Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning, November 2011, Orlando, FL

1. Going Blended:
Training • Development • Assessment
Sloan-C International Conference for Online Learning
November 10, 2011

2. Presenters
Jeannette E. Riley
Professor, English & Women's Studies
Academic Director of Online Education
Tracey Russo
Instructional Technology Manager
CITS – Instructional Development
Damon N. Gatenby
Instructional Technologist
CITS – Instructional Development

3. Overview
Based on a grant funded project, this session discusses
the methodology for faculty blended learning training
and course (re)design and showcases representative
courses.
Presenters share assessment program and peer mentor
program designed to engage faculty in developing
effective blended learning experiences.

4. Implementation of Blended Learning for the
Improvement of Student Learning (IBIS)
• 3-year project began in Summer 2010
• Davis Educational Foundation Grant
• Goals:
– engage faculty in the development of effective
blended courses
– assist faculty in developing effective tools and
methods to incorporate a culture of assessment
and scholarly teaching into their practices

5. Project Plan
• Faculty training program
• Faculty program to develop faculty understanding
of best practices in assessment
• Faculty peer mentorship program to facilitate
culture of collaboration and reflection
• Dissemination of faculty experiences (“Blended
Learning Impacting Student Learning;” Friday,
Nov. 11th, 2:25pm; Asia 5)

6. Engaging the Faculty in Blended Course Design

8. How the Training Works
• Kick off meeting-f2f
• Online training- 2 weeks
• Required consultation w/ ID team
• Optional f2f sessions
• Develop draft
• Course plan presentations-f2f
• Refine plan
• Final plan

9. Blended Training
• Review -- Online Teaching and Learning
Strategies
• Blended Learning Module
• Assessment Module
• Developing Your Course Plan

10. Blended Learning Module
• Defining blended learning
• Strategies for finding the mix
• Challenges of blended learning

11. Assessing Blend learning
• Mentors intro
• How do we measuring student learning
• Backward design
• SLO
• Alignment

12. Developing Course Plan
• Mini-assessment plan for presentation
– Select a central learning objective
– Develop assignment(s)
– Draft out assessment plan
• Final course design and assessment plan
• Blended learning rubric

13. Blended Learning Rubric

14. How are faculty blending?
• Discussion forums based on readings and
short online activities were incorporated into
the blended course and were designed to
replace some f2f class discussions.
• Online Essay Peer feedbacks within group
discussion board.

15. How are faculty blending?
• Before-class online quizzes were completed
after viewing the posted PowerPoint slides
and textbook readings in preparation for f2f
class.
• A course research project was facilitated via
an online module with steps to follow
throughout several weeks of the semester.

16. How are faculty blending?
• Students utilized a wiki used to post concepts
and terminology from class.
• Students created individual wiki pages to
create their semester project (writings,
embedded images, and reflections) and
allowed students to review and comment on
each other’s work.

17. Training Best Practices
• Model blended learning
• Pedagogy first
• Faculty/mentor participation key!
• Incentives motivate
• Utilize tools via LMS
• Familiarity with instructional tools

18. Keys to Faculty Success
• Start small and keeping it simple
• Review of the training
• Rethinking teaching strategies
• Discussion/encouragement of colleagues
• Better understanding of technologies
• Having an experienced mentor

19. Lessons Learned
• Limiting to one SLO
• 1-2 technologies
• Required meeting with instructional staff
• Better understanding of blended learning for
student
• Start early
• Instructional support staff... be nosey!
• Student support/training

20. Questions?

21. Technology used in the Blend

22. Instructional Technology Employed
• LMS (Blackboard Vista)
– Quizzing
– Discussion boards
• Wikis (Wikispaces)
• Blogs (Wordpress)
• Wimba Classroom
• Wimba Voice Tools
• Personal Response Systems (iClicker)
• Streaming Audio & Video
• Learning Objects
• Lecture Capture (Currently piloting)

23. Choosing the Right Tools
• Faculty has objective to be facilitated through
technology.
• Instructional Development recommends a
technology solution
– Low barrier for student use.
– Leverage existing, industry standard and best-in-
class tools.
– Provide support for faculty and students.

24. Using Synchronous Tools
in a Blended Format
Benefits Pitfalls
• Recreate classroom • Expecting students to
discussion experience. attend live sessions at same
time as the f2f class.
• Collaboratively work on
graphs, documents and • Does not replace well
structured asynchronous
presentations. assignments.
• Requires somewhat tech-
savvy students or a robust
support system.
• Using the tool for lecture
capture only.

