E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

Terry Anderson described a research study about time factors in online learning. The study he describes is done with 80 full time online teachers, teaching 4 online courses during the same semester:

Teaching in any context varies a great deal based on personal teaching style, use of synchronous tools, discipline, level and motivation of learners, support and funding for teachers and a host of other contextual factors. Nonetheless aggregate data is very interesting and helps paint the reality as well as vanquish some myths about online teaching. As expected the data confirmed that teachers did spend slightly more time online than literature reports for oncampus. (Averaging 44 hours/week for the 4 courses). But perhaps of greatest interest is the tasks that made up these 44 hours.

What surprised me is the limited time that is spend on Content Development. It seams to me that this research only focuses on running of the courses and not taking into account the development.  We notice that this takes large amount of time. Also there is not a lot of information about the context (kind of students, motivation, teaching style, didactical model, etc).

Another issue is the number of students. Especially with the student communication it would be interesting to know how many students were in a 'class'.

Reference
Mandernach, B., Hudson, S., & Wise, S. (2013). Where has the time gone? Faculty activities and time commitments in the online classroom. Journal of Educators Online, 10(2). 
http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume10Number2/MandernachHudsonWise.pdf

Via: Wilfred Rubens (in Dutch)

Mike Caulfield wrote a long, but very interesting blog about the distributed flip:

The distributed flip is a way of approaching flipped classroom design. It’s worth noting that I’m using a fairly broad definition of flipped classroom here. This is not the simple “homework in reverse” model. Rather, it is the idea that *some* amount of “low-level” activities done inside class (lecturing, quizzing, etc) can be moved outside of class using technology, and the reclaimed time can be used for high-impact activities – project-based learning, peer instruction, guided inquiry, etc.

A more precise definition he uses:

The idea here is that some amount of design of flip materials is done centrally by a group of people, either as a company, consortium, or loose network of individuals. Those high quality materials are then distributed among many instructors who work to localize and modify them for use in their own flipped classrooms.

Interesting are the comments he makes about the use of MOOCs in a flipped classroom. Are MOOCs more than just educational materials?

Read more on hapgood.us.

Vanmiddag organiseert de VVD een ronde tafel over open onderwijs. Samen met TU Delft CvB-lid Anka Mulder ben ik uitgenodigd om daar bij aanwezig te zijn. De middag bestaat uit twee delen, waarbij het eerste deel zich richt op het hoger onderwijs en het tweede deel op po/vo. Bij de sessie over hoger onderwijs zitten de volgende personen:

• TU Delft: Anka Mulder (spreker) & Willem van Valkenburg
• Open Universiteit Heerlen: Fred Mulder (spreker) & Wilfred Rubens
• SURF: Christien Bok (spreker) & Hester Jelgerhuis
• Universiteit Leiden: Rick Lawson (spreker) & Marja Verstelle

Elk van deze instellingen is ook gevraagd om een position paper (1 A4) aan te leveren. Hieronder de tekst die ik samen met Anka hiervoor heb opgesteld.

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Video is an import part of today's courses, such as blended courses, MOOCs, and fully online courses. But there’s a big difference between watching a video and learning something from it. Videos are great for presenting visual information and emotional appeals, but not particularly effective at diving below the surface of non-visual theoretical or abstract topics or for driving critical thinking.  (Nielsen, 2013)

Emily Moore gives four active learning strategies:

Video as a guided lesson (flipping the classroom): “The goal here is to help ensure that students watch videos actively—in other words, giving it their full attention. You also want to help draw students’ attention to (and reinforce) the most important concepts being presented.”

• Pose a question at the beginning of each video to give students an idea before they watch of what to expect, what to look for, and what might be worth thinking about.
• Present videos in an outline-like structure using concise, descriptively labeled links that include running times as shown below.
• Embed short graded or self-assessments either in the video itself, or at the end of each video.

Video as springboard for in-depth discussion: “This strategy encourages students to make a personal connection between video content and their own existing knowledge. It also encourages student-student collaboration, which is a critical component of any successful online course.”

• Assign a video. After viewing the video, have each student post to a discussion board based on a specific task, concept, or reflection and encourage students to interact and engage with each other.

Video as springboard for critical thinking: ”Ideally, students come away from a class not just having memorized material, but also having understood it well enough to discuss and apply it to novel scenarios.”

