Education Commons^™

What I Think I Learned, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii

Faculty Publications

A retrospective review of fifty years of research and development experience showing the connectedness of the author’s theoretical ideas to practical application. An effort to show designers how over the span of a career new ideas begin as work-related insights and discoveries that by problem solving flow together to create a unique personal view of design and designing. Encouragement for individual designers to be willing to experiment with new ideas that may step beyond received practice and to learn from those experiences, even to the extent of testing and adopting new worldviews that may differ from the general view. Encouragement …

Learning Experience Design As An Orienting Guide For Practice: Insights From Designing For Expertise, Jason K. Mcdonald, Tyler J. Westerberg

Faculty Publications

In this paper we consider how learning experience design (LXD) improves designers’ capacities to influence learning. We do this by exploring what LXD offers the design of learning environments that help develop learners’ expertise. We discuss how LXD (a) attunes designers to different learning affordances than are emphasized in traditional ID; (b) challenges the universal applicability of common ID techniques; and (c) expands designers’ views of the outcomes for which they can design. These insights suggest that LXD is useful because it refocuses and reframes designers' work around flexible design approaches that are often deemphasized in traditional ID.

The Everydayness Of Instructional Design And The Pursuit Of Quality In Online Courses, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

This article reports research into the everydayness of instructional design (meaning designers’ daily routines, run-of-the-mill interactions with colleagues, and other, prosaic forms of social contact), and how everydayness relates to their pursuit of quality in online course design. These issues were investigated through an ethnographic case study, centered on a team of instructional designers at a university in the United States. Designers were observed spending significant amounts of time engaged in practices of course refinement, meaning mundane, workaday tasks like revising, updating, fine-tuning, or fixing the courses to which they were assigned. Refining practices were interrelated with, but also experienced …

Informal Practices Of Localizing Open Educational Resources In Ghana, Emily Durham Bradshaw, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

Research on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) often notes the potential benefits for users to revise, reuse, and remix OER to localize it for specific learners. However, a gap in the literature exists in terms of research that explores how this localization occurs in practice. This is a significant gap given the current flow of OER from higher-income countries in the Global North to lower-income countries in the Global South (King et al., 2018). This study explores how OER from one area of the world is localized when it is used in a different cultural context.

Findings indicated …

“Are These People Real?”: Designing And Playtesting An Alternative Reality, Educational Simulation, Jason K. Mcdonald, Jonathan Balzotti, Melissa Franklin, Jessica Haws, Jamin Rowan

Faculty Publications

In this design case, we report our design and playtest of a form of alternative reality, educational simulation that we call a playable case study (PCS). One of the features that make our simulations unique is how they are designed to implement a principle called This Is Not a Game, or TINAG, meaning that the affordances we design into the simulation suggest to students that the experience they are having is real, in contrast to the way the artificial nature of the experience is highlighted in many computer games. In this case, we describe some challenges we encountered in designing …

知源育利用のガイド, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

知源育を応用するための様々な角度からのヒントを学ぶことができるガイドです。実勢んをしながら、時々このガイドを参照することで、より高いレベルでの実践が可能になるでしょう。

Dbl Study Reflectivity Journal, Gloria Mora

ScholarsArchive Data

This is a reflectivity journal to document all the steps taken to complete the Thesis "Decision-Based Learning as a Tool for Teaching Statistics in a Peruvian University." This journal documents all the conversations that the researchers have about their understanding of DBL and all the major decisions made it
to complete this study.

