Oregon State University Ecampus

Includes many links to excellent UW Accessible Technology and DO-IT guidelines, tips and how-to pages.

"One of the biggest misunderstandings about online learning is that it has to be limited to things that can be done in front of a computer screen. Instead, we need to reimagine online courses as something that can enable the interplay between offline activities and digital augmentation. . . . We need to focus . . . more on finding ways to robustly capture evidence of offline learning that can be validated and critiqued at scale by peers and experts online."

A slideshow with guidance for writing alt text

In the WCET Frontiers blog, Dr. Katie Linder summarizes findings of the Ecampus Research Unit's collaborative national study with 3Play Media.

"Leaders from the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education - a national organization of professionals involved in faculty, graduate student, and organizational development - have developed eight principles to guide colleges and universities in adopting, implementing, and purchasing online faculty development programming."

"When using Bloom's Digital Taxonomy (a revised take on Bloom's devised by educator Andrew Churches), it helps to have a list of verbs to know what actions define each stage of the taxonomy. This is useful for lesson planning, rubric making, and any other teacher-oriented task requiring planning and assessment strategies." [Karen, thanks for passing this along!]

Research findings: "Faculty who assign team projects without preparing their students to work in teams greatly increase the likelihood that students will have a negative experience and student learning and performance will suffer. Teaching teamwork content is necessary but not sufficient for important educational and performance outcomes. Providing ongoing teamwork support is critical to team success and student learning."

This study of 70,000 courses identified five course design archetypes in terms of LMS use: Supplemental - high in content but with very little student interaction Complementary - used primarily for one-way teacher-student communication Social - high peer-to peer interaction through discussion boards Evaluative - heavy use of assessments to facilitate content mastery Holistic - high LMS activity with a balances use of assessments, content, and discussion

Research Digital technology in post-secondary learning is here to stay, according to a new report. Eight in 10 college students surveyed said that the use of tech improves their grades (81 percent), lets them spend more time studying by increasing the accessibility they have to their materials (82 percent) and improves their efficiency (81 percent).

"W hat are your learning outcomes for all of your students?" "Do your students know that these are your expectations?" "Do students understand the relationship between their demonstrated achievement of your learning outcomes and their preparation for future success in life and work?"

"Findings indicate that the scaffolded, audio-based argumentation activity helped students achieve higher levels of thinking skills as well as exert greater cognitive efforts during discussions. In addition, most students expressed a positive perception of and satisfaction with their experience."

Florida International University "compared 29 online course sections that had been redesigned according to best practices to 664 online sections that hadn't. Across all the metrics the university's researchers looked at--from the time students spent in the online course to how they evaluated the course and the grades they earned--the redesigned courses posted better results."

"The case for learning out loud extends beyond the development of effective communication skills. An asynchronous, multimodal learning environment that invites students to verbally converse with one another has been shown to improve the social and emotional elements of learning." (also see http://www.slideshare.net/brocansky/learning-outloudsept2014)

Resources and ideas from CSU Channel Islands for faculty development, especially blended and online, including slides from a presentation their Teaching and Learning Innovations team did at OLC Innovate. Content and approaches include a toolbox, Facebook, Twitter, learning communities, course construction workshops and a faculty/staff blog. Impressive.

"Rethinking the variety of voices and formats will not only be better for engagement, but also for learning. Rather than presenting information in scripted bullet points like an old-fashioned e-learning module, we should experiment with formats like debates, conversations, open-ended inquiry and stories in online courses. This will require students to extrapolate key points, synthesize what they've heard, and sometimes leave with more questions than clear take-aways."

French university École 42 torches the instruction manual on how to educate software engineers. It eliminates teachers. It doesn't make students memorize facts, or even buy books. There's no syllabus or curriculum to be found anywhere in the school's Paris headquarters. And to top it off, it doesn't charge students any tuition or fees.

"Instructional designers are consumers (and sometimes producers) of the learning science literature - and they bring this knowledge base into their work with faculty. Once faculty have the opportunity to learn and apply learning science research for their online courses, they will want to do the same for their residential courses."

Join a community of learners, do-ers and teachers. Journey through a Design Thinking experience, apply it in the real world, and go forth and teach others the methodology. This is a paired activity, so there must be an even number of participants. Internet connection, a large screen or projector with sound.

Learning Theories, Technologies, and Applications -- these were referenced in MacMillan's presentation (Rachel Losh) as the guiding principles that inform the development of their adaptive learning platform, LearnSmart.

(Shared with me by Kathy Becker-Blease)