us a great description and history of the movement called Massive Open Online Learning, or MOOCs. I would love if in time, the movement developed to the point envisioned by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times (2013): “I can see a day soon where you’ll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world” (cited in Bates, 2014, Ch. 5, 5.2.1, para. 1).

According to Bates, some see MOOCs as a disruption to formal education while others claim it is nothing more than a digital version of educational broadcasting. Although I love the concept, I have yet to experience one, and I think it will be a while before they become the norm. At this point, it is still very important, in most fields, to have formal credentials, so I doubt MOOCs will effect formal education in the near future. However, I can imagine them having a lot of influence over CE. Already, in my career, I have taken dozens of online webinars where I was one of hundreds of participants tuning in on their lunch hours. Some may argue webinars are not full courses, but they are based on the same ‘massive open online’ principle.

In examining Alexander’s “Higher Education in 2024: Glimpsing the Future” (2014), I was able to imagine the future of formal education being split into two cultures wherein some institutions operate wholly online while the brick-and-mortar institutions attract students with their blended-learning offerings. The online institutes could offer greater flexibility and perhaps lower costs while the brick-and-mortar institutions would boast of their on-campus culture and state-of-the-art studios and labs for hands-on work. I find it interesting that Alexander believes that in time the 18-22 year-old education segment will be considered a ‘specialized niche’ within the education system. Perhaps he envisions student working immediately after high school while taking their studies part-time. I certainly believe lifelong learning will be the norm in the future.

The New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report (2015) saw the proliferation of open educational resources as a trend emerging over the next three to five years. I sincerely hope that is the case. Knowledge should be shared and not stored behind password protected sites. I believe one of the reasons that there is so much misinformation out there or movement from “the tyranny of experts with the tyranny of idiots” (A. Keen, 2007, as cited in Bates, Ch. 7, p. 4) is that real science and expert knowledge is hidden behind password protected sights and cost-prohibitive journal subscriptions. Attribution is important, as credit should go where credit is due, but the idea of hoarding knowledge, I hope, will one day be a thing of the past.

NEXT STEPS:

Moving forward, I certainly trust that I will continue to be a lifelong learner. I work on a university campus, so I am very fortunate to have access to regular continuing education sessions. In the charts below, you can see the seminars I attended this term and the seminars I plan to attend in April and May of this year.

SEMINAR ATTENDED
DATE	TOPIC
04 February 2016	A Little Bird Told Me: Entering the World of Twitter
10 February 2016	Enhancements to eChart Manitoba (Manitoba College of Family Physicians)
11 February 2016	Copyright Information Session
16 February 2016	Integrating Quality Improvement Curricula into Health Sciences Education
09 March 2016	Narrative Medicine I : Writing Prompts/Attentive Listening/Narrative Interviewing
22 March 2016	The Art and Science of Powerful Academic Visuals
28 March 2016	D2L: How to Use Data to Improve Student Outcomes

FUTURE SEMINARS
DATE	TOPIC
06 April 2016	Presentation on Entrada System
06 April 2016	Narrative Medicine II
14 April 2016	Adobe Mobile Learning Webinar
26 April 2016	Information and Privacy
12 & 13 May 2016	Manitoba Association for Distributed Learning and Training Conference

In terms of next steps, I want to keep in mind Chickering and Ehrmann’s (1996) third principle: ‘Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques’. They states that “Learning is not a spectator sport. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves” (p.4). I want to find ways of making our CE programs more active and practice-based. Unfortunately, the tradition seems to be for participants to show up, sign in to get their points, and sit passively or play on their phone until the break when they get a chance to socialize with their colleagues. I am hoping that by using mobile devices in the lecture theatres as audience-response systems and creating Twitter feeds for each course, participants will be encouraged to be more active in class. It will also be a good way for people to ask questions and network with others whom they might not yet know but who are attending the same event.

In Chapter 8, Bates (2014) talks about the importance of reflective learning: “At a university level we need strategies to gradually move students from concrete learning based on personal experience to abstract, reflective learning that can then be applied to next contexts and situations” (p. 268). The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada actually offers their members extra credit if they submit a reflective exercise after attending a CE event. I would love to suggest that our course leaders offer the same service, that is, if participants submit a reflection to them after a course, they will get feedback (unmarked) and extra CE credits to claim. The problem is that I don’t know if our subject experts would have time to do this. If they did, I think it would be a very valuable exercise.

