A Different Look at Online Learning

There are plenty of consultants and management providers willing to advise institutions on the best ways to start an online learning program. Those experts are probably wrong, according to Joshua Kim, director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning.

Kim offered some unconventional advice in his recent Insider Higher Ed blog, starting with the notion that online programs should not be considered a revenue source, but that the classes should be able to cover their costs.

He also suggested that online programs need to be created in areas that differentiate the institution from others rather than simply offering courses that are in demand. Small classes featuring personal attention and quality are the best way to begin.

“The reasons that small online programs have a good chance of achieving economic sustainability have to do with the cost structure of online learning,” Kim wrote. “Colleges and universities can add more (tuition-paying) students without large fixed-cost investments. No need to build new classrooms or dorms. Almost all the costs will be variable costs—and therefore can rise with enrollment.”

Finally, Kim said online courses should be about learning for everyone involved.

“Thinking of a new online learning program as a disciplined experiment will open everyone up to a growth and learning mindset,” he wrote. “Failures (and there will be many) will be opportunities to learn and improve.”

Georgia School Taking Classes to Students

In 2013, Central Georgia Technical College, Warner Robbins, received a grant to test blended-learning methods in its health-care program over an 11-county area of rural Georgia. That led to BlendFlex, an initiative that provides students the option to switch instructional delivery formats.

“In the past, students had to sign up for face-to-face, hybrid, or online courses—they had to make a choice,” Carol Lee, educational technology director at CGTC, said in an article in eCampus News. “We have a lot of students who would sign up for a face-to-face class, but then lifestyle changes, sickness, or family issues would force them to drop out and we would lose those students.”

Even though CGTC has satellite campuses for rural students, before BlendFlex the only choice for many was to drive to one of the institution’s central campuses or take the course online. Once the telepresence option was added, faculty could teach in their classroom as well as to students who joined from the rural centers via the videoconferencing that is part of the program.

CGTC reports that BlendFlex classes have only a 12% dropout rate, compared to a 21% rate among other classes the institution offers. In addition, evaluations indicated that 99% of students said they liked the ability to switch delivery methods, 93% would recommend a BlendFlex class to other students, and 91% would definitely take another BlendFlex course.

“The biggest challenge is getting teachers to [rethink their role] in the classrooms that are now student-centered,” Lee said. “But that’s what it’s going to take to be a successful college these days.”

Making Online Learning Better

Companies are working on ways to make online classes better than the traditional classroom setting, according to a report in eCampus News.

One issue with online learning is it requires a level of self-discipline that many students lack. Blended learning has been found to be an important part of the online experience because it combines online with face-to-face learning.

“We’re definitely seeing a trend over the last three to five years of people moving to these blended, online, hybrid, flipped-classroom models,” said Jennifer Ferralli, math product manager of the online instructional platform WebAssign. “We’re seeing this across the different disciplines, not just in math, but also in physics and chemistry. People are trying to find different ways to connect with students to make classroom time more effective and more efficient.”

Video helped support the flipped classroom concept, but it’s been found that video works best with an interactive element. That is being addressed through mobile apps that allow faculty to drag and drop material and learners to go on their personal devices to access the content.

Other online learning issues being address include identity verification and cheating, auto-grading, and open learning management systems.

“We’re starting to hear a real desire for online learning to turn the corner and be focused on a mode of instruction that is inherently better than what we have today in traditional education,” said Chris Walsh, CEO of the video-learning firm Zaption. “People are starting to look at new tools and new opportunities to create an instructional experience that is different, but hopefully better as well.”

Students Need Hands-On Experience

Experts expect the demand for employees in professional, scientific, and technical service fields to rise nearly 30% over the next five years. On-the-job training and apprenticeship programs will play an important role in addressing this need, but students must master both theory and application.

It’s up to higher-education administrators and faculty to develop standards to prepare technical workers for the future while ensuring that a technical education is a well-rounded engaging experience, according to Jeff Ylinen, provost of Dunwoody College of Technology, Minneapolis, MN, in a column for eCampus News.

“In more standard educational models, students first build a foundation of theory and then, later in their degree program, apply that theory through specific coursework and internships,” Ylinen wrote. “We’ve found that by flipping this model and immersing our students from day one in real-world environments and workplace situations, they more quickly develop a body of experience and contextual understanding of specialist technical environments that make the learning of theory far more relevant and successful.”

On-campus training centers can provide the hands-on learning students need to prepare for apprenticeships and employment. Such centers do require an investment from the institution, but the return is students who gain valuable experience and meet industry expectations.

“Creating opportunities for students to not only become familiar with emerging materials and new technologies, but also to physically work with them and understand their properties and parameters, creates a far greater degree of knowledge currency and job readiness postgraduation and increases students’ excitement over the direction their chosen fields are pursuing,” Ylinen wrote.

Carnegie Mellon Trying a Blended Approach

Because Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, has too many students signing up for some of its computer science courses, the institution is planning a “blended learning” approach to the courses to meet demand this fall.

The program, funded by a $200,000 prize from the Google Computer Science Capacity Awards program, will be like other blended learning courses, but also combine video lectures with optional mini-lectures and group meetings with instructors to reinforce concepts that need to be taught in person. If successful, some of the materials from the course could be used in high schools next year.

While there are no guarantees, some research indicates the Carnegie Mellon approach should work, according to a report for Slate. A study by Columbia University’s Community College Research Center found that students taking hybrid courses had results similar to those taking traditional classes. Other research has found the blended-learning model helped poor-performing algebra students do better than their counterparts in a teacher-led class.

