Faculty Support for Blended Learning Course Redesign

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Faculty Support for Blended Learning Course
Redesign

• Dr. Randy Garrison
• and
• Dr. Norm Vaughan

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Overview

• Institutional context
• Community of inquiry framework
• Faculty development program
• Results to date

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University of Calgary

• Calgary gt 1M population
• 40 yr old campus-based institution
• 30,000 students growing
• 80 plus HS average to get in
• Top 10 in research funding
• 81 students per class (junior level)
• Increasing student dissatisfaction

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Institutional Learning Plan

• That inquiry-based learning approaches be at the
  centre of the undergraduate learning experience.
• All students must have the opportunity to
  participate in communities of inquiry
• Learning technologies (i.e., eLearning) offer
  opportunities to enhance the campus experience
  and extend learning through the innovative use of
  on-line resources, asynchronous collaborative
  learning opportunities, and electronic
  communication.

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Community

• community means meaningful association,
  association based on common interest and
  endeavor. The essence of community is
  communication,
• John Dewey

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Educational Community

• we have at our disposal one of the greatest
  vehicles for community building known to
  humankind the one called education.
• Palmer, 2002

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University

• The word university is derived from the Latin
  universitas magistrorum et scholarium, roughly
  meaning "community of masters and scholars.

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Inquiry

• Is problem or question driven
• Typically has a small-group feature
• Includes critical discourse
• Is frequently multi-disciplinary
• Incorporates research methods such as information
  gathering and synthesis of ideas

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Community Of Inquiry

• The importance of a community of inquiry is that,
  while the objective of critical reflection is
  intellectual autonomy, in reality, critical
  reflection is thoroughly social and communal.
• Lipman, 1991

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Community of Inquiry Framework
Social Presence The ability of participants in a
community of inquiry to project themselves
socially and emotionally as real people
(i.e., their full personality), through the
medium of communication being used.
Cognitive Presence The extent to which learners
are able to construct and confirm meaning
through sustained reflection and discourse in a
critical community of inquiry.
Teaching Presence The design, facilitation and
direction of cognitive and social processes for
the purpose of realizing personally meaningful
and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
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CoI Categories/Indicators
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Social Presence

• Social presence is defined here as the ability of
  participants to project themselves socially and
  purposefully within a community of inquiry.
• Effect of medium not most salient factor
  (contrary to Short, et al., 1976)

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SP Categories

• Open Communication
• Group Cohesion
• Affective Expression

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Questions

• Have we placed too much emphasis on social
  presence (SP) in supporting online and blended
  communities of inquiry??
• Is SP a required precursor to cognitive presence?

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Nature of a CoI?

• Learning space or social space?
• Their use of the medium was functional,
  organized, time-driven, and carefully evaluated.
  (Conrad, 2002)
• Manage pathological politeness (expectations
  activities)
• Build community judiciously (takes time)

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Cognitive Presence

• Extent to which participants critically reflect,
  (re)construct meaning, and engage in discourse
  for the purpose of sharing meaning and confirming
  understanding.

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Practical Inquiry Model (Adapted from Garrison
Archer, 2000)
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Teaching Presence

• The design, facilitation, and direction of
  cognitive and social processes for the purpose of
  realizing personally meaningful and educationally
  worthwhile learning outcomes.

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TP Categories

• Design Organization
• Facilitation
• Direct Instruction

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Teaching Presence

• What is the role of teaching presence?
• How essential is TP?

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How Essential?

• The body of evidence is growing rapidly attesting
  to the importance of teaching presence for
  successful online learning
• The consensus is that teaching presence is a
  significant determinate of student satisfaction,
  perceived learning, and sense of community.

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FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
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Learning Technology Policy

• The University community must consider how to
  redesign courses whereby the integration of
  communication technologies supports inquiry and
  enriches the teaching and learning enterprise.

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Blended Learning

• Thoughtful integration of face-to-face and online
  learning.
• An opportunity to enhance the classroom
  experience through engagement and extend learning
  through the innovative use of Internet
  information and communications technology.
• Not an add-on redesign approaches (e.g.,
  replace lectures, add online activities)

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Why Blended Learning?

• New approaches to teaching (change culture)
• Enhance student learning
• Access convenience
• Maximize institutional resources

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Query

• How many are comfortable reducing or replacing
  lecture time?
• Is there a place for the lecture in blended
  learning?

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Strategic Challenges

• Awareness and understanding of inquiry and
  blended learning
• Student orientation (resistance)
• Commitment to fundamental redesign
• Strategic plan covering all four undergraduate
  years
• Teaching-research imbalance
• Leadership

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LEADERSHIP

• What are the leadership characteristics we need
  in higher education?
• How do we move the blended learning agenda
  forward?

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Leadership Constraints

• Collegiality consensus
• Governance model
• Loyalty to discipline silos
• Morale budget cuts
• Conception selection of leaders
• ???

