Principles and Practices for Online Courses That Engage Learners

1. Principles and Practices for Online Courses That Engage Learners Boston 2003 Campus Technology M02 July 25 2011 Judith V. Boettcher Designing for Learning University of Florida judith@designingforlearning.org

2. Guiding principles: Presence, Community and Personalization Where are you on the novice to expert scale of online teaching? What kind of engagement strategies do you find useful? Developing expertise in any field takes time and is accomplished step by step, experience by experience, skill upon skill Becoming Great online instructors

3. Do I really need to be on my course site every day? What activities really engage my online students? How do I give tests? But wait, how will I lecture? What are the secrets for being a great online instructor? Frequently-Asked Questions from online faculty How can peer review and collaboration work online? How do I get to know my students if I never see them? How do I know if they understand? What do I do when a student gets behind?

4. Directions: Get into groups of 2 or 3 based on proximity. Write your questions/challenges on a color stickie and also in your packet on p.3. We’ll post the stickies on the wall for sharing and for reference. Starting our thinking…. Where are we now? 1. What is your top question/challenge in engaging your online students?2. What Topic would you most like to discuss on keeping students focused and successful?

5. Social Media Research • “Learners are particularly engaged when they experience feelings of "autonomy, competence, and relatedness.” • Katherine Hayles, 2007 • Feelings enabled by web 2.0 – 3.0 applications • Apps are more aboutcreating, generating and organizinginformation and content rather than reading or listening to content Foundational feelings for engagement – “An independent person who is developing skills while connected to others…”

6. Environment for Engagement Grouping & Teaming Strategies Informal small to medium groupings, collaborative work, peer review Core Learning Principles Active, involved, doing, zone of proximal development, personalizing Online Best Practices Presence, balanced dialogue, core content, continuous assessment Shared experiences, overlapping goals, mutual support, trust and presence*** Elements of community Who are the members of a course community? The learners and faculty mentor and any content assistants. Why does building a community support learners and learning?

7. Core Learning Principles and Best Practices That Matter and That Work A Selected Set for Today Neurons -P Z Myers

8. Sources of Ten Learning Principles and Ten Practices • Inspired and derived from research, instructional design and theory • Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky - My personal favorite • Also inspired by J. Dewey, J. Bruner • Current researchers, writers, such as • Daniel Schacter (Memory) • John Seely Brown (Cognitive apprenticeship) • Roger Schank (Schema theory, knowledge structures • Instructional design theory and practice • Friends, colleagues, many faculty Ten CLP

9. Ten Core Learning Principles

10. Ten Best Practicesfor Teaching Online

11. Simplifying a complex process…. only four elements of design Core Learning Principle 1 Every structured learning experience has four elements with the learner at the center LEFramework stage

12. Learning ExperiencesFramework Learner Mentor-Director Knowledge-Content-Problem Environment-Context All the world’s a stage… and learning happens on it. Inspired by Lev Vygotsky…

13. When designing for engagement, need to consider all four elements of instructional experiences – what is the role, function of learner, faculty, content and context? Core Learning Principles Two through Five (2-5) Going Deeper: Learner, Mentor, Knowledge and Environment CLP Learner

14. What are learners’ baselines? Where are they coming from? Where do they want to go? Core Learning Principle 2 Learners bring their own personalized mental models, skills and attitudes to learning experiences Learner's mind

15. “I didn’t know that anyone cared.” In course design, we design for the probable, expected learner; in course delivery, we flex the design to the specific, particular learners within a course. Very Important Distinction

16. Impact on Learning and Engagement • Learners will lean forward, step forward when they are reasonably confident that they can build on what they already know • Learners volunteer to lead, write, speak, if they have a reasonable expectation of success and not look stupid • Learners ask questions if they feel safe within the atmosphere of trust and community Move from listening and reading to “participating in the flow of action.”

