Education Commons^™

Predictors Of Learner Satisfaction And Transfer Of Learning In A Corporate Online Education Program, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Jennifer Linder-Vanberschot, Deborah Lapointe, Lalita Rao

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This study explores factors that predict learner satisfaction and transfer of learning in an online educational program at a multinational corporation, established to improve organizational learning through providing training in technical skills. A mixed-methods design was employed, selecting both quantitative methods utilizing survey research and qualitative methods employing open-ended questionnaire items, face-to-face and phone interviews, gathering the perspective of students, instructors, and instructional designers. The online courses were designed using a problem-centered and case-based approach to learning, and utilized technologies including Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard, Sharepoint, as well as instructional design tools such as Breeze, Captivate and PowerPoint. …

Identity, Gender, And Language In Synchronous Cybercultures: A Cross-Cultural Study, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Ahmed Idrissi Alami, Gayathri Jayatilleke, Fawda Bouacharine

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The integration of the Internet into contemporary society worldwide has had a profound impact on the way we communicate, relate to ourselves, and to each other. Different users, depending on various characteristics such as age, gender, education, and sociocultural background, access the Internet for various communication needs such as exchanging emails, making new friends, or engaging in a serious discussion. Whatever the goal, users need to adjust to this new computer-mediated interactive environment, and they do so either in ways that reveal native cultural values, or reflect the creation of new cultural norms and conventions.

Learners' Perspectives About Uses Of Synchronous And Asynchronous Conferencing Systems Within An Online Graduate Course: Interpretations Through An Activity System, Deborah Lapointe

Education Faculty Publications

Synchronous voice-enabled communication is an established communication technology that is becoming increasingly available in learning management systems. Instructors can implement live voice chats to create engaging learning environments. While research has been reported using synchronous text-based chat, little is known about the experiences distance education learners in graduate study programs have using synchronous voice communication. This article presents findings from a qualitative research project designed to explore graduate students perceptions about the effective use of both synchronous and asynchronous communication within a graduate course offered through a WebCT online environment supplemented by Groove. A constructivist theoretical perspective and grounded theory …

Social And Cultural Diversity In Distance Education, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Deborah Lapointe

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

With the expansion of global telecommunication networks and the worldwide demand for higher education, distance education has the potential to reach out internationally to enhance learning for diverse learners and increase intercultural awareness and communication. By definition, distance education is borderless (Latchem, 2005), although differences in sociocultural contexts, values and expectations of diverse educational systems and learners may prove to be its greatest challenge (Hanna, 2000). While distance education programs proclaim an international focus with international content and learners, instructional design and methods frequently carry Eurocentric Western bias. Distance educators need to be sensitive to social, cultural and educational differences, …

E-Mentoring Strategies For Cross-Cultural Learning And Community Building, Deborah Lapointe, Carol Richmond, Jennifer Linder-Vanberschot, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Kerrin Barret, Marlie Saligumba Cardiff, Jason Skinner

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper builds on mentoring practices by describing the strategies and results of cross-cultural group e-mentoring in an inquiry-based online course activity that supported Sri-Lankan faculty as online learners or protégés and higher-education students in their quest for knowledge and community. It focuses on the online e-mentoring experience of eight e-mentors in the United States (master's and doctoral students at the University of New Mexico) who engaged in a three-week-long, cross-cultural problem-solving learning activity using Moodle.

The Importance Of Effective Instruction In Determining Student Success: Background For Defining The Role Of Faculty Development At Unm, Gary A. Smith

Office for Medical Educator Development (OMED)

The purpose of this briefing report is to summarize the research literature that documents the importance of effective instruction for student success as a premise for future planning, including but not limited to faculty development, that strives to improve UNM student success.

The key conclusions, based on this review, are:

1. Classroom instructional effectiveness is widely viewed as a core ingredient in planning for student success.

2. Faculty development is essential in order to improve instructional effectiveness.

Learning Transformations Through Cross-Cultural E-Mentoring: Perspectives From An Online Faculty Development Forum, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Jennifer Linder-Vanberschot, Deborah Lapointe, Kerrin Barret, Julia Mummert, Marlie Saligumba Cardiff, Jason Skinner

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Employing qualitative research methods, this study discusses the learning transformations of e-mentors from the United States and protégés from Sri Lanka who engaged in online problem solving tasks that were part of a faculty development forum.

