E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

There is a growing need for online learning. Blended learning and online courses are becoming a norm for both campus and professional education. The role and tasks of the teacher are different online from teaching in physical classes. It requires additional qualities and digital skills to stimulate a conducive learning experience for students.

That is why my team has developed two courses for our teachers and we now decided to open these courses for an external audience.

Designing an Online Course

After taking the course, you will be able to:

• Describe online learning and the course development process.
• Design an online course module, using three of the principles of the TUD Online Learning Experience model and the course development process.
• Build a learning sequence for an online course in Open edX.
• Reflect on your role in online learning.

The course starts January 28th 2020 and costs € 300. More information and registration can be found on the online-learning website.

Teaching an Online Course

After taking the course, you will be able to:

• Describe moderation techniques and best practices.
• Produce an engaging artifact for an online course.
• Provide feedback in an online environment.
• Provide a list of online student expectations.
• Create a strategy for student engagement with both peers and content.

The course starts March 11th 2020 and costs € 300. More information and registration can be found on the online-learning website.

Every ranking is debatable, but if you are ranked #1 worldwide it does feel good!

Yesterday the MoocLab introduced the new World University Rankings by MOOC Performance (WURMP). This ranking evaluates universities on 5 performance indicators that measure an institution's performance across the number of MOOCs provided, the provision of learning pathways, micro-credentials, degrees and the institution's average world ranking.

The WURMP 2020 includes over 200 universities across the world that offer courses on the three leading MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn. The WURMP are the first ever world university rankings based on MOOC provision.

The top 10 is dominated by US universities, but my own university Delft University of Technology is leading the top 10.

Top 10 Universities ranked by MOOC performance

1. Delft University of Technology – Netherlands
2. University of Pennsylvania - USA
3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - USA
4. Coventry University - GBR
5. University of Michigan - USA
6. University of Washington - USA
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - USA
8. Deakin University - Australia
9. Harvard University - USA
10. University of California, Berkeley - USA

More information about the methodology and the complete ranking. You can find our MOOCs on online-learning.tudelft.nl.

In January 2020 we are organising the second Erasmus Exchange Week from January 28 to 31 in the TU Delft Teaching Lab:

The Delft Teaching Academy invites both academic and administrative staff members from Higher Education Institutions to our Teaching Lab, the home of our teachers; a place where we bring educational activities together under one roof, accelerate initiatives and strengthen collaborations with peers. At TU Delft, we approach education like we approach research: experiment, learn and share findings. 

Programme

In a four-day programme we’ll dive into a wide range of topics. From online and open education to teacher training and the best way to support our TU Delft teaching community. During our Erasmus+ Exchange Week, we aim to exchange ideas, evidence and expertise. We’ll share our vision on education and focus on the variety of available services and programmes to help teachers improve their education. We’ll give demonstrations of our spaces for experimentation, collaboration and exposure. And we are very much interested in your own institutes’ vision and practices!

Experiences of the first week

In 2019 we organised this week for the first time to streamline all the visit requests we receive. 12 people participated and all were enthousiast about what they learned in the week:

“The TU Delft Exchange Week offered me a unique chance to share best practices and processes with colleagues from TU Delft and around the world. It was truly inspiring!”

“The best thing about visiting at TU Delft was to gain insight into their explicit strategies and approaches for online and blended learning. Highly recommended”

For more information and registration, please check out this page.

Our university is facing growing number of students and are hiring more teachers. This also has a influence on the support staff, so I have been hiring quiet some new people and currently have two positions open:

SUNY OER Services has published an interesting framework on OER sustainability:

This OER Field Guide provides information and resources to help colleges and universities implement sustainable OER programs on their campuses. Although “sustainability” is often interpreted as the financial resources necessary for continued support, it actually requires a broader conceptualization of resource requirements. The Guide presents a comprehensive OER framework built around ten individual components. When implemented as a coordinated system of integrated activities, it positions colleges and universities to sustain OER well beyond their current state or grant funding initiatives.