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Leadership Characteristics

• Vision
• insightful
• knowledgeable
• Personal attributes
• focus on organization not self
• recognize talent
• open, willingness to listen
• accountable
• Courage
• decisiveness
• integrity

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Vision
Judgment
Credibility
LEADER-SHIP
Personal Skills/Values
Courage
Authenticity
RESULTS
Transformational Leaders
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Strategic Plan What We Did

• Draft policy, set priorities
• Provide incentives/financial support
• Strategic selection of prototypes focus on
  limited number of prototypes the first year
• Single POP for support, quality assurance, and
  project management
• Mandatory participation in ITBL 401
• Study and evaluate all projects/developments
• Create a task group to address issues,
  challenges, opportunities and communicate to
  community

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History of BL at U of C

• Institutional Learning Plan
• Blended Learning Position Paper
• Link to inquiry based learning
• Raising Awareness
• Steve Sorg, UCF (2002)
• Carol Twigg, NCAT (2004)
• Curtis Bonk, Indiana University (2005)
• Grant program incentives!!

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Inquiry Through BL Program

• Professional development support
• Program planning began in 2002 virtual
  participation in the University of Central
  Floridas - Interactive Distributed Learning for
  Technology Mediated Course Delivery (IDL6543)
• Development of the Inquiry through Blended
  Learning (ITBL) Program in 2004

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Inquiry Through Blended Learning

• Support Services
• Orientation course redesign guide and initial
  meeting with representatives from ITBL, IT and
  the Library
• Project team meetings ITBL staff consult with
  faculty, graduate students and staff involved in
  each specific project
• Faculty community of inquiry blending of face
  to face luncheon meetings with online learning
  activities to support project development

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Campus Wide Support

• Blended learning workshop series
• Presentations by external experts
• Handbook for Blended Learning Online Study
  Group
• Tip Sheets two page handouts on blended
  learning topics
• ITBL Resource Wiki

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Grant Program

• Faculty apply for course redesign grants (ten
  10,000 grants and one 30,000 grant for a major
  course redesign)
• Competitive vetting reviews and selections are
  made by a university committee
• Teaching Learning Centre provides course
  redesign consultation and support (refine goals
  and expectations, redesign learning activities
  and assessment, adapt and develop online tools,
  evaluate implementation, and disseminate results)

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Innovation Redesign

• Preference will be for applications that
  demonstrate true innovation in teaching and
  learning through inquiry and blended learning
  approaches
• Enhance the quality of teaching and learning
  (e.g., increased discourse collaboration)

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Scenario One Political Science

• LAW POLITICS
• Goal
• staged inquiry modules (resource access)
• reduce formal lectures
• Solution
• Breeze presentation for student orientation
• tutorial/project groups meet with prof bi-weekly
• team-based research projects
• each team critiques another teams project

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Scenario Two - English

• INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY STUDIES
• Goal to increase
• student responsibility control
• opportunities to collaborate f2f and online
• access to online resources (web-based modules
  sources of literature)
• Solution
• replace lectures with team-based inquiry team
  meetings
• use f2f and online collaboration, discussion
• online peer review of team projects

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Scenario Three Communication Culture

• INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
• Goal to increase
• student peer interaction and critical dialogue
  during class time
• Solution
• replace lectures with Breeze presentations
  (narrated PowerPoint with embedded videos and
  self-assessments)
• use class time exclusively for group work (60
  students - 20 meet on Monday, 20 meet on
  Wednesday and 20 on Friday)

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Scenario Four Science

• WRITING REVIEWING SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
• Goal to increase
• enrolment cap
• student engagement, consultation
• inquiry activities
• Solution
• reduce lectures add tutorials
• focus on writing not listening
• create peer review tool

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BL Instructor Survey

• What do you like most about BL?
• Increased access and flexibility
• Variety of approaches
• Increased communication feedback
• Assessment efficiencies
• Increased opportunity for student reflection
• Richer classroom interactions
• Development of a learning community

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BL Instructor Survey

• What do you like least?
• Increased instructor workload
• Nothing
• Students challenged to contribute online (i.e.,
  take responsibility for their learning)
• Technology challenges

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BL Student Survey

• Nine courses
• 241 completed surveys
• 76 return rate
• 50 first yr
• 78 female
• Average age 21.4 yrs

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BL Student Survey

• Interaction - amount
• With other students
• 77.6 increased 15.8 nd
• group work was primary reason
• With instructor
• 55.2 increased 27.4 nd
• accessibility was primary reason

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BL Student Survey

• Interaction quality
• With other students
• 68.9 increased 25.3 nd
• group work was primary reason
• With instructor
• 58.5 increased 27.8 nd
• accessibility was primary reason

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BL Student Survey Summary

• Most effective
• group work discussions online resources
• Least effective
• expectations not clear online components heavy
  workload
• Advice be prepared to take responsibility and
  be open to new approaches

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IBL Scholarship Grants

• 10 annual awards of 1000
• Support
• Research related to designing, conducting and
  publishing research on teaching innovations
  related to the IBL projects
• Conference travel to present a paper based on the
  results of a study that describes lessons learned
  in the course redesign and implementation

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Future?

• Growing dissatisfaction re TL
• Capitalize on properties of Internet and
  communications technology
• Growth of blended learning
• Inevitable investment in PD support
• Need for integrated approach to PD

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BLENDED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION D. R.
Garrison N. Vaughan Jossey-Bass
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CONCLUSION

• Questions
• http//tlc.ucalgary.ca/teaching/programs/itbl/

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Contact Information

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Learning Technologies _at_ U of C

• Blackboard Learning Management System
• Elluminate Live! Synchronous Conferencing System
• Macromedia Breeze
• Custom tools (e.g. WISPR, Peer Review Tools,
  Blackboard Building Blocks)
• Open source tools (e.g. Pachyderm, Drupal)