Examining Perceptions of Higher Education Faculty Who Teach Online

With the advent of computer-aided technologies and the Internet, students can access courses offered across a broad spectrum of fields and for a variety of degree levels. Institutions of higher learning have recognized the need to keep pace with competing institutions by offering courses online. As colleges and universities continue to meet the demands of students seeking enrollment in online courses, the need for recruiting, hiring, and developing faculty who are trained to teach within an online format continues to increase as well. Quality instruction cannot exist without systems of support to advance and improve faculty (Khan & Chishti, 2012). The need to employ teachers who teach effectively in an online environment continues to influence the decisions of chief academic officers and other stakeholders. The purpose of this study was to explore various aspects of online instruction by examining the perceptions of higher education instructors who teach online. The research addressed three questions: What are faculty perceptions of online instruction? In what ways does participation in a faculty development intervention influence faculty members’ decisions to alter their online instruction? What do participants in a faculty development intervention identify as challenges to implementing new strategies to their online instruction? Data were gathered through survey research which collected quantitative data. The results of this research indicate faculty members who taught online felt competent in their instructional skills and would consider implementing new strategies in their instructional practices. However, the participants regarded a lack of student participation and motivation as a challenge to implementing new strategies learned in the instructional intervention. The research questioned the influence of a prescribed faculty development on instructors’ decisions to implement new strategies into their instructional decisions. The research has implications for stakeholders in higher education as the proliferation of online programs continues. The results of the research indicate when faculty participate in prescribed faculty development designed to meet their specific instructional needs, faculty are more apt to positively receive the instruction and favorably view the implementation of new strategies into their instructional practices

The Scottish Computer Assisted Assessment Network

The Scottish Computer Assisted Assessment Network (SCAAN) [1] was set up in early 1999 to promote the use of online assessment in higher education institutions throughout Scotland. Funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council under its Webtools initiative, SCAAN is a collaboration between three universities: Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde. Each of these establishments is implementing a particular computer-based assessment tool. Glasgow uses TRIADS, an Authorware-based multimedia assessment engine, built at the University of Derby. Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde have their own webbased assessment engines. It was decided that the dissemination and evaluation of three separate engines would be likely to result in generic deliverables, more useful to the higher education community than the promotion and analysis of a single engine. This paper discusses the project in general and focuses in particular on the deliverables produced to date. These are: • a requirements analysis of a generic (not engine-dependent) online assessment engine, specifying the required functions; • a technical issues report which enables potential users to compare the engines and make informed decisions on the choice of engine; • and a Document Type Definition (DTD) for a generic assessment containing core question types, taking into account the recent release of the Instructional Management Systems (IMS) specification for assessment, with the ultimate aim that all engines can be built in an extensible and interoperable manner

E-Learning in Postsecondary Education

Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the class room to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation\u27s colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate new revenue streams, improve access, and offer students greater scheduling flexibility. Yet the growth of e-learning has been accompanied by a continuing debate about its effectiveness and by the recognition that a number of barriers impede its widespread adoption in higher education

Teaching and learning in live online classrooms

Online presence of information and services is pervasive. Teaching and learning are no exception. Courseware management systems play an important role in enhancing instructional delivery for either traditional day, full-time students or non-traditional evening, party-time adult learners enrolled in online programs. While online course management tools are with no doubt practical, they limit, however, live or synchronous communication to chat rooms, whose discourse has little in common with face-to-face class communication. A more recent trend in online teaching and learning is the adoption and integration of web conferencing tools to enable live online classrooms and recreate the ethos of traditional face-to-face sessions. In this paper we present the experience we have had with the adoption of the LearnLinc® web conferencing tool, an iLinc Communications, Inc. product. We have coupled LearnLinc with Blackboard®, for the online and hybrid computer science courses we offered in the past academic year in the evening undergraduate and graduate computer science programs at Rivier College. Twelve courses, enrolling over 150 students, have used the synchronous online teaching capabilities of LearnLinc. Students who took courses in the online or hybrid format could experience a comparable level of interaction, participation, and collaboration as in traditional classes. We solicited student feedback by administering a student survey to over 100 students. The 55% response rate produced the data for this paper\u27s study. We report on the study\u27s findings and show students\u27 rankings of evaluation criteria applied to hybrid and online instructional formats, with or without a web conferencing tool. Our analysis shows that students ranked favorably LearnLinc live sessions added to Blackboard-only online classes. In addition, how they learned in live online classrooms was found to be the closest to the hybrid class experience with regard to teaching practices they perceived as most important to them, such as seeking instructor\u27s assistance, managing time on task, and exercising problem solving skills