The OER Field Guide is organized around three core components of the sustainability framework:

• Infrastructure – Building the campus guidelines, processes, and capabilities necessary to support OER;
• Resources – Identifying the dollars or staff time required to support the work, as well as opportunities to conserve resources through efficiency improvements;
• Culture – Using OER to support broad institutional visions and goals, including measuring and communicating OER successes.

The framework shows many similarities with the European OpenEdu framework.

The OER field guide contains many good examples, although they are very US focused.

Image is CC-BY-NC-SA SUNY

Florence Martin, Kiran Budhrani, and Chuang Wang wrote an interesting paper on faculty perception of their readiness to teach online:

Faculty readiness to teach online is a state of faculty preparedness for online teaching. In this study, it is measured by faculty attitudes about the importance of online teaching competencies and faculty’s perceptions of their ability to confidently teach online. Validity and reliability of faculty responses to an online instrument and factors related to faculty perception are examined. Descriptive statistics and item-level means for the competencies are provided. For course design, course communication, and technical competencies, faculty rated the perception of importance higher than they rated their ability in these areas, whereas for time management their perception of their ability was higher than their attitude about its importance. MANOVA showed significant differences in gender, years of teaching online, and delivery method for faculty perceptions of importance of online teaching competencies. Significant differences were also noted in years of teaching online and delivery method with respect to ability to teach online.

Online Teaching Competencies

In this study, the examine four areas of online teaching competencies:

• Course Design. Course design is identified as a pedagogical competency, alongside course implementation, facilitation, and assessment.
• Course Communication. Faculty must be able to communicate through writing and/or audio to the students within the given learning modality. Feedback needs to be adequate, timely, and prompt.  Facilitating discussions is a key competency when teaching online.
  
• Time Management. Competent faculty have adequate time-management skills so that lifestyle commitments do not interfere with the ability to instruct the course. Online course design and planning is time-consuming and takes significantly longer for a first-timer, as all the course objectives, content, activities, and assessments have to be redesigned for an online format. The second time the online course is taught is less time-consuming compared to the first time
  
• Technical. Technical competencies are specific to the use of the technology, independent of pedagogy. They include technical knowledge (e.g., knowledge about how to use software, synchronous and asynchronous tools, operating systems, learning systems and tools, and Web browsers, and how to implement security updates) and proficiency in the use of current technology, the ability to troubleshoot technology issues, and the ability to assist learners effectively.

I fully recognise these competences to be necessary for succesful teaching online.

Framework

They define faculty readiness to teach online as a state of faculty preparation for online teaching. Within the context of this study, they focus on two aspects of readiness:

1. faculty attitude on the importance of online teaching
2. faculty perceptions of their ability to confidently teach online. 

Conclusion

For me this framework is a useful tool to help is select new online courses. We have already experienced that some course development and running of courses goes without problems and others have all different kind of issues. This framework can help to pinpoint the issues and help to get to a solution.

Reference

• MARTIN, Florence; BUDHRANI, Kiran; WANG, Chuang. Examining Faculty Perception of Their Readiness to Teach Online. Online Learning, [S.l.], v. 23, n. 3, sep. 2019. ISSN 2472-5730. Available at: https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/1555. Date accessed: 05 sep. 2019. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i3.1555.

Last Monday we presented the final version of the Euopean Maturity Model for Blended Education during a pre-conference workshop of the annual ALT conference in Edinburgh.

This model is a framework which can be used to tackle any conceptual or implementation issues regarding blended learning, teaching and education. It indicates which dimensions are relevant for lecturers and educators, but also institutions, policymakers and educational centres. It aims to help, inspire and guide anyone who wants to implement or improve blended learning in their institution. This model consists of three levels:course level, programme level, and institution level. Each level has multiple dimensions, which together should give a comprehensive overview of the field of blended learning and education. The dimensions include indicators which describe the level of maturity. The dimensions and indicators can help to determine your own level of maturity.

Full story »

On 2 September EMBED project will launch the European Maturity Model for Blended Education in Edinburgh.