For my online learning work, I will certain fall back on Bates’ (2014, Ch. 8) SECTIONS framework. Boyes, Dowie and Rumzan (2005) describe a major benefit of the framework is that it “provides a unified approach for individuals who have widely varying perspectives, backgrounds, and expertise” (para. 2). It such a common sense approach, that I believe that I will be able to use it when discussing my reasoning for wanting to use particular technologies with my coworkers even if their backgrounds are very different from mine.

In terms of furthering my own education, I realized that I have yet to explore universal design for learning. Bates (2014, Ch. 8) addresses this when talking about the needs of a diverse student population. He mentions that BCcampus (2016) has a guide for preparing web-based materials that meet accessibility standards, but I am surprised that none of my courses so far have covered this topic in any detail.

I still feel that I have plenty to explore in terms of presentation technologies. Most notably is Articulate Storyline. At this point, I consider myself to have advanced skills in Articulate Studio (their original software suite.) However, Storyline has more interactive features, and so I will need to learn how it operates. I once had a classmate, in this program, who challenged himself to learn one new piece of educational software per course. I have always thought this was a great idea. At this point, I am six courses in, and have learned the basics of Weebly, PowToon, WordPress, now Moodle and VideoScribe. So I’m at least one piece of software behind. This summer, I’d like to play with GoAnimate. I would also like to take a MOOC at some point, specifically a connectivist or ‘cMooc’ that emphasizes networking and content contributions from participants. I also plan to take 565M – Mobile Education which I hope will give me hands-on experience in a mobile learning environment.

Ultimately, I’d like to find ways of making our programs more personalized for our participants. As Spiro recommends, “Learning organizations have to make a shift from planning and control to facilitating individual learner needs. It has to offer personalized, rich and context aware content” (p. 6). At the moment, we have what Anderson (2008a) calls an ‘Independent Study’ model where participants interact directly with the content in our accredited courses; self-reflection is encouraged but the only real feedback is automated through our LMS. If learners want additional information, they are directed to learning resources or encouraged to collaborate with colleagues. In time, I would love to be able to develop a community-of-inquiry model where learners have some opportunity to collaborate with others. Ideally, once we have enough learning modules developed, learners could create their own learning paths by linking to their next item of interest within our curriculum.

As we adapt our undergraduate learning modules for CE, we will have more freedom to allow users to explore our content without having to force them down a particular path for the sake of a formal curriculum. When that happens, I would like to see shorter, well defined units with many hyperlinks connecting users to resources both within and outside our program. Ideally, by that time, we will have an established Twitter feed on Oral-Systemic Health which can help bind the community at large as well as a connection to one of the provincial apps that will enable healthcare practitioners to refer and share vital patient information. This will support the formation of a community of self-managed learners who may challenge each other, clarify misconceptions, and negotiate meaning within real healthcare contexts.

References

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Bates. T. (2014). Appendix 1: A.8: Assessment of learning. In Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/5-8-assessment-of-learning/

Bates, T. (2014). Chapter 5: MOOCs. In Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/chapter-7-moocs/

Bates, T. (2014). Chapter 7: 7.6: Social media. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/

Bates, T. (2014). Chapter 8: Choosing and using media in education: the SECTIONS model. In Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Boyes, J., Dowie, S., & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media. Innovate Journal of Online Education, 2(1). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.186.6505&rep=rep1&type=pdf

BCcampus. (2016) BCcampus. Retrieved from https://bccampus.ca/

Canadian Dental Association. (2016). eReferral Service. Retrieved from http://www.ereferralservice.com/

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-004-3567-9

eChart Manitoba. (2016). eChart Manitoba: Information. Retrieved from http://www.echartmanitoba.ca/

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2004-2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://www.anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M. (2010). Educational technologies: A classification and evaluation. Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 35(4), 238-258. Retrieved from http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/download/53794/42346

New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC horizon report 2015: Higher ed. edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

Porto, S. (2015). The uncertain future of Learning Management Systems. The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement. Retrieved from

Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating media characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm

Spiro, K. (2014). 5 elearning trends leading to the end of the Learning Management Systems. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/5-elearning-trends-leading-to-the-end-of-the-learning-management-system

University of British Columbia. (2015). Fair Dealing in Practice. Retrieved from http://copyright.ubc.ca/requirements/fair-dealing-in-practice/files/2015/04/Fair-Dealing-in-Practice-v-1-0-2015.pdf

University of British Columbia. (2016). ETEC-565A: New Learning Space: Module 1. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/ldash2015/courses/course-1/

University of British Columbia. (2016). ETEC-565A: New Learning Space: Module 4. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/ldash2015/courses/module-4/

Collaboration in Higher Education

A trend that I wish to see is one mentioned by the New Media Consortium (2015), which is that of increasing collaboration between higher education institutions.