• Get students to identify, compare, and contrast the concepts presented in a video (or series of videos). How are the concepts similar? How are they different? Which are substantiated or refuted by the course text (or other course materials)?

Video as a way to strengthen online research skills while driving conceptual understanding:

• Have students locate online and present to the class a second video that (supports, defends, opposes, elaborates…) the original video.
• Use students’ “found” videos as the basis for class discussion. Ask students to comment, via discussion board, on how well the clips shared by their classmates met the selected criterion.

I think these strategies are really useful for online classes such as MOOCs.

Reference:
The Nielsen Company, Free to Move Between Screens: The Cross-Platform Report, March 2013. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/reports/2013/the-nielsen-march-2013-cross-platform-report–free-to-move-betwe.html.

Errol Craig Sull has made a list of the 10 mayor obstacles and their solutions for teaching online.

1. Losing all power and other related interruptions
2. New to teaching/new to teaching online.
3. A severe medical problem strains teaching efforts.
4. Sexual/aggressive emails and other difficult communications from students.
5. Receiving poor student and/or supervisor evaluations.
6. Teaching an unfamiliar course or subject.
7. Links in course not working/course setup items incorrect.
8. Efficiently managing time.
9. Accidentally posting email, etc., with improper/offensive wording.
10. Posting grades incorrectly—especially final ones.

As Wilfred Rubens mentioned in his post, it is interesting to see that most problems are not related to the teaching. Most of these are technical and communication problems.

As a teacher you should be aware that your communication is very clear and doesn't give to much room for interpretation. You don't have the classroom to correct this.

The Flipped Classroom Field Guide is a compilation of best-practices and community resources centered around the flipped classroom and blended learning initiatives of the Coursera-partner community.

The guide is interesting to read for teacher that want to flip their class. It has many good examples and best practices that are useful.

Gisteren vond het SurfAcademy seminar over MOOCs plaats. Toen wij enkele maanden geleden vanuit de SIG OER bedachten dat het wel een goed onderwerp voor een seminar zou zijn en we een programma hebben opgesteld, hadden wij niet verwacht dat er zo veel belangstelling voor het seminar zou zijn. Meer dan 100 mensen zaten in de zaal en ook online werd het door velen gevolgd.

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Today Delft University of Technology announced that we will join the EdX Consortium. In January our President announced at the Dies that we would start with MOOCs and that we would join an international consortium.

We have talked and negotiated with Coursera and EdX. Both organisations wanted us to join them. So we had the luxury to make our own decision on which platform to join. After some considerations we decided to join EdX.

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Yvonne Belanger and Jessica Thornton from Duke University have written an interesting paper on the creation and delivery of the MOOC Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach on the Coursera platform.

In the summary they have listed the most important findings:

• Over 600 hours of effort were required to build and deliver the course, including more than 420 hours of effort by the instructor.
• The course launched on schedule and was successfully completed by hundreds of students. Many hundreds more continued to participate in other ways. The number of students actively participating plateaued at around 1000 per week.
• Over 12,000 students enrolled, representing more than 100 countries. Approximately 8,000 of these students logged in during the first week.
• At the time of enrollment, one-third of enrolled students held less than a four year degree, one-third held a Bachelors or equivalent, and one-third held an advanced degree.
• 25% of students who took both Week 1 quizzes successfully completed the course, including 313 students from at least 37 countries. Course completers typically held a Bachelor’s degree or higher; however, at least 10 pre-college students were among those who successfully completed this challenging upper level undergraduate course.
• Students who did not complete all requirements cited a lack of time, insufficient math background or having intended to only view the lectures from the outset. Regardless of completion status, many students were primarily seeking enjoyment or educational enrichment.
• Most students reported a positive learning experience and rated the course highly, including ones who did not complete all requirements
• The Coursera platform met the needs of the course in spite of being continuously under development while the course was live. Technical issues reported by the students and instructor were generally minor, of short duration and/or quickly resolved.
• Patience, flexibility and resilience on the part of instructor, Coursera students, CIT staff, and Duke University Office of Information Technology media services staff were key elements in the success of this course.

If you are involved in the creation of delivery of a MOOC you should certainly read this paper.

New technologies present a much more complex environment for instructors to navigate. Instructors need to balance intense teaching, research and publishing loads with staying abreast of advancements in their respective fields. At least initially, any new technology is often "yet another thing" to have to find time for.

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