The maturity model’s aim is to map blended learning practices, conditions, strategies and policies in a systematic manner and, ultimately, to identify tracks for optimization or change. The EMBED partner experts from Delft University of Technology, KU Leuven, University of Edinburgh, Dublin City University, Aarhus University and TAMK will share with you the development and use of the maturity model for blended education. This model embraces all levels of an institution: the design of blended courses, organisational aspects such as staff support, training and institutional leadership, next to policy development and strategies which enable an institution to innovate continuously its blended education, teaching and learning.

The event is free to attend, but you have to register via this website.

Delphi Research Study

The model has been validated with an international group of blended learning experts. In multiple rounds the experts had to reach agreement on a specific dimensions and indicators. For this study, we have defined consensus as follows: at least 75% of experts agree or strongly agree about the importance and validity of the proposed dimension and its indicator(s). In particular, such agreement equals to a score of 5, 6 or 7 on a scale of 0 to 7. Subsequently, the level of agreement is calculated as a number between 0 and 1, as recommended in the literature [1].

Assumptions

For the model we have used these assumptions:

BLENDED LEARNING, TEACHING & EDUCATION
For this framework we use the following definitions:

• Blended Learning = learning as a result of a deliberate, integrated combination of online and face-to-face learningactivities.
• Blended Teaching = designing and facilitating blended learning activities.
• Blended Education = the formal context of blended learning that is determined by policies and conditions with regard to the organization and support of blended learning.

MATURITY
The concept of ‘maturity’ relates to the degree of formality and optimization of the design, evidence-based decision making, documentation and continuous quality improvement which characterize the uptake of blended Learning practices, or the implementation of blended learning conditions and strategies.

QUALITY ≠MATURITY
Quality approaches can be in place within each of the maturity levels. However, maturity does not equal quality. Moreover, it has been observed that repeated blended learning practice at a particular maturity level does not result in an actual increase in maturity.

ALIGNMENT
We assume that instructors or instructional designers are knowledgeable about how to align course objectives/expected outcomes, learning activities, and assessment (both formative and summative). We also assume that they are knowledgeable about the alignment between the course objectives and the target student group.

VALUE OF (INFORMED) DESIGN
We explicitly adhere to a design-focused approach of courses and programmes. Consequently, we see growth in maturity as a result of the ability of (teams of) instructors, instructional designers and others involved to make informed decisions about blended learning courses and programmes. This includes using design principles and/or instructional theories, from blended learning activity design right up to whole programme design (i.e. the organization, planning and documentation of a structured series of courses or units).

VALUE OF EVIDENCE, EXPERIENCE AND CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT (CQI)
When backed up by research and/or practical evidence a course or programme design is reinforced. The extent to which continuous quality improvement processes and products are embedded in a course or programme determines the maturity level of a blended learning practice. These allow course instructors/designers to continuously improve blended learning courses in an iterative manner.  

ACTION LEVELS AND KEY ACTORS
Three action levels are included in the model: the micro, meso, and macro level. We deem the main actor at the micro level to be the instructor or the instructional designer of a course. At the meso-level different key actors, teams, or bodies for decision making play a role in the decision-making process. Programme coordinators, department heads, deans, and heads of teaching and learning centres are involved, among others.

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[1] See: Jünger, S., Payne, S., Brine, J., Radbruch, L., & Brearley, S. (2017). Guidance on Conducting and REporting DElphi Studies (CREDES) in palliative care: Recommendations based on a methodological systematic review. Palliative Medicine, 31. DOI: 026921631769068. 10.1177/0269216317690685.

Part of our participation in the EMBED project (European Maturity Model for Blended Education) is the organisation of a couple of training events to share our knowledge and to give you the opportunity to learning about state of the art research and innovation in blended and online teaching and learning.

The next training event will be a EMBED training seminar at DCU in Dublin, 4-7 June 2019. This 3-days intensive training session is organized by the project team of EMBED. The “European Maturity Model for Blended Education in Europe” (EMBED) is developed by a consortium of frontrunner universities in blended and online education: KU Leuven, TU-Delft, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aarhus, Dublin City University and Tampere University of Applied Sciences. It is coordinated by EADTU and funded by the European Commission. For full details on the project we kindly refer to the EMBED website.