There are only so many ‘Introduction to Psychology’ courses needed in this world. At the very least, I imagine major universities across Canada collaborating on the development of a few excellent introductory online courses that can be shared between them.

I then see more important collaborations happening in higher level courses. For example, the University of Manitoba is on the leading edge of the prevention and management of HIV disease in the developing world. Presumably, a course based on this knowledge would be of benefit to people around the world but it would be a waste of resources for other institutions to try and duplicate our work. Instead, if universities would make it easier for students to find and get credit for courses at other institutions, their students could benefit from learning from the international leaders in particular fields.

I already see beginning in this direction. For example, our program on Oral-Systemic Health (OSH) has been requested by educators in Saskatchewan, Nebraska, and Europe. We, in turn, are interested in educational initiatives in OSH being done at New York University’s School of Nursing. Collaboration rather than duplication seems to be in everyone’s best interests. This, of course, would never preclude institutions from individualizing programs to meet the specific needs of their own students. For example, a Geology course for Manitoban students should focus more on the science of prairie landscapes than that of deserts; the reverse would be true for students in Arabic countries.

In short, as it becomes easier to share information through technology, it would benefit us all if we would spend time focusing on how best to use the resources available to us, before creating our own.

Reference:

New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

Digital Case Study of Pediatric Oral Care

I could not embed my video directly because the file size was too big.

So here is my link.

Tanya’s Digital Story

This is a fictional case study based on an actual oral-health emergency treated by one of our course authors (a Pedodontist). Normally, we present this case study in written form to our course participants. I made some changes to it and created a digital story in the hopes that it would bring the story to life a bit and put real faces to a significant health problem in our society – the lack of access to dental care.

Here is the link to my Digital Story video reflection.

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Here is my Assignment #3 Reflection:

For my Oral-Systemic Health course for Family Medicine residents, I decided to start with a Pediatric module (taught over 2 weeks) because pediatric oral conditions are a common issue faced by family physicians. Our authors had a few text-based case studies on this topic, but I found them to be a little flat; so, the idea of creating a digital case study intrigued me.

In Week 11 of our course, when choosing multimedia, we are asked to question: “What will this add to the learner experience”? (UBC, 2016, para. 4) Indeed, Siemens (2003) cautions that although many media formats are available, it is important to select something that will present the learning materials effectively and thus achieve the learning objectives. So, I had to consider, what will my learners be asked to do? The answer was simple: Use the course content to improve the health of their patients. Would a digital case study help them do this? Well, according to Alexander (2014), stories, unlike raw data or reports, “will have a far greater likelihood of emotional connection” (p. 92). I wanted a multimedia experience to help make the case study come up off the page and so increase the chance of having a real emotional impact.

Viewing a digital story may at first seem like a passive learning experience, but according to Nel, Dreyer and Carstens (2010), active learning happens when students are engaged with the content and can tie in their own life experiences to the material. I am hoping that this human-interest story is engaging and will challenge students to think of their own practice environment and whether or not they may have passed up opportunities to help patients like Mati (the girl in my story). If so, they would now have an engaging reason to learn about oral health, so that more children like Mati don’t fall through the cracks.

I considered several presentation technologies, including GoAnimate, PowToon, and Prezi. I decided against PowToon. Firstly, I had used it before and wanted to learn something new. The ISTE Standards – Teachers (2008) encourages educators to “design and develop digital-age learning experiences” (p. 1); if I was going to learn how to do that, I would need to increase my repertoire of digital-software tools. The second reason for rejecting PowToon, was a design choice: I found the built-in pacing a little too flamboyant my purposes of discussing a serious medical case. I’ve always wanted to try GoAnimate, but its cartoonish quality wouldn’t have set the tone that I wanted, either.

I have been curious about whiteboard presentation software, so I narrowed my choice to Prezi or VideoScribe. I had never used either, but I found that the constant movement of the Prezi videos made me a bit nauseous and lent too casual a feel to the learning environment. So, I went with Video Scribe which enabled more of a story-board feel but with the teaching-presence (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 1999) quality of a whiteboard presentation.

