Education Commons^™

From Emergency Remote Teaching (Ert) To Sustained Remote Teaching (Srt): A Comparative Semester Analysis Of Exchange Students’ Experiences And Perceptions Of Learning Online During Covid-19, William H. Stewart, Youngkyun Baek, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic caused universities worldwide to close campuses, forcing millions of teachers and students to resort to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) and learning. Though necessary, the sudden move to remote delivery marked a significant departure from the standards and norms in distance education. In Korea, the pandemic coincided with the start of the 2020 academic year. Though ERT was new and unplanned during the first semester of the year, it became Sustained Remote Teaching (SRT) in the second. Through the lens of performance improvement theory, we sought to determine if students’ experiences and perceptions with learning remotely via SRT …

Survey Says--How To Engage Law Students In The Online Learning Environment, Andrele Brutus St. Val

Articles

The pandemic experience has made it clear that not everyone loves teaching or learning remotely. Many professors and students alike are eager to return to the classroom. However, our experiences over the last year and a half have also demonstrated the potentials and possibilities of learning online and have caused many professors to recalibrate their approaches to digital learning. While the tools for online learning were available well before March of 2020, many instructors are only now beginning to capitalize on their potential. The author of this article worked in online legal education before the pandemic, utilizing these tools and …

And Finally... Systems And Instructional Design, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

A system is a set of interrelated parts, all working together toward a defined goal. The parts of the system depend on each other for input and output. The entire system uses feedback to determine if its desired goal has been reached. If not, then the system is modified until it reaches its goal (Dick et al., 2015).

Digital Educational Modules Development For The Career And Technical Cybersecurity Pathways During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Vukica Jovanović, Murat Kuzlu, Otilia Popescu, Petros Katsioloudis, Linda Vahala, Michael Wu, Deborah Marshall, Michael Crespo, Mary Addison

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Virtual learning has been used now for several decades, but it has never had a bigger impact on student learning than in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Universities and schools faced shutdowns all around the world, and teachers had to adapt rapidly to online mode of instruction. Many educators were faced with a triage approach with no previous experience in distance learning, a lack of resources for professional development, and already existing shortages of current educational modules that could assist them in their day-to-day jobs. This gap was especially evident in areas such as career and technical education (CTE) …

Distance Education Under Duress: A Case Study Of Exchange Students’ Experience With Online Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic In The Republic Of Korea, William H. Stewart, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

COVID-19 caused universities around the world to transition overnight to some type of remote learning or online format. The way this occurred, though necessary, was a departure from the standards and norms of traditional distance education and was a drastic change for the majority of faculty and students who had no prior experience with remote, blended, or online learning. This case study was conducted in the Republic of Korea with 15 international exchange students who found themselves forced to take distance education courses on an empty campus during the COVID19 pandemic. Themes of isolation and loneliness, diverse learning experiences, little-to-no …

Addressing Student Engagement During Covid-19: Secondary Stem Teachers Attend To The Affective Dimension Of Learner Needs, Tiffany Roman, Laurie Brantley-Dias, Michael Dias, Belinda Edwards

Faculty and Research Publications

This case study examines how a cohort of eleven induction secondary STEM teachers engaged learners during the onset of COVID-19 and their designs for student engagement given an online or blended teaching context in fall 2020. Participants attended a summer professional development workshop guided by trauma-informed teaching practices and learner engagement conceptual frameworks. Through the analysis of teacher artifacts and interviews, we identified dimensions of student engagement that teachers prioritized. Results indicate a marked increase in teachers’ attention to affective and social dimensions of learner engagement. We argue that teacher awareness and action in the affective domain of student engagement …

Experiences And Perceptions Of Exchange Students Learning Online During The Covid-19 Pandemic In The Republic Of Korea: An Exploratory Descriptive Study, William H. Stewart, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools worldwide to suddenly transition to remote learning. The change forced students, who might not choose to take distance education courses, to adjust to a new way of completing their coursework. Further, this impacted certain student groups like exchange students more adversely since distance courses complicated academic exchanges by rendering short-term exchange students isolated on an empty campus in a foreign country, all while recently arriving to both. There are many intrinsic hardships to academic exchanges but there is a lack of research on exchange students' experiences learning online when immediately transitioning from face-to-face courses to …

And Finally... A New Era..., Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Some have written that the modern era of distance education began with the widespread availability of the internet. Others move the date back to when it was possible to communicate quickly, such as with the telephone.

