Keynote presentation at a May 10th Conference

1. Improving Student Engagement
in Online Learning
Stephen Murgatroyd, PhD
CEO, Collaborative Media Group Inc

2. The Student Voice is Clear..
• They are seeking
• Authenticity in their experience of learning
• Engagement through Challenge
• Respect as persons
• Richness Across their Learning Experiences
• While content is important, the power of learning comes from experience,
challenge and discovery.
• Successful schools develop among their students a sense of curiosity, wonder,
exploration, sharing and ambition. Its all about finding and nourishing passion
and learning from success and failure. This is the “beautiful risk of education”
(Biesta, 2013)
• Too much of what constitutes online learning is “flat” and “content rich” and not
focused enough on the learning experience.

3. The Big Idea
Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000)

4. 4 Contexts for Engaged Learning

5. 7 Ways to Increase Engagement in
Online Learning

6. 1. Leveraging the Adaptive Learning Engines
within D2L
• Many schools in Ontario are using Brightspace from D2L
• Brightspace is an adaptive learning engine which permits the
(relatively) easy creation of personalized learning routes.
• A setup wizard helps you build new courses—or make existing ones
adaptive—using content you already have or new material from external
sources.
• Access to 700,000+ learning objectives via the Achievement Standards
Network
• Ability to import content from open educational resources (OERs) and
publishers
• Integration with Brightspace Learning Environment and support for
other LMS options via LTI

7. 2. Challenge the Students to Solve Real World
Problems
• Students are much more creative and talented than we recognize. Just
watch this short video: https://youtu.be/zHj7vusmtCQ
• Challenge them to:
• Take the school off the power grid
• Build robots that will clear the snow from the roof of a house
• Reduce food waste in their community by 70%
• Work collaboratively to ensure that every student has level 4/5 literacy
• Find uses for graphene that are commercially viable
• Create a 3d printing factory for spare parts for common toys / household appliances
• Reimagine the process of settlement for newly arrived immigrants to Canada
• End the loneliness of seniors

8. 3. Collaborate Nationally and Globally
• Taking it Global is located in Toronto and works across Canada and
around the world on issues based work, such as:
• The Future of Youth in Canada – what do cities, governments, schools, youth
organizations need to do to respond to the trends / patterns impacting young
people?
• Climate Change – 20 young people representing 10,000 collaborators from 9
countries presented at COP22 in Morocco
• Safe Cities – 2,000 students (Junior High and High School) worked on
recommendations for making their cities safe (and green).
• Canada’s Energy Strategy – 1,000 students developed a green paper for the
Canadian senate.

9. 4. Co-Create New Courses with Students
• Students can be taught design principles and use them to create a
course for the use by others and, in doing so, develop a mastery of
the knowledge, skills and capabilities associated with the course.
• Leverage open education resources.
• Create challenges and activities for peer to peer learning and peer
assessment.
• Require the course to be a multimedia experience.
• Make these resources available as OER through iTunes University

10. 5. Leverage the Community
• Students at Jasper Place High School leverage community members
and parents through:
• Specific project based activities – e.g. student/community maker programs.
• Interviewing and capture of content through video of all of the elders in
nearby First Nations (in their own language, translating on screen) – a web
project looking at the medicinal properties of plants in each of the four
seasons, for example.
• Capturing ”dying skills” and creating a skills – capability library for the region.
• Building a library of community artists, musicians and poets.

11. 6. Make More Use of Simulation, Games and
VR
• Engines to enable the quick creation of simulations and games are
now available – e.g. Twine, SimWriter or even PowerPoint.
• Creating a VR experience is also getting easier (though wearing those
goggles isn’t!) – e.g. Vive, InstaVR, Lumberyard and many more.
Students can watch and engage using Google Cardboard.
• Use existing virtual reality materials - growing catalogue relevant to
K-12

12. 7. Teach Less – Learn More
Competence / Capability Assessment
• Many students have knowledge, skills and capabilities yet we make them
undertake learning activities …
• Don’t teach – assess for capability, knowledge and skills – challenge the
students to master a body of knowledge, skill or capability – provide OER
links to resources and test anytime for credit
• Use video based assessments as well as more “traditional” tests – you can
do this in Brightspace or through other video based assessment tools, like
Valid8
• Use AI engines like Varafy to generate assessment of knowledge, skills and
capabilities so that learners focus on what they don’t know rather than sit
through (yet again) what they do know..
• Use OnTask to automate and personalize feedback…
• Issue badges to demonstrate performance…

13. Bonus Item: Make it all FUN!!
• No one said school has to be a serious place (well, not all the time) –
look for fun..
• Cartoon competitions..
• Video mash-ups around key learning topics
• Songs for mathematics!

14. Why Engagement Matters
• Student engagement strongly correlates with learning outcomes.
• Student engagement is strongly related to high school retention and
completion.
• Student engagement is a predictor of future learning commitments.
• Engaged students makes teaching fun (and it feels like less work).