As I said in my discussion forum post, I ended up not liking the software. Despite having an excellent computer with a high-speed Ethernet connection, the software still froze frequently. Very few default settings could be changed, so everything had to be set manually. Publishing was very time consuming and had to be restarted many times due to website connection error, and in the end, I ended up with a huge file that could not be embedded within Moodle.

In choosing technology, I did not expect the Bates’ (2014) factors of ‘Ease of Use’ and ‘Costs’ to be an issue, but they were. I did not realize that VideoScribe was free to UBC students, so I ended up paying for a subscription. The cost of technology is actually one of factors prohibiting me from exploring new media. Most products come with free introductory subscriptions, but time provided is rarely enough to really work with the software. Consequently, the other cost factor – ‘Time’ comes into play, as does the ‘Ease of Use’ factor. Most of these technologies are easy for the learners but require a lot of instructor time.

This experience has taught me that even one piece of multimedia can lend a lot of quality to a course. Coates, James, and Baldwin (2005) point out that: “It is not the provision of features, but their uptake and use that really determines their education value” (p. 26). If one digital resource increases student engagement either intellectually or emotionally, then it adds value and becomes a purposeful learning activity.

I created my learning units in Articulate, a SCORM package with FLASH media. These units, originally created for another audience, in another platform, were modified to suit this course. I do agree with Boyes, Dowie and Rumzan (2005) when they state that many students enjoy media-intensive learning environments. Our department chose this technology precisely because we liked its dynamic appeal. Boyes, Dowie and Rumzan go on to praise FLASH technologies for “expand[ing] teaching options so that teachers are able to accommodate different student preferences” (p. 1). This technology can satisfy students who prefer to learn via text or audio and can also accommodate plenty of images, animation, and video for visual learners.

Many people when they think of dynamic, interactive learning only think of interaction between people, however, I really do appreciate the fact that Bates (2014) speaks of the importance of student interaction with the learning materials themselves. Creating quality learning resources can create “intense student interaction with learning resources [which] increases the time students spend on learning, which”, as Bates describes, “tends to lead to increased learning” (p. 288). Once students have worked through the content modules, they will still have a chance to negotiate their own meaning (Nel, Dryer, & Carstens, 2010) and find opportunities to integrate oral health into their practices through group discussions with others in the same type of practice environment as themselves.

References:

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher Education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapter 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-004-3567-9

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://www.anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating media characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm

University of British Columbia. (2016). ETEC565A-65A: New Learning Space: Week 11: Multimedia. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/ldash2015/lessons/week-11/

Copyright is the bane of my existence!

Hi Everyone;

Excuse the whining here. I am actually very grateful for this module because for the past few years, I have been responsible for seeking copyright permission for a few large publication projects. Everything I know about copyright, I’ve had to learn on my own with very little assistance.

Oh, how I wish everything could be found on iStock! I have spent weeks searching for clinical images for specific medical or dental conditions. When I do find some appropriate images 75% of the time, they are owned by a monopoly organization called Elsevier. They charge a fortune and have ridiculous restrictions that don’t help at all in this age of open educational resources. My director recently published an article in a publication they owned. She had the option of making her article an open resource. However, there was a catch. She would have to pay the $4000 for the privilege. She was the author, she was making no money on the publication of her article, but if she wanted others to use it freely, she had to pay upfront. This is definitely not in the spirit of ‘Fair Dealing’.

The dilemma we regularly face is that we want to publish our courses on a website not managed by the University of Manitoba. Consequently, most ‘fair dealing’ privileges described by UBC do not apply to us. We have to get transactional consent to republish an image and this can be very tricky and very time consuming.

Reference:

UBC Copyright. Fair Dealing in Practice. Retrieved from http://copyright6.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2015/04/Fair-Dealing-in-Practice-v-1-0-2015.pdf

Social Media & Professionals

I really have to think about this week’s questions because social media is something that I use, but I have only rarely used it for educational purposes.

I feel torn because on one hand, many of the professionals (docs, dentists, nurses, etc.) who take our courses are my age or older, which means that they were educated and started practicing their professions long before social media existed. On the other hand, there is a real need to address the learning needs of those professionals who use social media daily. I am not sure how to strike a balance.

