Poster Sessions
Student Centered Blended Learning
Presented by: Gloria Eccleston and Cheryl Byrne - Washtenaw Community College
Most colleges use a distributive approach to online and blended learning. That is, each instructor creates his or her own course. At WCC, we use an Enterprise Model for our College on Demand online learning, meaning a departmentally-approved Master Course is created complete with high quality WCC produced lectures and a robust interactive Blackboard site. All instructors who then teach that course use the Master Course. A blended option of the course is based on the COD Master Course. That is, all instructors who teach a blended course use the Master. At most schools students hear the lecture when in the classroom and then do online activities when not in the classroom. The WCC Enterprise approach allows us to reverse the standard. At WCC, students watch the lectures, complete online assignments, and possibly participate in a discussion board when not in the classroom. When in the face-to-face classroom, students engage in individual and group activities that reinforce and apply the concepts. This approach focuses on active learning when with the instructor rather than passive note-taking during a classroom lecture. Instructors focus on student learning – not creating materials and preparing lectures. Our student success rates and student satisfaction are indicators that this approach is the “perfect blend”. Our poster session will explain the approach and share success and survey results.
Recent developments in Transitional Mathematics Learning at UIC: The Math 075 Story
Presented by: Florencio Diaz, Lon Kaufman and Dibyen Majumdar, UIC
In most state universities across the US a large proportion of entering freshmen are under-prepared for college-level math courses. At UIC a combination of ACT math sub-scores and the UIC math placement exam places over 50% of the students in this category. A follow-up study has shown that only 3% percent of these students successfully complete Calculus. Traditionally, the success rate at UIC for mathematics courses that are aimed to rectify the math deficiencies and prepare the students for college math courses, such as precalculus, calculus for Business, and so forth, has been 50% or less. This has been a major cause of frustration for students who want to be in science related majors and is a leading factor for diminished retention rates for the university as a whole. The situation is particularly worrisome for so-called “students at risk” including underrepresented minorities, students wherein neither parent has attended college and students with strong financial need. In this presentation we will describe recent transitional math initiatives at UIC, including academic year courses and Summer Mathematics Enrichment Workshops based on instruction that blends traditional and online learning. The flagship course for this new initiative is Math 075 (Beginning Algebra) which replaced Math 070 at UIC. This course covers the same material in half the time with traditional lectures replaced by facilitated learning. Other features include a self-paced design made possible by use of the online software MyMathLab (Pearson) . The final exam for the course is a traditional in-class, closed-book exam. The success rate for Math 075 now exceeds 80% and the attendance rate exceeds 90%. The value of this option for transitional mathematics and its potential benefits to the students placed in this level will be discussed.
What is your Style? Improving Online Teaching Effectiveness Through an Understanding of Teaching Styles and Pedagogical Design
Presented by:Dr. Natalie Abell, Dr. Corey Lee, and Dr. Melissa Cain - University of Findlay
As the number of online students continues to grow, increased attention must be paid to teaching style and instructional design in the online learning environment. The most effective approach to professional development training is through a thoughtful, individualized program tailored to the recipient's needs as determined by assessment. This poster presentation will report on the development and pilot testing of an instrument that assesses an instructor's teaching style and provides an individualized report, suggesting strategies for their success in the online classroom.
Blended Learning in a Large Enrollment General Education Course
Presented by: Donna Charlevoix - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This research examines the process of design and implementation of a blended learning curriculum into an existing lecture – only based course. The University of Illinois at Urbaba-Champaign funded a pilot project of developing blended learning classes for two large-enrollment courses on campus. One course, Severe and Hazardous Weather is a general education course enrolling on the order of 600 students per semester. The primary change in the severe weather course curriculum moving to a blended learning format was to replace half of the face-to-face meeting time with asynchronous online activities to promote more student-centered learning. The blended learning section enrollment for spring was set at 100 students to test the feasibility of the format as well as finalize the curriculum design. Curriculum design was grounded in best practices. The technology using best pedagogical practices, and matching student assessment and evaluation techniques with the revised curriculum. Formal evaluation of the course offering is ongoing. Preliminary evaluation results will be present at the conference.
Online Instructional Tools for Blended Attendance in a Large Engineering Course: Impact on Students: Behavior and Performance
Presented by:Dan Cernusca
During the past two years a large engineering course was offered with two enrollment options for lectures: a) face-to-face attendance in classroom; and b) online participation, either live or delayed (recorded) via streamed recorded lectures. Two online instructional tools were introduced to support the described format of this course. First, the Webex online conferencing tool was used for the synchronous online delivery of the lectures as alternative to the face-to-face participation in the course. Second, MecMovies7 online environment that combines worked examples, drill exercises, and assignment problems was used for homework activities. This poster summarizes the results of a longitudinal study that followed two consecutive semesters, the Spring Semester of 2006-2007 and respectively the Fall Semester of 2007-2008 school years. Due to the novelty of this approach for both the instructor and students, the overall research questions were exploratory: How did the inclusion of the two online instructional tools impact students? attitude and behavior? How did these changes impact students? Classroom performance? Findings of these two studies suggest that students in this type of environment are attracted by the flexibility and convenience of online learning. Anyway, most of students tend to overestimate their ability to self-regulate their own learning process so that they became effective learners. Making students aware of this trap by providing them with empirical findings proved to be a first step in closing the gap between the performance outcomes of the two extreme attendance groups, mainly face-to-face and respectively mainly taped lectures.
Transformational Leadership in the Blended Learning Classroom to Produce Transformative Learning Experiences in an Urban, Public Post-Secondary Institution
Presented by:Peter McAliney
Large, public urban higher education institutions are key players in outfitting a workforce that can be competitive in a global economy. However, they do so in a challenging economic environment. An approach that has emerged to deliver affordable education that will meet these workforce needs is blended learning. The research objective of this study will be to better understand the role that an instructor plays using the Transformative Leadership Model (Avolio & Bass,1991) in a blended learning environment to facilitate transformative learning experiences for students (Mezirow, 1978). A better understanding of this can provide direction for an academic institution looking to increase the use of this delivery platform for student learning. As a study in progress, the researcher will present his thoughts on different research methodologies that may be employed including case study, content and/or transcript analysis, observations, surveys and interviews. The researcher discusses how the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999) can be used to analyze interactions between instructor and students, students and students, students and content, students and context, and students and learning objects. Findings from this study have the potential to inform higher education decisions around course offerings, course delivery, access to marginalized student populations, and the development of private-public partnerships in the recruitment of talented instructors.
Lessons Learned from a Large Scale Hybrid Course Redesign
Presented by: Jennifer Gramling and Michael Leeser
The purpose of the presentation is to discuss lessons learned from a large scale hybrid course redesign project at Florida State University . Between fall 2005 and spring 2007, four courses in the Spanish Basic Language Program (SPN 1120, 1121, 1130 and 2200) were redesigned for hybrid delivery. These courses normally required students to meet five days a week on campus. However, in the hybrid version students meet three days a week on campus and the other two days are devoted to completing online activities. The elements of the course that did not require face to face interaction, such as quizzes, vocabulary checks and workbook activities were placed online so that classroom time could be devoted to increased and conversation and discussion among students and instructors. Audio links were placed within assessments in the course, allowing students to hear native speakers and respond to quiz questions accordingly. Since these quizzes are delivered via a learning management system, they are automatically graded, saving valuable time for TAs and instructors.
This presentation will cover information related to the design and development of the Spanish hybrid courses, including issues related to pedagogy, technology integration and student accountability. Presenters will share lessons learned and the impact of these lessons on future hybrid course and program development.
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