17. Core Learning Principle 3 Faculty are the directors of the learning experiences and mentors of the individual learners Faculty functions

18. Roles and Responsibilities of Mentors/Directors • Designing and structuring the course experiences • Can often be accomplished with a team of faculty and designers for tutors • Directing and supporting learners through the instructional events • Absolutely! • Assessing and certifying student learning outcomes • Normally the case • Robots (automated systems) and rubrics can help • Also integrate and leverage peer and expert reviews

19. Impact on Learning and Engagement • Faculty time is best invested in designing, “teaching presence”, mentoring, coaching and guiding • As a mentor, they step back and let learning happen, step in when appropriate • Watch for difficulties • Watch for frustration • Watch for success and innovation • Support thinking, assess with focus on growth and success

20. Core Learning Principle 4 All learners do not need to learn all course content /knowledge; all learners do need to learn the core concepts

21. Four Layers of Content Core Concepts and Principles Core Concepts and Principles Applying Core Concepts Problem Analysis and Solving Customized and Personalized

22. Content: Impact on Learning and Engagement • Provide core content experiences as basis of shared experiences • Provide range of choices for initial applications and problem sets, scenarios • Design personalized, customized experiences allowing for wide range of content choices and exploration of wide-ranging content Shift from “knowing about” things to “knowing how to be” John Seely Brown and others

23. Core Learning Principle 5 EVery learning experience occurs within a context or an environment in which the learner interacts with the knowledge, content or problem Context Examples

24. Core Learning Principle 5 - Environment • Design for the when, where, with whom and with what resources… • All of these elements make up the environment within which learning occurs Holodeck

25. The Holodeck — Rapid Learning and Entertainment For authentic, situated learning Dr. ChristophSensen in the CAVE Reflection

26. Reflection – Engaging Possibilities • Stop and think • Putting the learner at the center of the design • Consider learner as independent, competent, member of community • Identify one or two impacts of these principles for your thinking? For your colleagues? • Find a colleague right next to you…(Pair up ) • Share ideas…actions… Let’s think

27. The Reflection Process • Sharing the ideas and actions Be sure to “use your voice” CLP #6 Zone

28. Core Learning Principle 6 A very core, very basic idea from Lev Vygotsky (1978) Enhanced by later work on situated cognition and cognitive apprenticeship by John Seely Brown and others (2006) Extended by research on embodied cognition (Shapiro, 2010)

29. Core Learning Principle 6 Every learner has a zone of proximal development that defines the space that a learner is ready to develop into useful knowledge ZPD Definition

30. A student’s zone of proximal development is… “the distance between the actualdevelopmental level as determined by independent problem solving …and the level of potentialdevelopment as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Vygotsky, 1968 Using the Zone in Design

31. Implications of ZPD for Design • Concept of ZPD is similar to “readiness” principle • Suggests the likelihood of a fairly narrow “window of opportunity” or “teaching moment” • What kinds of problems can students solve independently? Or with help? • What is the "task model" that produces the evidence that demonstrates proficiency? • When can you design in choices and options so natural learning can meet requirements? • How is guidance provided? • “Just enough help so that students feel as if they did it all by themselves.” When learners are ready they want to ”do it themselves” Stages of the zone

32. Stages of a Zone… Assistance provided by more capable "others” Teachers, experts, peers, coaches Internalization, AutomatizationFossilization De-automatization Recursiveness through prior stages Assistance provided by the self Continued assistance… can be disruptive and irritating… Using references, job aids, automonous Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 From R. Gallimore and R. Tharp, 1992

33. Growing New Concepts • Important what you know now…these are “receptor cells” • Growing flowers, bushes, thickets, with sticky “stuff” • More you know, the more you can know… • Maybe fast learners are fast because… they have ready templates and receptor cells • Similar to “mind melds” Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni

34. Each brain is its own world… (Adapted Mexican Proverb) Customizing learning means designing learning experiences for the learner. To do this we need to know the learner and what the learner knows and thinks Concepts, Mental Models and Learning Zones

35. Getting to Know Learners – How do you do it? • How do I know my learners? • What is your favorite strategy for finding out what learners know? • Automated quizzes • Pretests at course beginnings • Open discussion on concepts • Project proposals • Informal questions • Analysis of their questions, comments Crowd-sourcing – have students develop the tests and suggest key concepts