The training seminar will be an opportunity to learn about state of the art of blended teaching and education and to apply new concepts on the current context of your university. Participants will further generate feedback on the multidimension maturity model for course design as developed by the consortium (micro) and on the institutional strategies needed in order to implement it (meso). You will also learn about the monitor to assess the maturity of blended and online educational practices at universities. The monitor is conceived as a multi-layered instrument with dimensions and indicators that were newly developed or adapted from previously validated instruments. Its goal is to grasp in detail practices and conditions for blended learning. All instruments are piloted across different institutions, programmes and courses

Foreseen participants are coming from:

• Teaching staff designing or redesigning a course, using new modes of teaching and learning. Teaching staff looking for a stable framework for innovating or assessing courses, in search of a balance between increasing student numbers, enhancing the quality of the teaching and learning experience and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, teaching staff, developing online learning activities for short postgraduate degrees and continuous education.
  
  
• Teaching and learning departments developing blended and online teaching and learning models; supporting staff in course design teams; identifying patterns of good practice in their institution or in a network; collaborating with learning technology services and organising continuous professional development for teaching staff and program directors, or organising institutional evaluation and research on blended and online education. Learning technology departments providing learning-oriented technology infrastructure, tools and resources and supporting teaching staff. Internationalisation departments, responding to the needs for international blended or online courses and programs, online program collaboration and mobility schemes.
  
  
• University leaders, developing and implementing policies, strategies, frameworks and guidelines making their university continuously innovative; developing drivers and enablers for innovation; organising support services and continuous professional development for staff and program directors; stimulating and activating communities of practice and sharing educational resources; providing learning technology environments and tools; funding grassroot initiatives, program-based projects, institutional evaluation and research

Although the training seminar, including coffee breaks, is free of charge, there are participants costs for lunches and dinners.

The full programme of the training seminar will follow soon. Please register as participant under the EMBED event website here.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an useful guide on online teaching. The teaching suggestions in this guide are not revolutionary. Once you read them, they’ll probably seem like common sense. But that’s just the point.

Professors often fail to make the connection between what we do in a physical classroom and what we do online. This guide aims to make that connection explicit — to help you think about what you do well in person so that you can do those things in your online classes, too. If you already employ some of these practices, the intent here is to help you think more comprehensively about what else you can do to be an excellent online teacher. With that goal in mind, let’s get to work.

10 Essential Principles and Practices

• Show Up to Class
  When you are regularly present and engaged in the online classroom, your students are more likely to be, too.
• Be Yourself
  Students need to know you in order to engage with you online. So look for ways to be yourself via technology, just as you do in person.
• Put Yourself in Their Shoes
  students should know exactly what you are teaching and what they are supposed to do as a result.
• Organize Course Content Intuitively
  Try to think like a student when you organize course materials.
• Add Visual Appeal
  When thinking about the visuals of an online class, look to your favorite websites. Why not apply this philosophy to an online class?
• Explain Your Expectations
  provide as much meaningful support as you can — without going overboard — so that students don’t have to guess what you want them to do.
• Scaffold Learning Activities
  Look for ways to break down complex tasks so that students make timely progress and receive feedback on their work while there is still time to adjust their approach if needed.
• Provide Examples
  Online learners benefit from multiple explanations of difficult concepts and multiple examples of the kind of work you want to see.
• Make Class an Inviting, Pleasant Place to Be
  When you teach in person, you do a lot of things to help students feel welcome and comfortable in the classroom. Apply that same principle to your online classes.
• Commit to Continuous Improvement
  A hallmark of good teaching is the desire to keep getting better at it. Even small efforts can have a big impact.

Common Misperceptions

Unfortunately there are many common misperceptions. In the guide they list four of them:

• Online classes are like slow cookers: Set and forget.
• Online students are lazy/disengaged/(insert negative adjective here).
• Online classes don’t work.
• Teaching online is not as enjoyable as teaching in person.

These misperceptions are still alive in the academic world. I still encounter them quiet often.

Conclusion

This guide is an excellent read to lear more about how to be an excellent online teacher. It isn't rocket science, just common sense!