Student Retention And Persistence In University Certificate-First Programs, Troy Martin, Randall Davies

Faculty Publications

While access to higher education has grown over the past few years, significant barriers exist for nontraditional students attempting to prepare for and complete postsecondary education. For these students, the traditional methods for acknowledging student achievement do not always work. This research explored the impact of earning professional certificates on nontraditional students’ confidence, motivation, and persistence. Specifically, this study evaluated the matriculation rates between two cohorts of students who participated in the online PathwayConnect program. The mixed-method study found that matriculation rates for students who were encouraged to earn a certificate increased compared to those who followed a traditional path. …

Introducing Undergraduates To Instructional Design In A Graduate Studio: An Experiential, Model-Centered Approach, Rebecca Stull Zundell, William Sowards, Scott L. Howell, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

This case study describes a combined graduate and undergraduate instructional design studio that introduced undergraduate students to instructional design in a multifaceted, holistic, and applied way. Reviewing the experience of the undergraduates in the course, this design case describes four learning interventions used to create this applied experience: (1) instructional design team projects—one non-profit and the other in higher education, (2) weekly seminars and biweekly training sessions from field experts, (3) an experiential out-of-state trip, and (4) weekly reflection journals. These studio-based learning interventions are presented within the context of the Experiential Learning Theory and Model-Centered Instruction. Overall, the course …

Increase Student Engagement In Online Writing Environments, Jonathan Balzotti, Jason K. Mcdonald, Kevin Haws, Amy Allen Rogers, Matthew J. Baker

Faculty Publications

This case study explores a type of educational simulation, an alternative reality game we call a playable case study (PCS), and how its use influenced student engagement in an online writing classroom. The goal of the simulation was to help students create professional communication artifacts and experience real-world professional communication situations. This article reports the effectiveness of the playable case study as a tool specifically for online writing instruction (OWI). The context of our research was a PCS called Microcore. Acting as interns for a company, students are asked to investigate a serious problem that occurs and present a solution …

Considering What Faculty Value When Working With Instructional Designers And Instructional Design Teams, Jason K. Mcdonald, Salma Elsayed-Ali, Kayla Bowman, Amy Allen Rogers

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research was to study what university faculty valued when working with instructional designers and instructional design teams to develop educational simulations. We did this through a case study of three faculty, where we analyzed what they discussed among themselves or communicated to other team members about what mattered to them about their team relationships or the design processes they employed. We structured our case report around three thematic issues that expressed how our participants depicted good relationships and processes. Our report concludes with a discussion of how instructional designers could use our findings in their practice.

A Framework For Phronetic Ldt Theory, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

My purpose in this chapter is to offer a reimagined view of theory in the field of learning design and technology (LDT). Instead of viewing theory as an external storehouse of knowledge, or a rule-like system for professionals to apply, in this framework theory is viewed as an orienting aid that supports practitioners as they refine their personal capacities for perception, discrimination, and judgment. Theory plays this orienting role as it offers insights into LDT-relevant practical knowledge, productive heuristics, points professionals towards opportunities to act, or identifies significant patterns and forms of excellence to which they can pay attention as …

Beginning Novel Course, Hyram Brown

Student Works

The purpose of this project was to increase student access to Brigham Young University's ENGL 318R course by creating an online version of the in-person ENGL 318R course that would allow the professor to increase their capacity to teach by at least 25%. This course was originally not intended to be offered officially by the university, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this course was offered online and for credit during Spring term of 2020.

2019 Learning Contract Experiment Data For Entrepreneurship Training Program In Lima, Peru, Matt Karlsven

ScholarsArchive Data

The data set includes survey measures of entrepreneurs in Lima, Peru before (April 2019) and after (October 2019) going through a training program. The measures are from the categories of:

Demographics

Business Information

Business Knowledge

Business Practices

Business Outcomes

The Invisible Message, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii, Elizabeth Boling

Faculty Publications

The number and variety of messages conveyed by an instructional experience is astonishing, but most designers are unaware of their number, subtlety, and impact. Many of those messages they would not choose to send if they recognized their existence in practice. The design of invisible and abstract message structures receives less attention from designers today than those parts of the design given to more vivid, colorful, and showy surface structures. Invisible message structures work behind the scenes to produce the smooth surface performances in front of the curtain; they are seldom seen directly, but their power is indisputable. The purpose …