I certainly can’t imagine designing an entire course around social media, because we would never get our participants who prefer more traditional learning methods to buy in. However, I love the idea of using social media within traditional learning settings, such as a lecture, to encourage more active participation. Most people who attend our courses, bring a cell phone or tablet with them, so I do wish to explore ways to use technology to make the learning event more interactive.

Bates (2014) mentions that one of the general affordances of social media is “collaborative information discovery and sharing” (p. 3). I would love to set up a Twitter feed for a live lecture-type course and encourage participants to post their questions there or share relevant links or information there. My hope is that participants might seek out that page after the educational event to revisit some of the links mentioned. Another option would be to have small group discussions within a larger lecture and then have a member from each group post their most salient take-away message to that Twitter feed.

I haven’t mastered the hashtag yet. So my preference would be to set up a Twitter account for our events. However, it would also be interesting to suggest a few hashtags that learners may wish to check out during the lecture and then recommend that they re-tweet any pertinent information to our group’s account. It could be a very interesting way to get small-group discussions going.

I guess my point is, that participants are already surfing the Net during our lecture programs, so we might as well encourage them to do so on course-related sites and/or with others taking the course along with them.

Reference

Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age, Chapter 7. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/

Assignment 2 Reflection

Creating this introductory module was an exacting yet powerful experience. In my undergraduate years, I worked within a computer-aided system of instruction – essentially a correspondence course on a university server. Now that courses can benefit from the affordances of the Internet, it is essential to understand the functionality of learning management systems (LMS) that are pervasive across post-secondary institutions.

The course shell I created is based around the Oral-Systemic Curriculum project at the University of Manitoba (UM, 2015). I have been tasked with taking content modules written by experts, converting them into an online format and then creating an educational program for our family medicine residents.

In planning this program, the first thing I focused on were the needs of the students, as suggested by Bates (2014). Our learners are spread out across the province as they complete their clinical placements. Therefore, it is logical to put our learning resources in an LMS so students can access them remotely. Learning units will also be available in different formats. Students will be able to download a pdf version of the content for offline reading, which is important when students are in areas with unreliable Internet access. We also wanted to create a multi-media experience for those students who could take advantage of it. This would allow us to enrich student learning by giving them access to a variety of learning resources (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2004). Not only would this be appealing to students with different learning preferences (Bates, 2014), but it would also promote digital age learning (ISTE, 2008) wherein students are encouraged to manage their own learning as they pursue their professional goals.

It is also crucial that we “engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems”, as ISTE (2008) suggests. Medical residents are highly motivated learners but they have many competing demands on their time. Therefore, it was important to create learning experiences based on scenarios that would reflect the kinds of cases they encounter in their medical practices. Otherwise, they will not see the value in devoting their energy to this learning initiative.

Once we have interested students enough to engage with the material, it is imperative that they begin discussing it. Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) highlight the value of sharing and responding to others’ ideas as a way of deepening learning. “They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves” (p. 4). This is why from the very first discussion forum, I have encouraged students to reflect on their prior experiences with oral-systemic health issues, which until now they may not even realize that they have encountered.

It is important that our learners take the knowledge from the units and think about how they may apply it within their own medical settings. Therefore, in designing this course, I have taken the advice of Nel, Dreyer, and Carstens (2010) and focused on learning outcomes. I want to focus on what students will be able to do after taking this course, which is why I will include learning objectives not only for the overall program but also within each learning module. This will keep the focus on active learning instead of the passive absorption of information (Nel, Dreyer, & Carstens, 2010).

Naturally, I am hoping that students find the challenge of our interesting learning modules intrinsically motivating. Just in case that isn’t so, I have included some extrinsic motivation, as suggested by Ciampa (2013). Ciampa suggests that a learner is extrinsically motivated when he/she engages in an activity because he/she wants to achieve some “instrumental end” (p. 83). In this case, it is the privilege of being allowed to attend our Academic Day. Students generally appreciate this event because it means a day off from their regular clinical placements and it is a chance to come back to campus (at the University’s expense) and meet up again with their colleagues.

My hope is that by the end of the course, we will have created a Community of Inquiry about oral-systemic health issues. Our online discussion fora will create the opportunity for students to experience both a cognitive and social presence within the regular online exchanges with their peers. However, Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999), also point out the importance that a teaching presence is felt. The quality of the content of the learning modules speaks to the quality of our writers. However, during administration of the program, I will probably be the one moderating the discussion fora, with only occasional help from our two instructors. Therefore, the Academic Day will give students a chance to interact with experts in the field of oral-systemic science. Students will get the chance to connect the ideas presented online with the reality of the clinical scenarios while guided by important people in the learning community. This is a concept called connectivism (Anderson, 2008a) wherein teachers play a key role in scaffolding student in what would otherwise be an overwhelming amount of information and experiences.

