Building an Evidence Base for K20 Online Learning

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Building an Evidence Base for K-20 Online
Learning

• Susan Patrick
• President CEO
• North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL)

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Innovate Journal of Online Education Building
an Evidence Base for K-20 Online Learning
February/March 2008 Special Issue

• James Morrison, Editor
• Cathy Gunn and Susan Patrick, Co-Editors, Special
  Issue
• Website InnovateOnline.info

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Research in K-20 Online Learning

• Growing rapidly and is a significant innovation
• increasing access to high quality courses for
  students
• In 2007, there were 1 million enrollments in K-12
  online learning (Peak Group 2007)
• 1 in 5 students in college take an online course
  3.5 million (Sloan Consortium 2007)

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Online Learning Growing

• The K-12 online learning market is growing
  rapidly at about 30 annually. In K-12
• 26 states with statewide virtual schools (Keeping
  Pace 2007)
• 18 states with 92,000 students enrolled in 173
  full-time virtual school programs (Center for
  Education Reform)
• More than half of all school districts across the
  United States offer online and distance learning
• In Higher Education
• 81 percent of all institutions offer online
  courses
• The online learning growth rate is 9.7, far
  exceeding the postsecondary enrollment growth
  rate for traditional programs of 1.5 (Sloan
  2007)

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Online Teaching and Classroom Change

• Article 1 Susan Lowes
• Transformation of both a teacher and the course
  when a teacher moves between face-to-face and
  online environments.
• Online teaching requires additional training for
  skills to use digital content, rethink
  communication, and use collaborative online
  tools.
• Explores shifts in ideas, strategies, and
  practices that constrain or improve their
  practice in either venue.

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Let Me Learn with My Peers Online

• Article 2 Rayenne Dekhinet, Keith Topping,
  David Duran, and Silvia Blanch
• Foreign-language learning with reciprocal peer
  tutoring.
• Primary school program that linked
  English-speaking learners of Spanish with
  Spanish-speaking learners of English as peers
  from two different countries.
• Students in the study were highly engaged and
  motivated in learning their foreign language as
  they related to a real and authentic audience.
• The results of this study provide insight on how
  Internet technology can be leveraged to enhance
  language learning.

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Learning at a Distance Engaged or Not?

• Article 3 Pu-Schih Chen, Robert Gonyea, and
  George Kuh
• To what degree are online learners engaged in
  effective educational practices?
• Study the engagement of distance learners versus
  their campus-based counterparts at U.S. four-year
  degree-granting colleges and universities.
• perceptions of more senior distance learners on
  their engagement in the online setting and
  noteworthy differences between older distance
  learners and their younger online course mates.

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When the Medium Illustrates the Content

• Article 4 Foertsch and Gernsbacher
• Seven principles of effective education and their
  use in an online psychology course
• The course on Autism appropriately examines
  communication absent non-verbal cues, as
  reflected in online communications that are
  text-based.
• The article examines a comparison between
  face-to-face communication and online
  communication and highlights the exchange of
  ideas and rigor through various mediums and the
  results.

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When the Medium Illustrates the Content . . .
contd

• The article highlights the results of the course,
  as evaluated against each of the seven principles
  of effective education contact between faculty
  and students, collaboration among students,
  active learning, timely feedback, time on task,
  high expectations for students and respecting
  diverse learning and talents.

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V-Learning How Gaming and Avatars are Engaging
Students

• Article 5 Annetta, Klesath, and Holmes
• Virtual learning environments and the use of
  avatars in an online course.
• The study looks at various interactions,
  collaborative elements, the role of social
  presence, and personality through avatars and
  offers suggestions for online education.
• Multidimensional gaming environments offer
  several elements that have enormous potential for
  online learning to provide flexibility,
  interaction and data transparency.

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Experiential Work-Integrated Online Learning

• Article 6 Arnold
• 5 learning concepts incorporated in an online
  Bachelors degree focused on experiential
  learning
• Learning, Technology and Research degree blends
  five concepts of learning personalized learning,
  work-based learning, inquiry-led learning,
  exhibition and online community.
• There are useful lessons in thinking how these
  concepts could be applied in other online
  education settings for improving instruction and
  student engagement.
• Benefits of blending these approaches and the
  challenges across the entire degree program.

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U.S. Department of Education Project Online
Learning

• U.S. Department Education OLL Initiative
• Policy and Program Studies Service, PPSS
• Contract SRI Center for Technology in Learning
• Barbara Means and Marianne Bakia, SRI
• Evaluation of Evidence-based Practices in Online
  Learning
• Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning
  Studies

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Highlights from OLL Evaluation

• Need for more federal research funding for K-12
  online learning
• Key findings from research of postsecondary and
  professional online learning
• Meta-analysis of 29 study effects found that
• Students who took all or part of their class
  online performed better, on average, than those
  taking the same course through traditional
  face-to-face instruction
• Average effect size of 0.34 favoring online
• Studies in which the same instructors taught the
  online and face-to-face classes had effects more
  favorable to online learning
• Online learning can be enhanced by giving
  learners control of their interactions with media
  and scaffolding learner reflection
• Manipulations that trigger learner activity and
  monitoring learners

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Thank You!

• Questions?
• Spatrick_at_nacol.org
• [phone]
• www.nacol.org
• www.virtualschoolsymposium.org
• InnovateOnline.info