SLN research update presentation by SLN senior researcher, Dr. Peter Shea SLN SOLsummit 2011 March 10, 2011 http://slnsolsummit2011.edublogs.org

1. Peter Shea
SLN Senior Researcher
Associate Professor
Educational Theory and Practice &
College of Computing and Information
University at Albany

2. The new media ecology
 The nativity story in the digital age

3. The “media ecology” for learning
is changing…

4. Overview
 Brief update on ongoing activities
 New activities
 Future directions

5. Survey research
 Fall 2010 – 3542 responses to Fall 2010 survey
 Fairly wide distribution of campuses
 Student continue to report high levels of satisfaction
and learning…
 Reports are (going) on SUNY Research.net

6. Top Respondents to Survey

7. Overall Satisfaction
“Overall, I was very satisfied with this
course.”

8. Overall Learning
“Overall, I learned a great deal in this
course.”

9. Other active research
projects
 DOODLE study of online attrition (multi-campus)
 Jen Boisvert, Pam Cultbertson (Ualbany)
 Study of the effects of “student surveillance”
 Dan Knox (SUNY System/UA)
 Design experiment of online v blended course
 Linda Ryder (HVCC)
 Participant motivation to contribute to OER
 Lenore Horowitz (SCCC)
 Cultural differences in temporal aspects of OLL
 Steve Klingamann (Morrisville)
 Chinese Language Lab
 Lilia Cai-Hurteau, Shoubang Jian, Anna Zhou
(UAlbany)

10. Additional CoI analysis
 Additional analysis of Fall data will look at “learning
presence”
 Which is also the subject of our other main strand of
research…

11. Content Analysis Work
 Continuing investigation of the concept of “Learning
Presence” in the Community of Inquiry Framework
based on earlier survey work…
 Teachers and learners share roles but…
 They are clearly not identical…
 Building on literature in “self regulated learning”

13. Instructional Design
Facilitation of
Discourse
Direct Instruction Higher order thinking
Resolution
Integration
Application
Positive Affect Of ideas…
Interaction
Cohesion

14. What’s missing?
 70% of “variance” in CP predicted by SP + TP (at
least according to online students)
 Distinct role of the learner seems missing
 What do good learners do?
 They “self regulate”…plan, monitor, act strategically,
reflect on learning
 Not a component of the CoI model…

15. •Forethought
and planning
•Monitoring of
learning
•Learning
Strategy Use

16. Coding Online Discussion
 Analyzing tasks that may or may not result in self/co-
regulation of learning
 Hypothesis is that students will be more likely to self-
and co-regulate learning when they are given more
responsibility for tasks

17. Coding Sheet for “Learning
Presence”

19. Goals
Understand:
 Nature
 Patterns
 Impact
Of online learner self- and co-regulation

20. Initial Results
 Finding more forethought/planning, monitoring, and
strategy use in activities that require students to
collaborate
 The highest levels were found in areas where
students worked together to develop group projects
 When students are asked to organize their learning
rather than “discuss” they plan, monitor, and
strategize…

21. Learning Presence in
Preparation Areas versus
Discussion Areas

22. Learning Presence
 So what?
 Does it matter?
 Does it correlate with outcomes?
 For example, course grade?

23. It does…
Variables
Teaching Cognitive
Course Grades Learner Presence Presence Social Presence Presence
Course Grades -- .49** .246 -.138 -.037
Learner Presence
.621** --
Teaching
Presence .476** .528** --
Social Presence .469** .762** .771** --
Cognitive
Presence .488** .697** .863** .870** --
Table 1. Zero-order and Partial Correlations Among the Study Variables
Note. ** The correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed); The partial correlations are highlighted on
line one.

24. Correlation
 To estimate the relative contribution of each of the
four constructs from the CoI model in predicting
course grades, we computed the partial correlations
between final course grades and each construct,
controlling for the rest of the constructs.
 Learning presence and final course grades are
significantly correlated (r = .49, p<.001), after the
variance attributed to social presence, teaching
presence and cognitive presence is accounted for.

25. So…?
 Students who are exhibiting more
 Planning
 Monitoring
 Strategy use
 Are getting better grades
 Maybe these behaviors should be actively nurtured,
fostered, prioritized in the Teaching Presence
construct

26. Next steps
 Look outside discussions for LP (Reflective Journals)
 Also going to combine LP research with social
network analysis
 Try to understand how pedagogy impacts where
students are in the online conversations
 Using a tool called “Snapp”
 Seamlessly integrates into Blackboard

27. An online discussion – note that
I led this one…

28. I started this
one…

29. I click on “favorites” and select
“Snapp”

31. Hypothesis: If I lead the
discussion…I am at the center
of the interaction…

32. Here I
am…

33. Hypothesis: When students
generate discussion, they are at
the center of it…

34. I’m over here
now

35. Need to do a lot more
 We need to look at more discussion types to
understand how to make learning more “learner
centered”
 Need data on grades
 Interview data on experience
 How does temporal dimension (synchronous v
asynchronous) impact position in/shape of
discussion?

36. Other stuff I am following…

37. Times have changed
 Trends that are impacting the future of education –
 Chronotopic Shift – 4 examples
 Digitization of everything
 Books? What are those?
 Mobile Learning – can’t wait…
 Gesture based computing
 Minority Report meets Xbox
 Multimedia Search – don’t think Horizon saw this
coming…

38. And if you don’t believe
me…

39. Digitization of Everything
Books? What are those?
First “bookless” library
on a college campus…

40. Mobile Learning
 Mobile learning of course
 who is this guy?
 I’m looking forward to BB doing this. Only for real.
 http://www.blackboard.com/Videos/Blackboard-Mobile-
Learn-iPad-Commercial.aspx
Maybe not on the bike…

41. Gesture based computing
 Horizon Report did catch this…an example:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-wLOfjVfVc

42. Multimedia Search: Qwiki
 Qwiki funded by Eduardo Saverin (co-founder of
Facebook)
 Recently doubled size of staff
 Moved to San Franciso

45. Thank you!

46. Brief comment on influence of
this research agenda
 Work supported by SLN have reached a very wide
audience and has been cited 100s of times…