Gibbs and Simpson (2005) list the conditions in which assessment supports learning. The questions chosen for the quizzes are geared towards orienting students to the most important sections of the content (Condition 2). The short essay questions are there to focus students’ thinking around important applications of this information. Sufficient feedback is provided (Condition 4) in the form of discussion comments and it is designed to be timely (Condition 5) so that students receive it when it matters to them. This is particularly true of the Academic Day where they will receive over-the-shoulder coaching on their clinical techniques. This is the most important forms of feedback because if it is attended to (Condition 9) and acted upon (Condition10), the students’ clinical skills will improve. It is these techniques that I hope they will take back with them into their practice settings and in this way improve healthcare outcomes for Manitobans.

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapter 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S. C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-004-3567-9

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://www.anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

University of Manitoba. (2015). International Centre for Oral-Systemic Health: Curriculum Project. Retrieved from http://www.umanitoba.ca/icosh/oshcurriculum.html

Assessment vs. Attendance

The major challenge for our Department of Continuing Professional Development, in terms of student assessment, is that it is not required. In fact, to some extent, it is prohibited. (I’m not kidding!)

In healthcare education, one must abide by the regulatory agency of each profession, usually called a ‘College’. Both the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and The (yes, ‘The’ must be capitalized) College of Family Physicians of Canada require that educational credits be issued to practicing physicians based solely on their attendance at accredited continuing medical education events, and not on any performance measure.

The truth is, we are not prohibited from including performance measures in our courses, but we cannot refuse to give educational credits to a participant based on their performance on such measures. Consequently, in face-to-face courses, few instructors ever bother with any kind of assessment, except for the occasional use of an audience response systems.

That said, some providers of Continuing Medial Education are sticklers for attendance. Participants are given individual bar-codes and must scan in and out of lecture halls. Anytime they are not in the lecture hall is not credited. As professionals must acquire a certain number of credits annually, this does motivate them to attend.

However, in an online environment, this becomes tricky. Depending on the LMS used, it may not always be possible to see to what extent someone has participated. For example, I may be able to tell that someone has opened a particular learning module, but I have no way of knowing how long they engaged with the material, especially as some of our course materials can be downloaded and read offline. Our solution is to require a final multiple choice quiz of the course content, and so far participants are complying. However, if anyone refused to take the test, or took the test and failed, we would still be required to issue them learning credits.

Bates (2014) is fully aware of this phenomenon, as he indicates in his section on ‘No Assessment’. In fact he describes our learning environment very well: “There may be contexts, such as a community of practice, where learning is informal, and the learners themselves decide what they wish to learn, and whether they are satisfied with what they have learned” (Section A.8.3, p. 2). Physicians themselves are responsible for keeping on top of the latest advances in their area of medicine. They must show that they are attending educational activities regularly; however, which aspects of these activities they find relevant to their own practice are, at this point, up to them to decide.

However, there is now a movement in physician education adapted from business management – that of quality improvement. More and more, physicians are encouraged to assess their own practices, or in some cases, have an outside agency do it. These assessments can then be used to show them which areas would benefit most from improvement. For example, perhaps one practice is far below the national norm in terms of performing immunizations; or perhaps a large proportion of patients have cardiac conditions but the physician has not reviewed advances in cardiac care in some time. Practice assessment, therefore, covers many of the conditions outlined by Gibbs and Simpson (2005), particularly the last few:

Condition 8: Feedback is appropriate, in relation to students’ understanding of what they are supposed to be doing.
Condition 9: Feedback is received and attended to.
Condition 10: Feedback is acted upon.

References:

Bates. T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/5-8-assessment-of-learning/
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Boris needs to get gaming

Boris’ students would benefit from an educational game, such as a matching exercise that would help students make the correct associations within the periodic table. Games are great because they can be reused again and again until the student masters the material. They are more fun than traditional review exercises and are often suitable for rote memorization of basic learning materials.

The downside is that most LMSs don’t have the capacity to build games within the system. However, Boris could always create it on an external program and then upload it or the link into Moodle.The periodic table is such a basic science concept, that there must be existing games out there that Boris can use without needing to spend the time creating his own.