Teacher Recruitment: Factors That Predict High School Students’ Willingness To Become Teachers, Steve Christensen, Randall Davies, Scott Harris, Joseph Hanks, Byran Bowles

Faculty Publications

This study examines factors that influence high school students’ willingness to consider teaching as a career. Using predictive modeling, we identified five factors that are highly predictive of a students’ willingness to consider teaching and their belief that teaching is their best career option. Results indicated that high school students were more likely to consider teaching when they had confidence in their ability to be good teachers, when family members and others encouraged them to become teachers, and when they felt their community supported teachers. Most of those who considered teaching thought of themselves as average students. Less impactful factors …

Collaborative Innovation In Global Teams: A Case Study Of The Startup Grind Inc. Global Community Team, Camey L. Andersen

Student Works

The Startup Grind Inc. Global Community Team was studied to show how creativity and innovation occur in a global virtual team. Innovation occurred by choosing team members who were committed to a creative team environment. Team creativity online was strengthened by providing opportunities for the global virtual team to meet in person. Alternative brainstorming methods outside the scheduled team meetings also added to the overall innovation of the team. Flexibility with the virtual office and meetings provided a platform for the team to think outside the box. Team members achieved a unity of ideas as they used innovation and creativity …

Reconsidering Design And Evaluation, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii, David D. Williams

Faculty Publications

In this paper we have put design and evaluation as it were under a microscope with multiple lenses. We use four different snapshots of design, each at a different level of resolution, to reveal new perspectives on the design-evaluation relationship. We believe that the disparate views of designers and evaluators can be resolved by resorting to the middle ground described by Klir. We believe also that the disparate views of educational technologists and learning scientists can be similarly resolved by appealing to the similar principle of Edelson.

The Application Of Layer Theory To Design: The Control Layer, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii, Matt Langton

Faculty Publications

Validation of an architectural theory of instructional design layering is accomplished for one of the proposed layers by verifying the theory’s claim that for every layer there exists a body of design theory from outside the field of instructional design that is capable of informing design within that layer.

Some Big Questions About Design In Educational Technology, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii

Faculty Publications

This article asks five questions that lead us to the foundations of design practice. Design processes structure time, space, place, activity, role, goal and resource. For educational technology to advance in its understanding of design practice, it must question whether we have clear conceptions of how abstract conceptions are turned into physical artifacts capable of inspiring the intellect and the emotions to facilitate learning. These five questions hopefully supply topics for design conversations.

Participational Agency, Stephen C. Yanchar

Faculty Publications

Participational agency is presented as a conceptual account of human action, volition, and possibility. Rooted in hermeneutic and narrative traditions, this view differs from other theorizing about agency (and most psychological theorizing in general) in that it makes no effort to explain human action by virtue of reified constructs. As an alternative to traditional theorizing in this area, participational agency is defined as meaningful engagement in the world and treats the experienced meaningfulness of practical human activity as its central feature. The concept of meaningful engagement is clarified through the presentation of four related themes—situated participation, existential concern, dispositional action, …

Ten Scalability Factors In Distance Education, R. Dwight Laws, Scott L. Howell, Nathan K. Lindsay

Faculty Publications

The institutional decision about how much technology should be used to scale distance education enrollments, reduce costs, maximize profits, and protect course and program quality is both institutional specific and complex. Guri-Rosenblit (1999) noted that “many conventional universities worldwide operate as large-scale universities and are in a continuous search to find the right balance between massification trends, quality education, and the catering to the individual needs of students” (p. 289). This research is an outgrowth of the authors’ own efforts to identify relevant scalability factors and their interrelationship one to another in a traditional university’s distance education program.

