1. High Quality
Online Courses
Patrick R. Lowenthal
Boise State University
University of Colorado Denver
slides @ www.patricklowenthal.com
2. Senate Bill No. 1184
“…the legislature finds that in order to better
provide students with the skills that they will
need to be successful as students,
employees, entrepreneurs, and parents in the
future, more exposure is needed in online
learning and informational environments…”
4. Growth of Online Learning
5.6
million
post-secondary
students
Source: Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010
5. Growth of Online Learning
+ 4 million K12
5 +
million post-secondary
Millions of online learners
Source: http://www.inacol.org/press/docs/nacol_fast_facts.pdf
6. Growth of Online Learning
Source: Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010
7. Growth of Online Learning
Source: Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010
8. Growth of Online Learning
50 %
High school
courses online
by 2019
Source: http://www.inacol.org/press/docs/nacol_fast_facts.pdf
12. It Depends…
Higher Ed.
Corporate
K-12
/ Industry
13. … on a # of Variables
Teachers &
Context Media
Learners
Formality
Instructor Role
Setting
Curriculum Fit Multimedia Cohort Group
Synch. / Asynch.
Pacing Student
% Online Collaboration
Class Size Teacher
Development Preparation
Model 3-D Virtual Student Diversity
Targeted Worlds
Learning
Class Size
Subject Area
14. Quality Framework
Curriculum Teaching and Learning
Design Facilitation Experience
Instructional Web Course
Design Design Presentation
16. Standards / Guidelines
Early assumptions & focus were that:
High High Quality
Quality = Learning
Course Experience
17. Standards
National Standards for Quality Online Learning
by International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL)
Quality
Online
Quality Programs Quality
Online Online
Courses Teaching
Quality
Learning
Experience
18. Standards
National Standards for Online Course Quality
by International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL)
“National Standards for Online Course
Content
Quality is designed to provide states,
districts, online programs, and other
Instructional Design
organizations with a set of quality
guidelines for online course content,
instructional design, technology, student Student Assessment
assessment, and course management.”
Technology
“These guidelines should be
Course Evaluation and
implemented and monitored by each Management
district or organization, as they
reserve the right to apply the guidelines 21st Century Skills
according to the best interest of the
population for which they serve.”
24. Enterprise Models
| |
Lone Ranger Enterprise Model
Faculty Driven Administrative Driven
Decentralized Administration Centralized Administration
Courses Developed Individually Courses Developed Collaboratively
Un-standardized Course Develop. Standardized Course Develop.
Little Formal Oversight of Faculty Strict Assessment, Training, & Oversight
25. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
26. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
27. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
28. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
29. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
30. Things to Think About
•What role should the state department play in
ensuring students take high “quality” online courses?
•How can the state raise the bar regarding
expectations for vendors and/or districts that offer
courses online?
•How can current Idaho teachers receive training to
teach online?
•How can a state contract with vendors entail a
quality component?
•How can student learning be tracked and correlated
to courses take online?
•Can a “customer” evaluation system be developed?
Hi everyone!My name is Patrick LowenthalI appreciate the opportunity to be here today.I was asked to come talk about high quality online courses.I presented this earlier to the online learning sub committee – for those who have seen this before, I apologize that you have to sit through it again.So a little about me… I have been involved in online learning for the past 10 years. I have taken online courses, I have designed and developed online courses, I have taught online courses, and I have managed online programs. On top of this, I have been researching and writing about online learning for years now and if all goes well I will complete my doctorate in December which is focused on online learning.
But perhaps the #1 reason, I support legislation like this is because of my girls. I have two girls. My oldest daughter Jordan is junior high. She will be going to college in about 5 years and possibly entering the work force in 10 or so years. Think back about what the world was like 10 years ago…
In the fall of 2009, 5.6 million students took at least one online course according to Sloan-C
In 2010, estimated 4 million K12 students participated in an online learning programhttp://www.inacol.org/press/docs/nacol_fast_facts.pdfIn 2009, estimated 5+ million college enrollmentshttp://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/class_differencesSo what does this mean, well it means that we have millions of students learning online already
But let’s look at the growth of online learning in higher education
In 2009 there was 21% growth and online enrollments were nearly a 1/3 of total enrollment
It is predicted that 50% of high school courses will be offered online by 2019.
