QualityInOnlineLearning.docx

1、QualityInOnlineLearningQuality In Online Learning()Abstract:We are now delivering thousands of online courses to millions of students around the world. We have progressed beyond the early explorations into how to teach online, to the more complex challenge of how well? This paper summarizes the resu

2、lts of a nationwide empirical study performed in the United States, in an effort to systematically identify the factors that determine the quality of e-learning courses. Our investigations sought how to design quality into web-enhanced courses, how to ensure delivery of a quality support system for

3、online learners, and how to assess the quality of online courses. This is the first in a series of reports on the outcomes of this investigation, and how to use what we learned about how to ensure and assess quality in web-based learning. This first report focuses on instructional design of quality

4、courses.IntroductionAfter reviewing hundreds of studies on education, Lion Gardiner concluded:When we subject the quality of our collective work as educators to the same close examination we demand in our disciplines, we find a substantial body of evidence that clearly demonstrates a crisis of educa

5、tional quality in our nations colleges and universities. We need to begin immediately to assess, evaluate, and improve the quality of our work.Gardiner further explains that, by combining best-practice instructional design methods with Internet technologies, it is possible (but not necessarily true)

6、 that much greater higher-order learning and higher-value educational outcomes can be achieved.One contextual challenge course developers face is that quality is not solely an intrinsic feature of a course; but is expressible through the viewpoints, values, and needs of the course consumer, whether

7、he is a student, an instructor, a department chair, an academic vice president or financial officer, an institutional planner, or a corporate human resources director. There is no one checklist by which we can design or evaluate quality in a course. We must make explicit the viewpoint from which the

8、 course is being assessed. In the second section of this paper, we will summarize the criteria for quality native to these different consumer viewpoints and thoroughly analyze course quality as viewed from the perspective of the student consumer.Simply put, it is very difficult to design and judge c

9、ourse quality. We know this from the proliferation of thousands of mediocre online courses. From the educational research literature, we are often given guiding principles that are too general to be instructive at the level of classroom practice and course design. Making class happen in a web-based

10、environment is so new, and different, that neither broad principles nor narrowly prescriptive practices are helpful when we sit at a computer and try to reinvent our teaching in this new environment. After all, if an instructor who undertakes to design a web-based class is told Follow the principle

11、of giving frequent feedback in the form of formative assessments, he will say You havent helped me a bit; I already apply that principle to my classroom-based class. If, on the other hand, you tell him Require students to e-mail you a synopsis of each weeks reading, you havent helped him either beca

12、use that course process may neither apply to course nor complement his course design. If the concept of designing and evaluating a course by narrow prescriptive formulae is misguided, whats an instructor to do? In our investigation, we found many categories of good experience-proven practical ideas

13、that seemed to sort themselves into three basic levels of guidance for quality online pedagogy: principles of learning science; practices in instructional artistry; and applications of online systems.The instructors best strategy is to arm himself with a few sturdy principles, to be guided by a tran

14、slation of these principles into practices effective in a web-based environment and to think creatively all the while using specific application methods as a point of reference. At some level, the instructor must do precisely what each student must do and teach himself by drawing inferences and exte

15、nding from the known to the unknown. The quality of the inferences and extensions, however, can be positively influenced by the solidity of the principles and the quality of the illustrations used as guides.Principles, practices, and specific applications sort themselves out along a scale of specifi

16、city: A principle is applicable to nearly any formal learning situation, independent of the delivery medium. That is because these principles of learning science derive primarily from characteristics of learners and the functions of human brain-learning, and not from the specific course nor the medi

17、um of course delivery. A practice is manifests the art of instruction within and suited to a specific mode of delivery ., class based, online, mixed mode). Practices in the art of instruction reflect a merging of learning science principles with the artistry of instruction. An application (of learni

18、ng science principles and instructional artistry) is specific to a particular course, within a specific delivery infrastructure.Principles, practices, and applications can also be indexed by degree of prescriptiveness. At the foundation of the pyramid, there are fewer principles. We can more readily

19、 enumerate major principles of learning science that broadly address the foundation upon which most all learning is based. They are less specifically prescriptive. Practices are more specific, and they apply to a particular delivery medium. But, they are still so abstract as to almost demand experie

20、nced expertise in order to utilize them in any concrete way. On the low end of the spectrum, methods are immediately applicable. But they are so narrowly specific that they are innumerable. infeasible to simply present a complete enumeration of all possible methods that might be highly beneficial to

21、 a specific learning activity. The abundance of specific methods (learning activities, assignable units, projects) by which you may assure the success of a given practice and the application of a given principle will bewilder you if you seek a simple formula to answer the question What do I do to cr

22、eate and assess quality in e-learning?ApproachThis paper reports findings developed as part of a nationwide study of quality in web-based and web-intensive learning. The study is ongoing, and addresses the instructional design of quality pedagogy, quality assurance in course delivery, and assessment

23、 of quality in existing courses. This study does not involve basic scientific research, but we have relied heavily on the scientific and educational research literature. Research topics have encompassed neurophysiological and neuropsychological factors underlying human memory and learning processes.

24、 Secondly, the study has also investigated basic and applied research on instructional design models. Third, we have incorporated much practical knowledge of the current state of the art in instructional delivery systems. From these three foundations of investigation, the overall study is based on t

25、he science of learning, the art of instruction, and the application of systems. This investigation was begun informally in 1994, and continued as such until a formal national investigation was launched in November 1999. The plan of investigation has involved a very labor-intensive process of targete

26、d information collection. (We wanted to avoid the common pitfalls in overly homogenized findings from a monolithic survey of unknown sources.) Besides translating basic research into learning science, our approach has been to carefully identify experts in the field who bring both learned expertise a

27、nd practical application experiences. Therefore, the process of simply identifying these experts has been a key element of the study. We have lurked on national listservs to identify experts, and to pick up new ideas. We have followed up with many of them, in conducting interviews. We have organized

28、 round table discussions and panel sessions at the leading national conferences and then followed up with emails with those participants. We have examined online faculty guides from leading institutions, and online course-sites on instructional design, and followed up with their authors where that s

29、eemed helpful. Not surprisingly, one of the most informative sources of ideas and exemplars (both positive and weak) has been many online course sites themselves. In all, the study has to date involved several hundred pages of research literature, hundreds of listserv postings and follow up emails,

30、over one hundred actual online course sites, hundreds of conference attendees, and dozens of interviews with individual experts. This investigation is ongoing, and further findings are in development for release in subsequent OF SOLUTION:Learning science yields learning principles, and these princip

31、les stand without need for reference to mode of delivery. These principles derive from features of the human brain and characteristics of human learning. They do not derive from the features and characteristics of a given course.Further, in designing any course we must keep in mind that knowledge is

32、 not transmitted; it is constructed. Learning happens in the brain of the student, and not necessarily on the web or in class at 10:32 . or via interactive video.In our findings, we list and define nine learning principles before translating each one into practices effective in a web-based environment. We then describe an application method for each principle and practice, to illustrate how all of these principles and practices of course quality can be incorporated into the instructional design. Exogenous (Uncontrollable) Factors That Affect Apparent QualityCourse or academic-program qu