36. How Do You Know Your Learners’ ZPDs? (1) • Listen to what they think • Get them talking and writing about what they know, think they know, might know • Why do they know what they know? • What evidence or data supports that "knowing?" • Structure task scenarios • Ask questions • “Fire” their brain cells • Find their point of knowledge, find their weeds, plants, nodes on which to grow, extend their knowing… Let’s brainstorm a few ideas and what works and doesn’t work for you Bloopers

37. How Do You Know Your Learners’ ZPDs? (2) • Have them “do” things — evaluate and create • Work through processes • Adopt different perspectives • Suggest solutions • Modify problems • Role play, assume different identities • Develop metacognitive skills • Get them thinking and discussing and asking questions about how they are learning • Ask them to plan their next steps on making the knowledge useful to them Bloopers

38. Peeking inside the Brain • Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris • Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them • The death of Francis Macomber was a turning point in his life… • Definitions • A vacuum is a large, empty space where the Pope lives • A virtuoso is a musician with very high morals • One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second • To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow. • Republicans are some of the sinners featured in the bible. Statements such as these can reveal the state of concept development

39. Core Learning Principle 7 Concepts are not words; concepts are organized and intricate knowledge clusters ConcptPrinciple 8

40. Core Learning Principle 7 • Concepts are more than words. Concepts are organized and intricate knowledge clusters. • Concept formation occurs as a series of intellectual operations between the general and the particular with ever-increasing differentiation. (Vygotsky) • Words, words, words…(Hamlet) only symbols, where is the meaning? • Practice of “making a learner’s thinking visible” helps to determine the state of maturity, richness, completeness of a concept. This practice can show/reveal how the concept formation is progressing... "One-minute summary" Flash of Insight… event

41. Meaning Words Concept Concept acquisition is a journey, not a one-time event Useful concept Osmosis, diversity, mediation

42. Concepts vs. Words • "Words take over the function of concepts and serve as means of communication long before they reach the level of concepts characteristic of fully developed thought." Russian Georgian psychologist Dmitri Uznadze Kozulin, Alex. (1990) Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas It’s easy to be misled into thinking students have developed useful concepts. They can often use the words, but they do not understand or know what they mean.

43. Concepts are Building Blocks of Mental Models • "Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.” Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline 1990 Peter Senge www.solonline.org Mental Models – also called frames, scripts, patterns

44. Processes for Creating Mental Models • Case-based reasoning research suggests… • Learners iteratively apply what they are learning with real feedback and persist until they are successful • Learners reflect on their experiences, extract what they are doing and articulate it for self and others • Useful resources and activities include • Well-indexed libraries of expert cases and ideas and lessons of other learners • Writing, reading and preparing cases Kolodner, J. L.2006

45. Summary: Knowing Our Learners • Understanding our learners means understanding • What they know, what they think they know and what they are able to express • What they think they want to know • Their understandings are encoded in their brains (Jungle or Tundra) • In their concepts, representations and perspectives of the world • Learning is growing and shaping those encodings and representations

46. Knowing Your Learners • Learners • Goals - Grow personalized and customized knowledge; not standardized brains… • Consider their brains — a jungle, a tundra or prairie, a small garden, a flowering plant? • How complex is their network of neurons and dendrites? • How complex and intricate are the images and patterns of their knowledge? • How are their life experiences expressed in their knowledge structure? • What are their “zones of proximal developments?” Fish is Fish

47. Challenges in Designing Engaging Learning Design learning experiences where learners are apprenticed to experts and can engaged in "doing" within a cognitively rich and stimulating environment fit to their zone of proximal development. It may be that simple and that difficult. Challenges - What are the future skills and where are the experts?

48. Reflections and Questions • Have we answered any of our questions? • What potential insights on our challenges? • What do you expect of your learners? That’s why XXX works or might work!

49. Let’s Collaborate and Innovate… Next Session – Session 2 — Linking Principles and Practices to the Questions/Challenges

50. Appendix Slides