And Finally... Crisis Planning, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

The time to plan is now. If you do not have a plan to move to online teaching and learning, develop one. If you do have a plan, review it, update it, and train everyone.

And Finally … It’Ll Never Happen …, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Educational contingency planning is the process of developing in advance what will be done if there is an event that impacts the school or training organization. Contingency planning for distance education is a subset of general contingency planning.

And Finally … The Night Is Dark …, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

For many, the previous 18 months have been dark and uncertain. Jobs have been changed, friends are different, and future events seem threatening— the playing field of doomsayers and charlatans preaching negativity.

And Finally A Baker’S Dozen Ideas For Creating An Online Course, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Most likely, everyone reading this column in Distance Learning journal has been asked how to quickly develop an online course, or tasked to actually redesign a course for online delivery. For those who have taught and learned in the world of distance education this process is easy, straightforward, even if time-consuming. One issue for new online designers or instructors is that much of the process for converting a traditional course to an online one is not intuitive, and in some respects is counterintuitive. For example, the idea of chunking instruction into single concept building blocks is an example of …

And Finally... Blending In All The News That’S Fit To Print, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Even the New York Times agrees. In a recent Business section article about success in online courses, the Times wrote that “The instructional ingredients of success include … short videos of 6 minutes or less, interspersed with interactive drills and texts; online forums where students share problems and suggestions; and online mentoring and tutoring” (“Online Courses,” 2020). The Times got it right.

And Finally … What’S In A Name?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Call me Ishmael” is the first line of the classic novel, Moby Dick. Most high school students do not realize the importance of Ishmael’s name when they start reading. However, if they wanted an A on the final essay they wrote about the novel, they should have mentioned how this first line of three words set the intellectual tone for Herman Melville’s masterpiece.

And Finally... Course Quality Or Instructional Quality, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Quality has become a popular word in distance education literature. Quality this, and quality that, all demanding that distance education, online learning, or virtual schooling must “have” something called quality— most often course quality.

And Finally … Open Access, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Open Access—the idea that scholarly literature should be free and easily available to read online to anyone with an interest. We distance educators naturally embrace the idea of having readily available content that can be used in courses in a format that is easy to use and access. According to the web location Opensource.com there are two different versions of open access—libre and gratis.

And Finally … Telepresence—New Or ?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Telepresence is most simply defined as the virtual presence of a speaker who is at a distance. More sophisticated definitions emphasize the use of technologies that allow a videoconference viewer to feel as if distant participants are present.

Setting The Pace: Examining Cognitive Processing In Mooc Discussion Forums With Automatic Text Analysis, Robert L. Moore, Kevin M. Oliver, Chuang Wang

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Learning analytics focuses on extracting meaning from large amounts of data. One of the largest datasets in education comes from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that typically feature enrollments in the tens of thousands. Analyzing MOOC discussion forums presents logistical issues, resulting chiefly from the size of the dataset, which can create challenges for understanding and adequately describing student behaviors. Utilizing automatic text analysis, this study built a hierarchical linear model that examines the influence of the pacing condition of a massive open online course (MOOC), whether it is self-paced or instructor-paced, on the demonstration of cognitive processing in a …

And Finally... Engagement, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Engagement of a learner is defined as emotional and intellectual involvement or commitment—the participation in learning activities via interaction with others in meaningful ways. Engagement theory considers engagement as the process of involving learners in groups or teams working collaboratively on project-based and authentic activities.

And Finally... Doing It Wrong—Who Says?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Several years ago there was considerable discussion among leaders of schools, colleges, universities, and organizations who wanted to offer instruction at a distance. In response, Distance Learning published a column titled “Designing the Perfect Online Program” hoping that the set of guidelines provided would assist organizations in their planning, and to reduce the likelihood that illconceived plans would be implemented.