Distributed Learning System Design: A New Approach and an Agenda for Future Research

This article presents a theoretical framework designed to guide distributed learning design, with the goal of enhancing the effectiveness of distributed learning systems. The authors begin with a review of the extant research on distributed learning design, and themes embedded in this literature are extracted and discussed to identify critical gaps that should be addressed by future work in this area. A conceptual framework that integrates instructional objectives, targeted competencies, instructional design considerations, and technological features is then developed to address the most pressing gaps in current research and practice. The rationale and logic underlying this framework is explicated. The framework is designed to help guide trainers and instructional designers through critical stages of the distributed learning system design process. In addition, it is intended to help researchers identify critical issues that should serve as the focus of future research efforts. Recommendations and future research directions are presented and discussed

VCU Media Lab

We propose the establishment of a VCU Media Lab – a professional creative media technology unit whose mission is to support the development, design, production and delivery of innovative media, multimedia, computer-based instruction, publications and tools in support of VCU education, research and marketing initiatives. This centrally administered, budgeted and resourced facility will acknowledge, refine, focus and expand media services that are currently being provided at VCU in a decentralized manner

Development and evaluation of a web-based learning system based on learning object design and generative learning to improve higher-order thinking skills and learning

This research aims to design, develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a Webbased learning system prototype called Generative Object Oriented Design (GOOD) learning system. Result from the preliminary study conducted showed most of the students were at lower order thinking skills (LOTS) compared to higher order thinking skills (HOTS) based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Based on such concern, GOOD learning system was designed and developed based on learning object design and generative learning to improve HOTS and learning. A conceptual model design of GOOD learning system, called Generative Learning Object Organizer and Thinking Tasks (GLOOTT) model, has been proposed from the theoretical framework of this research. The topic selected for this research was Computer System (CS) which focused on the hardware concepts from the first year Diploma of Computer Science subjects. GOOD learning system acts as a mindtool to improve HOTS and learning in CS. A pre-experimental research design of one group pretest and posttest was used in this research. The samples of this research were 30 students and 12 lecturers. Data was collected from the pretest, posttest, portfolio, interview and Web-based learning system evaluation form. The paired-samples T test analysis was used to analyze the achievement of the pretest and posttest and the result showed that there was significance difference between the mean scores of pretest and posttest at the significant level a = 0.05 (p=0.000). In addition, the paired-samples T test analysis of the cognitive operations from Bloom’s Taxonomy showed that there was significance difference for each of the cognitive operation of the students before and after using GOOD learning system. Results from the study showed improvement of HOTS and learning among the students. Besides, analysis of portfolio showed that the students engaged HOTS during the use of the system. Most of the students and lecturers gave positive comments about the effectiveness of the system in improving HOTS and learning in CS. From the findings in this research, GOOD learning system has the potential to improve students’ HOTS and learning

Stability and sensitivity of Learning Analytics based prediction models

Learning analytics seek to enhance the learning processes through systematic measurements of learning related data and to provide informative feedback to learners and educators. Track data from Learning Management Systems (LMS) constitute a main data source for learning analytics. This empirical contribution provides an application of Buckingham Shum and Deakin Crick’s theoretical framework of dispositional learning analytics: an infrastructure that combines learning dispositions data with data extracted from computer-assisted, formative assessments and LMSs. In two cohorts of a large introductory quantitative methods module, 2049 students were enrolled in a module based on principles of blended learning, combining face-to-face Problem-Based Learning sessions with e-tutorials. We investigated the predictive power of learning dispositions, outcomes of continuous formative assessments and other system generated data in modelling student performance and their potential to generate informative feedback. Using a dynamic, longitudinal perspective, computer-assisted formative assessments seem to be the best predictor for detecting underperforming students and academic performance, while basic LMS data did not substantially predict learning. If timely feedback is crucial, both use-intensity related track data from e-tutorial systems, and learning dispositions, are valuable sources for feedback generation