“Carnegie Mellon’s determinate efforts provide a spark of hope—if the school is successful, others may follow in its path,” Amy X. Wang wrote in a Future Tense blog post. “Perhaps we will begin to see more diverse teaching methods, as well as fewer students crouching in the aisles of overcrowded lecture halls.”

Digital Learning Software Studied

A recent study looked at 137 online and hybrid courses to determine what parts of the learning software helped students the most. The research was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success initiative.

Researchers found that math courses and those that featured problem-solving produced the most positive learning effects. Individualized pacing received high marks from the study, while the learning impact from digital courseware was greater in community colleges than for four-year institutions.

The report recommended colleges and universities should invest in high-quality courseware for lower-division courses and that these innovations should be phased in. Institutions should also use third-party evaluators to get an objective look at the data on how well the courseware works.

“Our goals were to determine courseware features associated with greater learning effectiveness and to provide guidance for funders as they look to make learning technology investments in the future,” said Barbara Means, director of the Center for Technology in Learning, SRI Education. 

UT Creates Mobile-First Competency Courses

The University of Texas System is taking competency-based education mobile. It is creating a new program to offer adaptive degrees and certificates aligned with industry standards and available through mobile technology developed by the UT System.

The educational pathway will be supported by a platform of technologies and services known as Total Educational Experience (TEx). The tools available in TEx can be adapted to a student’s preferences and adjusted to meet the student’s level of mastery.

“We made the decision to initially deliver TEx on mobile devices to ensure we meet students where they are, with the technology that they are used to,” said Marni Baker Stein, chief innovation officer for the Institute of Transformational Learning, which is developing the TEx program. “The experience will still be available on the web, but the mobile delivery will allow them to take their education with them wherever they go.”

The program will launch in fall 2015, offering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and medical science courses. It will be offered in online and hybrid formats available for students from high school through postgraduate levels.

TEx tools will also provide students customized advising and mentoring on career objectives. In addition, it will support teaching methods in the classroom.

“We are developing a new model of education that provides an alternative and potentially accelerated pathway to a UT-quality degree,” Baker Stein said. “Our degree and certificate programs are designed to build on critical skill sets so that students achieve enduring mastery that better prepares them for the workplace of the future.”

Students Take to Problem-Base Learning

Nearly every parent has had a child come home moaning about a group project gone awry. Instead of project-based learning (PBL), educators are now employing a more a problem-based approach that provides students with ways to collaborate on solutions for real-world issues.

Gary Garber, physics instructor at Boston University Academy, guides students away from the traditional scientific method approach by using different equipment so each experiment has to be done in different ways.

“There isn’t one method for doing science,” he said in a report for eSchool News. “One of the big highlights of the Next-Generation Science Standards is that there are a variety of science practices—modeling, trial and error, and so on. The source of good science discoveries is good innovation and creativity. We don’t need kids who have mastered the textbook. We need kids who are innovative and creative.”

The biggest issue with this new approach is getting teachers comfortable with the concept, even though the hands-on experiences can be invaluable to students. Making sure teachers have the proper training is the first step in building their confidence to use PBL tools and experiments.

“As a teacher, a test doesn’t necessarily show what a student has learned,” said Dan Whisler, a high school science teacher who has created projects on wind turbines and electric cars with his Sterling, KS, students. “Hands-on activities and the opportunity to give presentations to community groups do. That’s when students really start to demonstrate what they’ve learned. Wen you start sharing it with other people, that’s when you really learn it.”

Students Earn Credit With DIY Project

The Missouri University of Science & Technology, Rolla, is rethinking how lab classes are taught. One part of the effort this fall will make it possible for students to earn extra credit for using their smartphone to build their own microscope.

Students in one section of General Biology will be able to build the microscope from a collection of carriage bolts, nuts, wing nuts, plywood, Plexiglas, laser-pointer lenses, and LED click lights from keychain flashlights. The course instructor plans to compile all the components into a kit, which will be sold at the university bookstore.

Once completed, the do-it-yourself microscope will be able to magnify samples up to 175 times with a single laser-pointer lens, according to Daniel Miller, who created the prototype that was used in a lab last spring. Extra credit was offered to the 50 students in that class, with 15 building the microscope.

“They loved it,” Miller said. “They get to take it home and can use it to look at specimens whenever they want.”

The university hopes to create a how-to manual for teaching lab courses from its Transforming Instructional Labs project. Other labs involved in the project are cell biology, general chemistry, introductory physics, microbiology, the mechanics and materials laboratory, and various labs in nuclear engineering, with instructors planning to develop learning kits for each.

“We’re working with different lab courses on campus that use blended or online learning and plan to come up with an instruction model that could be reproduced anywhere,” said Angela Hammons, manager of instruction technology services at Missouri S&T.

Study evaluates hybrid courses

South Texas College has released new data that suggests that student success and retention rates are higher in hybrid courses (a combination of face-to-face learning and online learning) than in traditional or distance education courses. In July, the U.S. Department of Education released the results of a Meta-Analysis and Reviews of Online Learning Studies which showed similar findings.

According to an article from Inside Higher Ed, researchers at the college analyzed the grades of every student enrolled during the spring 2009 semester. A grade of “A”, “B”, “C”, or “Pass” was considered successful and “D”, “F”, “Not Pass” or “Incomplete” was considered unsuccessful. The study found that student success rates were 82% for hybrid courses, 72% for traditional courses, and 60% for distance learning. For courses in liberal arts and social sciences, allied health, and business and technology, success rates were the highest in hybrid courses while math and science success rates were highest in traditional courses. The article notes that due to the sample size the findings can not be considered statistically significant. The researchers at the college plan to conduct additional research to determine why the hybrid courses produced better outcomes and to compare how well the students performed to how much they learned.