So back to my girls. Online learning isn’t going away and I want them to go to college and be successful and all the indicators suggest that online learning will be a part of their future. Sure there will likely always (or at least for years to come) be institutions of higher education that specialize in either only offering courses online or only offering them face-to-face. But even the Harvard’s and Princeton’s of the world are using Learning Management Systems more and more and their students could benefit from the skills learned from taking courses online.So for me, I can’t think of a better time or place to help prepare our children to be able to learn online successfully than when they are in high school and still living at home and still have all the supports that a high school and one’s family can provide.
However, I know I don’t want my children to be required to take low quality washed down versions of courses they could take face-to-face.While critics like to argue that online learning is always somehow inferior to f2f, research suggests otherwise. Nearly every comparison study has shown that there is no significant difference between online learning and f2f. However that doesn’t mean that all online courses are good and all f2f courses are good. In my experience many of the people who are skeptical of learning have never taken a course online before.But sure, I have met people who have taken a few courses online and had bad experiences. But those same people probably have had a number of bad F2F learning experiences.http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf
So what does a quality online course look like?
First, if we just talk in general terms, online learning looks very different across different spaces. For instance, while online learning in higher education tends to be teacher led asynchronous courses, in corporate education and industry, they often use synchronous webinar like online learning experiences or self-paced asynchronous courses (e.g., Compliance training like sexual harassment training).
But I argue however that it is much more complicated than this. Some colleagues and I developed a typology of the online learning landscape to show some of the different ways online learning can vary depending on the context. The following chart is just an summary of the typology.http://patricklowenthal.com/publications/AECT2009TypologyOnlineLearning.pdf
But back to the question, what does quality look like.Well this is one of manyframeworks found in the literature talking about the different components of high quality online learning.
http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/resources/rubric/rubric.pdfhttp://sloanconsortium.org/5pillarsBut despite all of these variables, there are things you can do to improve the quality of nearly any online course.At some level good teaching is good teaching. However, the reality is that teaching online is different than teaching face-to-face.Early on standards focused mostly on course design. The assumption was that a high quality course = high quality learning experience
Early on standards focused mostly on course design. The assumption was that a high quality course = high quality learning experience
http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20Online%20Courses%202007.pdfNew as of Oct 2011: http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/iNACOL_CourseStandards_2011.pdf
http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20Online%20Courses%202007.pdfNew as of Oct 2011: http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/iNACOL_CourseStandards_2011.pdf
So according to INACOL, quality = high quality courses and high quality teaching
So according to INACOL, quality = high quality courses and high quality teaching
So given all of these elements the question becomes can districts continue to provide this type of high quality online learning on their own ~ perhaps! But smaller districts with smaller resources might struggle to do the same as the larger districts as demands increase. There has been a lot of talk about the increase demand with students being required to take two online courses but there doesn’t seem to be much talk about what will happen when a small percentage of students chose to take a larger amount of courses online now that they will have the right to do so.
Local control is a great thing but centralized models of online course development and delivery have some benefits that must be considered. A number of years ago I worked at Regis University. Regis is a Jesuit university but the College for Professional Studies runs very similar to a for-profit institution. They described their centralized model of designing, developing, and delivering online courses an enterprise model. So this is a diagram I created for a paper I wrote a while back with a colleague trying to differentiate enterprise models from traditional “lone ranger” types of approaches in higher education. You can see a number of the differences between the two different types of approaches. This shouldn’t be seen as either or but rather as a continuum. I am not advocating for an enterprise approach – in fact, I have been openly critical of parts of these types of models – but I think it’s important to think about how easier it might be to ensure quality if certain aspects of accountability were done at the state level.