And Finally … Let’S Go Deeply Digital?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

The origination of the term “deeply digital” is widely credited to a Report to the President made in 2010 by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The core of this report was that technology, deeply digital technology, should not replace teachers but support them. Properly used, technology can extend the reach of teachers by giving them access to the best instructional and professional development tools that can create customized learning environments and assessments for students, and to capture rich information about individual performance. (p. 80)

Distance Education And Technology Infrastructure: Strategies And Opportunities, Robert L. Moore, B. P. Fodrey

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Distance education provides a wealth of opportunities and areas for innovation, but it also presents unique challenges for implementation and eventual success. To mitigate these challenges, this chapter will present four critical components—systems, objectives, evaluation, and personnel—that combine into one to create a technology infrastructure that can support distance delivery. Through this chapter, e-learning leaders will gain the knowledge to not only identify key features of tools used for distance delivery, but also understand and appreciate the correlation between a holistic infrastructure approach and quality distance delivery. The absence of one of these critical components will likely result in an …

And Finally ... Online Courses Have Three Critical Components (And Learning Management Systems Are Not One Of Them), Michael R. Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

It is happening again. Vendors—and some well-meaning educational administrators—are talking about the power of course/learning management systems and claiming that the technology used to deliver online courses has an impact on student achievement.

And Finally … Social Media And Online Learning: Pros And Cons, Michael R. Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Are social media applications empowering or addicting—or both?

Developing Distance Education Content Using The Tappa Process, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The proliferation of distance education has occurred alongside the emerging technologies of the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 environments, changing the way instructors approach, design, and deliver their instructional materials. In the past, instructional design (ID) practitioners relied on instruction system design (ISD) models that focused primarily on macroinstruction. It is now important for these practitioners to use microinstruction strategies to keep pace with the technology evolution. This case study describes the TAPPA (Target, Accomplishment, Past, Prototype, Artifact) Process which was created using the Generic Model for Design Research (GMDR) proposed by McKenney and Reeves (2012) and uses selected ID …

Interacting At A Distance: Creating Engagement In Online Learning Environments, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Effective online instruction requires understanding not only interaction but also how to facilitate interaction through technology (Moore & Kearsley, 2012). Specifically, Moore and Kearsley (2012) categorize these types of interactions as "learner with content, interaction with instruction [or] interaction with other learners" (p. 132). This chapter examines each of these interaction types and suggests ways to incorporate them into online learning environments (OLEs). The chapter provides techniques and approaches that will be beneficial to both instructional design practitioners and online instructors. It seeks to assuage some of the concerns that faculty have about OLEs and provides ideas and activities that …

Use Of Mobile Phones For Interaction In Distance Education, Tayyaba Batool, Ginger Watson, Saul Carliner (Ed.), Catherine Fulford (Ed.), Nathaniel Ostashewski (Ed.)

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Distance education is a widely adopted technology in many developed parts of the world where educational agencies are constantly considering new technologies that can serve as a medium for instructional delivery and interaction. Mobile phones are one of the most recent technologies to gain much consideration and use. This brief paper outlines the current state of distance education, delivery mediums, and instructional approaches that foster interaction to promote effective learning. Particular emphasis is given to the potential for mobile devices to be used as effective instructional tools in distance education in Pakistan and other underdeveloped countries. The proposed study will …

Collaboration Factors, Teamwork Satisfaction, And Student Attitudes Toward Online Collaborative Learning, Heng-Yu Ku, Hungwei Tseng, Chatchada Akarasriworn

Research, Publications & Creative Work

This study examined online courses with collaborative learning components from 197 graduate students across three consecutive academic years. A student attitude survey containing 20 items and a student teamwork satisfaction scale containing 10 items on a 5-point Likert-type scale with three open-ended questions regarding their online collaborating experiences were collected during the final week of each semester. Results revealed that the three extracted online collaboration factors (Team Dynamics, Team Acquaintance, and Instructor Support) from the student attitude survey had moderate to high degrees of correlation with teamwork satisfaction. Results also revealed that the three collaboration factors accounted for 53% of …

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.

Managing A Distance-Learning Eet Laboratory Course Using Collaboration Software, Steve Hsiung, John Hackworth, Richard Jones, June Ritchie

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Methods of managing various distance learning EET laboratory courses using collaboration software are detailed. Particular emphasis is given to different types of collaboration software, advantages and disadvantages of each, and student and faculty feedback on the effectiveness of each.