Critical Thinking As Disciplinary Practice, Stephen C. Yanchar, Brent D. Slife, Russell Warne

Faculty Publications

Critical thinking in psychology has traditionally focused on method-centered tasks such as the assessment of method use, data analysis, and research evidence. Although helpful in some ways, this form of critical thinking fails to provide resources for critically examining the scientific-analytic foundation on which it rests and, when used exclusively, prohibits sufficiently critical analysis of theory and research. An alternative view of critical thinking—that emphasizes the identification and evaluation of implicit theoretical assumptions—is advocated. It is suggested that this alternative approach improves upon method-centered approaches by addressing not only implicit assumptions but also rule-following concerns. This approach is intended to …

Model-Centered Instruction, The Design, And The Designer, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii

Faculty Publications

A model of instruction described by Wenger (1987) identifies three elements that are active during instruction: the mental model the instructor wishes to share with the learner, the external experience used to communicate the mental model, and the evolving mental model of the learner. Gibbons (2003a), writing in response to Seel (2003), noted this three-part description as a bridge concept relating learning and instruction. This view has important practical implications for designers of instruction. For example, Gibbons and Rogers (in press) propose that there exists a natural layered architecture within instructional designs that corresponds with instructional functions. Among these layers …

Teaching One Way And Testing Another: An Interview With Scott Howell, Scott L. Howell, James L. Morrison

Faculty Publications

I first met Scott Howell in 2005 in Jekyll Island, Georgia at the annual Distance Learning Administration (DLA) conference, which was sponsored in part by the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (OJDLA). Scott is co-editor of the three-volume book series Online Assessment and Measurement (2005) published by IDEA group and is this year's chair of the University Continuing Education Association's (UCEA) Distance Learning Community of Practice (DLCoP). His keynote speech at the DLA conference featured a number of assessment issues and best practices. However, when I sat down to interview him, he quickly focused on one topic for which …

Good (Best) Practices For Electronically Offered Degree And Certificate Programs, Scott L. Howell, Katherine Baker

Faculty Publications

Who would have ever imagined the effect of one set of distance education principles developed 10 years ago (1995)? At a time in the history of distance- and e-learning, when many associations, organizations, and institutions set about to define themselves and those standards by which their constituents would be held accountable for quality practices, one set of standards has emerged preeminent the work of the Western Cooperative of Educational Telecommunications known as Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs. Even Though the original 17 principles enumerated in 1995 have evolved to 27 in 2005, all institutions of higher …

Technology: Taking The Distance Out Of Learning/New Directions For Teaching And Learning, 94, Nathan K. Lindsay, Scott L. Howell

Faculty Publications

Lindsay and Howell review Technology: Taking the Distance Out of Learning: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 94 edited by Margit Misangyi Watts.

Distance Learning And University Effectiveness: Changing Educational Paradigms For Online Learning, Scott L. Howell

Faculty Publications

Howell reviews Distance Learning and University Effectiveness: Changing Educational Paradigms for Online Learning by Caroline Howard, Karen D. Schenk, and Richard Discenza.

Reevaluating Course Completion In Distance Education—Avoiding The Comparison Between Apples And Oranges, Scott L. Howell, R. Dwight Laws, Nathan K. Lindsay

Faculty Publications

Critics of distance education frequently assert that completion rates are lower in distance education courses than in traditional courses. Such criticism comes despite sparse and inconclusive research on completion rates for distance and traditional education courses. This article reviews some of the existing research and then describes some of the caveats and complexities in comparing completion rates in traditional and distance education. Analysis reveals that numerous factors make comparison between these two formats difficult, if not impossible. Problems include limitations in the research design itself, differences in student demographics, and inconsistent methods of calculating and reporting completion. After exploring these …

Ten Efficient Research Strategies For Distance Learning, Thomas C. Wright, Scott L. Howell

Faculty Publications

Today's distance education administrator, frequently with an expertise in another academic discipline, is also supposed to be a distance education scholar. This expectation results from the recent interest in distance learning that nearly all institutions of learning and disciplines of study have shown. More research, studies, journals, and essays about distance education also exist than at any other time.

A distance education administrator and an education research librarian at Brigham Young University have teamed up to identify ten pragmatic research strategies to help new, busy, and even a few experienced distance education administrators stay current in their field and successful …