Doctoral Education Online: What Should We Strive For? How Could It Be Better?
- 1. Doctoral Education Online What ShouldWe Strive For? How Could It Be Better? Cynthia Agyeman, Ph.D
- 2. Doctoral Students,Who areThey? • Adult Learners • Self-directed learners • Actively involved in the learning process • Use of knowledge & life experiences • Make connections to past experiences and knowledge • Goal-Oriented • learning outcomes should be clearly identified • Relevancy-oriented • Apply theoretical concepts to real life situations • Collaboration • Adult learners thrive in collaborative relationships
- 3. Doctoral Students,Who areThey? • Practitioner-scholars • Research and Professional Practice (central goal) • Expand Knowledge, improving practices,Assume Leadership andAdministrative Roles • They reflect, negotiate and question perspectives • Multidisciplinary Professionals • Scheduled Flexibility • Diverse Learning Needs • ADHD
- 4. What ShouldWe Strive For?
- 5. Four forces currently driving institutional change: 1. InformationTechnology: Online courses are now a commonplace 2. Competition from New Providers of Educational Services: Cooperate organizations, for profit companies, MOOC, Cardean Univ. (Chicago, Stanford, Columbia, Carnegie Mellon), London School of Economics 3. Globalization of Higher education: Institutions worldwide are marketing and offering courses 4. New kinds of students:Older students, minority students, millennial students What ShouldWe Strive For?
- 6. What ShouldWe Strive For? Quality Online Course that meets Quality Matters Standards at about 85% level or better What is Quality Matters (QM)? • A faculty-centered, peer review process • Designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses
- 7. What Should We Strive For? Quality Online Courses • Good online instruction is dependent on design of the course. • Carefully designed for learning and engagement. • Prevent students from getting lost and ultimately not learn
- 8. How Could It Be Better?
- 10. Tool #1. The QM Rubric Eight General Standards: 1. Course Overview and Introduction 2. Learning Objectives (Competencies) 3. Assessment and Measurement 4. Instructional Materials 5. Course Activities and Learner Interaction 6. CourseTechnology 7. Learner Support 8. Accessibility and Usability Key components must align. Alignment: Critical course elements must work together to ensure that students achieve the desired learning outcomes.
- 11. Course Design Process 1. Begin course design by establishing the major course outcomes/goals and “big ideas.” 2. Take the major goals and break them down into specific student learning objectives. • What do you want students to be able to do or know for each concept or skill? • Write your objectives in behavioral and measurable terms.
- 12. Course Design Process 3. Determine what is acceptable evidence that students have achieved those objectives. (Assessments and Feedback) • Assignments, case studies, discussions, projects, quizzes, and anything else that you can use for students to demonstrate their mastery. 4. Consider what learning activities you need to provide to enable students to succeed on those assessments. • Create video lectures, supplemental readings, practice assessments, practice exercises, and find existing external sources
- 13. Course Design Process 5. Organize your outcomes, objectives, assessments, and teaching and learning activities into modules. 6. Write an overview/introduction to each module. 7. Review the flow and balance of the course. Is the workload spread fairly evenly throughout the course period? 8. Review the course for engagement
- 14. Course Design Process 5. Create your introduction to the course. 6. Develop your course syllabus. 7. Upload content and develop the course in LMS. 8. Use the Quality Matters Rubric to review course.
- 15. Learning Objectives • What would students need to do as doctoral scholars and why? • Ask learner-centric questions • Transferable skills • Understand • Knowledge students would need to attain • What types of skills doctoral students need to learn?
- 16. Good Learning Objectives (SMART) Specific? Will students know exactly what is expected of them? Measurable? Will students and instructor be able to determine the extent to which the learning objective has been achieved? Achievable Are the learning objectives within the grasp of the students? - but challenging! Relevant? Do the learning objective relate to both the students needs and the instructor’s “dreams” for the course? Time-sensitive? Can the learning objective be achieved within the context/time-span of the course?
- 17. Assessment and Measurement • Align with Course and Module learning Objectives • Washer’s (2007) 6 Categories of skill performances • Communication • Collaboration • Problem-Solving • Numeracy • Use of InformationTechnology • Constructivism: Learn how to learn • Career Development
- 18. Forward-Looking (Authentic)Assessment: • “Look forward” to beyond the time when the course is over. • In what kind of situations do I expect students to need, or be able to use, this knowledge? • Create exercises, questions, and/or problems that reflect real-life situations • Assessment should be relevant and meaningful as possible. • Explain clearly the criteria and standards for assessing students' assignments/projects. • Provide opportunities to engage in self-assessment
- 19. Assessment and Measurement • Active Student Engagement: Fundamental Components • CollaborativeTasks • AsynchronousTechnologicalTools for communications • Synchronous video communication •Live lectures and demonstrations •Web resources • Problem- Based Forms of Learning
- 20. Instructional Materials • Align with Course and Module learning Objectives • Consult with Subject Matter Expert (SME) • Materials should be clearly explained • Text-based Materials (Books and articles) • Topics (Modules) • Videos, Lecture capture andAudio • Topics (Modules)
- 21. Course Activities and Learner Interaction • Align with Course , Module learning Objectives, Assessment, instructional materials and course technologies
- 22. Course Activities and Learner Interaction Cont. • Learning is an active process that involves, RECEIVING INFORMATION AND IDEAS, EXPERIENCE; doing or observing what happens in real world and REFLECTION; thinking about what and how one is learning alone and with others (Fink 2013). • Interactions and Support • Learner-Instructor – e.g Frequent feedback from instructor and facilitator • Learner-Learner • Learner-Content
- 23. Course Activities and Learner Interaction Cont. • Collaborative Learning • Develop working research knowledge through communication •Student interactions, expressed values and ascribed meanings •Discussions and reflections on course readings •Interaction with peers
- 24. Course Activities and Learner Interaction Cont. • Problem-based Learning (Constructivist Instructional Approach) • Student-centered Learning • Students construct knowledge – Pull individual knowledge and knowledge acquired through collaborations • Self-directed learning and research • Example: Publishing
- 25. Learner Support • Technical Support • Accessibility • Academic support
- 26. Accessibility and Usability • Ease of Course Navigation • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compliance • Accessibility Statements • Alternative to non-text content • Alternative formats • Captions for videos • Text transcripts • Selectable and searchable contents contained in PDF documents • Design (color scheme)
- 27. Modifying and Enhancing theTeaching and Learning Environment • Use quality-controlled production process – Quality Matters (QM) • Use feedback from peer-reviewers, instructors and learners used to modify and enhance the teaching and learning environment
- 28. Modifying and Enhancing theTeaching and Learning Environment Conti. • Address learning needs • Provide multiple modes of communication to individually and collaboratively develop working knowledge. • NeededTransformations • Collaborate with other professionals in the field • Learners • Incorporate thoughts, Ideas, Questions and Concerns mentioned in discussions and reflections •Engagement,Connections and Outcome • Include pedagogical activities that create awareness of issues in their field
- 29. ThankYou
- 30. References • Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco, CA: JohnWiley & Sons. • Simmons, M., Parchoma, G., Jacobsen, M., Nelson, D., & Bhola, S. (2016). Designing for Student Engagement in an Online Doctoral Research Method Course. • Washer, P. (2007). Revisiting key skills: A practical framework for higher education. Quality in Higher Education, 13(1), 57-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13538320701272755