He could then have his student play the game, and then take a quiz which he builds inside the LMS to assess their learning. If students give incorrect answers, they could be redirected automatically to appropriate course material. Knowing which questions were missed would indicate to Boris what areas are still problematic and require review.

Playing educational games isn’t likely as motivating as playing Minecraft, but perhaps some incentives could be added. The students with the best or fastest scores could get the privilege of skipping the review class, which they obviously wouldn’t need anyway. In Grade 11, that would have been enough to motivate me! LOL.

Attributes of Learning

In my current working environment, we hold live face-to-face (f2f) courses and we are developing online courses.

Using Anderson’s model as a framework, there are definite distinctions between how each of our formats address each learning attribute.

LEARNING ATTRIBUTES	FACE-TO-FACE COURSES	ONLINE COURSES
Learner-centred	Our courses are learner centred in that the content covered reflects knowledge lacking in a particular professional community (as ascertained by a committee and a needs assessment.) Learners seeking that knowledge choose to attend our programs. Programs are held on Saturdays to accommodate professionals’ schedules. Programs assume an understanding of Canadian/Manitoban professional standards.	Our online courses are learner-centred in that the content covered reflects knowledge lacking in a particular professional community (as ascertained by a committee and a needs assessment.) Learners seeking that knowledge choose to take our online courses. Courses may be taken online at any time that suits the individual learner. Programs assume an understanding of North American professional standards.
Knowledge-centred	Courses are taught within a specific professional context. Clinical updates within specific healthcare topics are discussed. Most courses provide the opportunity for hands-on clinical instruction with low student-teacher ratio.	Courses are taught within an interprofessional healthcare provider context. Supplemental resources are provided for later use within practice setting. Much opportunity exists for individual reflection on case studies and personal practice.
Assessment-centred	In our lecture programs, there is no form of assessment. Learners must simply attend to get their learning credits, as per accreditation criteria. (For example, you would get professional credit for attending a conference but not be tested on the content covered there – though there is extra credit to be earned if you write a reflection piece afterwards.) In our hands-on courses, there is some formal assessment, as well as over-the-shoulder coaching of clinical techniques.	Learners are tested using an online multiple choice test. However, there is no minimum grade to pass, as it would violate our current accreditation criteria.
Community-centred	Many participants attend specifically for the opportunity to interact with other practitioners in the community.	At present, there is no opportunity to interact with others. Interaction is strictly student-content.

As you can see, one of the biggest differences between our two types of courses (with the notable exception of the opportunity for hands-on-learning) is the ability (or not) to interact with other practitioners in the community. Our online courses are strictly used for knowledge transmission and have no capacity for interactivity with others. This is the biggest drawback of our online program, especially as the courses are designed with the hope of fostering interprofessional collaboration.

At present, our online courses may be taken at anytime by participants, but because they are offered free-of-charge, there are no funds to hire someone to facilitate online discussion forums. At the very least, I am hoping to set up a Twitter feed to encourage participants to interact with others who have taken our courses and/or have an interest in the material.

Reference:

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University.

Trinh Needs an Instructional Designer!

Some great ideas have already been suggested for Trinh. She is obviously a devoted teacher but the popularity of this course is now becoming a burden. If there are no resources to split the course in two, and hire another instructor, perhaps her university does offer the services of an instructional designer. Clearly the way the course is organized no longer works for her. In addition, if she doesn’t get help soon, she will burn out, because this course only counts as half of her annual working load. Perhaps with design help she could reduce her workload and/or argue that her instructional hours warrant reclassification.

If we are using the framework of Garrison, Anderson and Archer (1999), then it could be said that Trinh has put too much emphasis on the ‘Direct Instruction’ category of Teaching Presence (p. 191). Live guest lectures are wonderful, but if she recorded some of these, then time would be freed up both for her students and herself. Answering students’ questions directly is admirable, but she could save a lot of time by creating threaded discussion forums. Students could check in there to see if their question has already been answered before posting their own or deciding to email the instructor directly.

In addition, the inclusion of some discussion forum activities, instead of synchronous online seminars, could actually help her students establish a stronger Cognitive Presence because such activities promote high levels of critical thinking (Garrison et al, 1999, p. 93). Such activities could be designed, like these ones, so that students are encouraged to recognize each other’s contributions thus reducing the need for teacher immediacy.

Reference:

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.