New Model, New Strategies: Instructional Design For Building Online Wisdom Communities, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Ludmila Ortegano-Layne, Kayleigh Carabajal, Casey Frechette, Ken Lindemann, Barbara Jennings

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We discuss the development of an instructional design model, WisCom (Wisdom Communities), based on socio-constructivist and socio-cultural learning philosophies and distance education principles for the development of online wisdom communities, and the application and evaluation of the model in an online graduate course in the U.S. The WisCom model aims to facilitate transformational learning by fostering the development of a wisdom community, knowledge innovation and mentoring and learner support in an online learning environment, based on a “Cycle of Inquiry” module design, and a “Spiral of Inquiry” program design. Extending beyond current instructional design practice, WisCom provides both a new …

Synthesizing Social Construction Of Knowledge In Online Conferences Using Concept Maps, Ludmila Ortegano-Layne, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

By using content analysis techniques to compare social construction of knowledge in online dialogues to concept maps generated to synthesize this knowledge construction, this study showed that concept maps are an effective tool to synthesize knowledge construction in online conferences. This finding was also supported by self-reported data in a moderator survey. Concept maps were also considered an effective tool for organizing information which indicates that they can be utilized as a knowledge management and preservation tool in online conferences. All students perceived that the Cmap tool software could be used as a tool to foster online collaborative learning in …

Designing The Social Environment For Online Learning: The Role Of Social Presence, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

A major challenge to designing online learning is the development of appropriate means to facilitate the social environment that is critical for higher-order learning in many disciplines. In many online learning designs, the majority of resources are channeled to web interface design and technology, while little or no resources are devoted to facilitating the teaching and learning process, the negotiation of meaning and the validation of knowledge among peers and instructors that depends on a conducive socio-cultural environment and adequate learner support. This paper seeks to address this issue by examining one factor, social presence that has been shown to …

Methods For Evaluating Interface Design For Online Learning Environments, Constance A. Lowe, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Designing online learning environments poses many challenges. One critical issue is the design of appropriate user interfaces so that the interface does not become a barrier to the learning process. The interface of a web site may be described as the sum of the visible (and/or audible) elements which convey to a user what functions and resources are available at the site and provide access to, or control over, those functions and resources. The interface is a key element of usability, where usability means the ease or difficulty with which the user can complete the intended tasks. Following a brief …

Advances And Applications Of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (Dsmt), Vol. 1, Florentin Smarandache, Jean Dezert

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) of plausible and paradoxical reasoning is a natural extension of the classical Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) but includes fundamental differences with the DST. DSmT allows to formally combine any types of independent sources of information represented in term of belief functions, but is mainly focused on the fusion of uncertain, highly conflicting and imprecise quantitative or qualitative sources of evidence. DSmT is able to solve complex, static or dynamic fusion problems beyond the limits of the DST framework, especially when conflicts between sources become large and when the refinement of the frame of the problem under consideration …

Reflections On Evaluating Online Learning And Teaching, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

In this chapter, I will discuss my decade of evaluation activities relating to online learning experiences, with a focus on methods. These online experiences range from setting up online networks for social interaction, facilitating collaborative learning experiences among graduate students in several universities, moderating worldwide online professional development activities, and teaching entirely online. Most of my online experiences relate to my role as a professor at the University of New Mexico where I teach graduate level courses in distance education and educational telecommunications. In this respect, I would like to acknowledge the valuable lessons I have learned from many students …

A Photographer's Guide To Legal Writing, Barbara P. Blumenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The author recounts a photography course that taught the three keys to an effective photograph: determining theme, focusing attention on char theme, and simplifying. This article adapts these three keys to legal writing to teach and remind writers of the necessary components of an effective legal document. This method provides a new way to look at old teachings.

The Professionalization Of Artists: A New Approach To The Social History Of Art, Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

Perhaps because of the somewhat inchoate and seemingly disorganized nature of the world of the arts, most students of modern social history and professions have steered clear of engagement with this fascinating crowd. Yet further acquaintance with the subject reveals that artists did in fact attempt to professionalize, and -- even if their efforts were not as successful as those of some others -- these efforts left a clear record of articulated demands and statements.

Multiple Perspectives On Implementing Inter-University Computer Conferencing, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Chere Campbell Gibson, John J. Cochenour, Tony Dean, Connie L. Dillon, Roseanne Hessmiller, Karen Murphy, Landra L. Rezabeck, Farhad Saba

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The purpose of this symposium is to discuss the organization, design, implementation and preliminary evaluation of an inter-university collaborative learning experience that used computer mediated communication (CMC) to link graduate students in several universities to discuss issues related to distance education. The discussion is based on the Globaled project, a computer conference that was set up and implemented for the second time, during the Fall 1993 semester. Globaled was first implemented during the Spring of 1992. With the increasing offering of distance education as a graduate discipline in many traditional universities, Globaled, can be seen as a unique way to …

Globaled Questionnaire, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The purpose of this unpublished questionnaire is to evaluate the GLOBALED project.

Learner Support: The Critical Link In Distance Education, Connie L. Dillon, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Robert Parker

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This study evaluates the Oklahoma Televised Instruction System, through an analysis of the student support services to include the resources available to the learner, the communications process characterized by the coordination services provided among the on-campus and distance sites, and the communication process characterized by the mechanical and electronic transfer of information. The study also compares the attitudes and performance of the participating on-campus and distance students.

Professionalization In Comparative Perspective: Germany, Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

critical social-history consciousness has abandoned to some degree the old notion that modern "professions" in the Anglo-Saxon sense could not "really" exist in Central Europe because of the heavy and early bureaucratization and/or the persistence of "feudal" or at least Stand (etat) traditions. Instead, most accept the notion of a process of dialogue between independent professions and bureaucratic authority.