25. Using Asynchronous Tools
in a Blended Format
Benefits Pitfalls
• Enables flexible group • Using asynchronous tools to
communication. facilitate synchronous
– Textual or audio interaction.
• Allows learner to participate – Use the right tool
on their own time. • Not providing enough
guidance for students to
work independently.

26. Faculty Support
• Workshops
– Webinars
• 1 on 1 sessions
– Drop-ins
• Technology Demos
– Live
– Video Tutorial
• Teaching and Technology Conference

27. Questions?

28. Does it Work: Implementing Assessment Practices

29. Close Up: The Assessment Module

30. Assessment
• Module designed to engage faculty in
assessment practices
– Discussion based
– Collaborative exercises

31. Assessment
• Broad definition of “learning”
– Evidence of student improvement in
understanding content
– Evidence of student improvement in applying
content knowledge and skills
– Evidence of changes in student behavior (e.g.
improved writing processes; more time spent on
readings; increased class participation)

32. Updating Bloom’s Taxonomy
Create
Generate, Plan, Synthesize, Produce the new
Evaluate
Critique or judge based on explicit standards/criteria
Analyze
Break down, Relate parts and whole, Organize
Apply
Follow procedures to solve problems or carry out tasks
Understand
Connect new learning to prior knowledge by interpreting, classifying, comparing,
summarizing, etc.
Remember
Elaborate, Encode, and Retrieve information form long-term memory
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)

33. Developing Assessment Skills
• Focused on student learning objectives
– Discussions to evaluate sample SLO
– Presentation of targeted SLO
• Backward Design

34. Defining Terms
• Assessment = for example, a quiz or a
composition that measures student
accomplishment of one or more of your SLOs.
• Learning activity = an activity that facilitates
student achievement of one or more of your
SLOs by actively engaging the students with
course content.

35. Suggested Strategies
• Compare test results of a face-to-face class
with a blended class of the same course
• Compare writing results - using the same
rubric of a face-to-face class with a blended
class of the same course

36. More Suggested Strategies
• Pre/post testing of knowledge. Have students
respond to a test of knowledge at the
beginning of the semester and then have
them answer same test at the end.
• Do a pre/post survey of student behavior
patterns (e.g. ask students to self-assess their
writing strategies and then re-assess at the
end of the course)

37. Develop a Plan
• Development of Assessment Plan
– Review and feedback from cohort and external
reviewers
– Mentor reviews course site and course plan using
campus developed Blended Learning Quality
Rubric
• Plans revised and resubmitted
– Plans used for IRB approval

38. Post-Course
• Final project report from individual faculty
– Provides overview of course and what you
redesigned for the IBIS project
– Explains data collected
– Provides data analysis and conclusions about the
course experience
– Provides section outlining peer mentor experience

39. Peer Mentor Program
• Mentoring Goal: to develop a culture of
collaborative exchange and open discussion
about teaching practices
• There are four guiding points:
– PEER mentoring. Mentor will not necessarily have
more knowledge or experience than the mentee.
– Focus is on student learning not instructor evaluation.
– It is the responsibility of both parties to start and
maintain the interaction.
– Both the mentor and mentee will do a final report.

40. Mentoring Process
Mentor Mentee
• Determine whether the • ID primary learning
online tool being employed objective enhanced through
meets stated objective. online process.
• Determine if the specific • Explain how online tool will
online tool(s) being meet learning objective
employed are the primary (and enhance objective)
means of achieving the – Why online at all?
intended goal. – Why specific online ‘tool’
– Alternatives offered chosen?

41. Implementation
• Mentee determines learning module to apply
online tools
– Includes both live (f2f) and online sessions
• Mentor appears at both live and online sessions
• Mentor assess interactions (experience)
– ‘Should work’
• Mentor measures personal assessment with
student interviews
– Self-assessment of learning experience with use of
online tool.
• ‘Perception it worked’

42. Peer Mentor Program
• Faculty mentors:
– Commit to two f2f class observations and two
observations of course site/online sessions
– Serve as sounding board for faculty engaged in
blended course implementation
• Faculty mentees:
– Write final report on course experience including
comments on mentor-mentee experience

43. Mentor Final Report
• Provides an overview of the mentoring
process you enacted with your mentee.
• Includes course observation notes (face to
face and online)
• Analyzes the mentor-mentee experience.
What worked well? What didn't work well?

44. Resources
UMassD Blended Learning Initiative
http://www.umassd.edu/ofd/blendedlearninginitiative/
Blended Learning Resources
http://instructionaldev.umassd.wikispaces.net/Blended+Learning
CITS/Instructional Development Team
idteam@umassd.edu
Office of Faculty Development
http://www.umassd.edu/ofd/

45. Questions?