Designing for Success: Fostering Self-Regulated Learning Through Online Course Design

Presenter

Bill Knapp, Grand Rapids Community College

Session Abstract

Numerous studies show a strong relationship between student achievement and self-regulated learning skills. The self-regulated learner is more likely to successfully complete the online course than students lacking these skills. This session offers practical ideas/suggestions on how to embed learning activities into the course design tat promote self-regulated learning and offer support to the at-risk online learner.

My Thoughts/Notes

Most likely to succeed in an online course

  1. Academic self-efficacy
  2. Organizational skills
  3. Time management
  4. Self-directed (autonomous)
  5. High GPA / SAT / ACT
  6. Experience with eLearning

Here is the slide with the reference:https://twitter.com/marcdrumm/status/963116001771495424I think it’s interesting that one of the examples he’s using to justify these characteristics is his nephew, who, as a 10-year military veteran, completed his Bachelor’s degree in less than 1 year. When he mentioned that, there was an overwhelming gasp in surprise. One of the things he mentions is that his nephew wouldn’t have been able to complete the degree in that timeframe if there was more structure and dialogue built into the course. Those aspects would have held up the ability to complete the course. By making courses more autonomous and competency-based, students can complete (and be successful) their courses in less time.An interesting slide that he showed was “What kinds of interactions matter most?” When the slides are made available, I’ll post what the 7 interactions are. But the gist of it is that the more often students interact with the course and content, the more successful they are.Suggestions for the forethought phase

  • Send out welcome message with introduction (1-2 weeks before class starts)
  • Use the calendar tool
  • Help students to set realistic expectations by adding a syllabus quiz
  • Have students build a study plan using the assignment dropbox
  • Introduce technology

Suggestions for the performance phase

  • Students connect with peers using the discussion forum (introductions)
  • Establish teaching presence through synchronous communication
  • Use the Gradebook
  • Use video and audio feedback to increase instructor immediacy
  • Provide examples of acceptable work

Suggestions for the self-reflection phase

  • Formative assessment techniques
  • Reflecting / revising the study plan
  • Multiple drafts
  • Peer review (rubric)
  • Have students keep a journal

Overall, I don’t know that there was anything new that I learned in this class, but I appreciate the way that it was presented. By thinking about the different phases of the course (forethought, performance, self-reflection) and the tips/suggestions for each of those phases allows you to consider these actions that can be built into the course. I also appreciate the quote and reference to Ken Bain “What the Best College Teachers Do.” Overall, a great session!

Student Engagement: Connective Instruction

Presenter

Rick Walker, STARLINK

Session Abstract

Research shows engagement is a key predictor of student success. Connective Instruction methodology has proven to be seven times more effective than Academic Rigor and Lively Teaching methods of engagement. Join STARLINK Director Rick Walker for this fast-paced, interactive workshop that includes online engagement tips from faculty. This session will equip you with new ideas and strategies to better engage your students.Engagement tips:

  1. Be relevant, be concise, implement entertaining dynamic
  2. Be visible, be current
  3. Increase your personal presence

My Thoughts

It’s interesting to hear about how others at our table engage with students. It sounds like most of the engagement techniques from those I was sitting near include students in small groups and students working with each other. It also sounds like the methods that I currently employ are the norm compared to others around me.I have to say, I was hoping for more examples of things that can be done to engage with students, but after 1/3 of the class, we haven’t gotten into any tips/tricks/tools/examples on how to best engage with students. The presenter had some videos to show, but none of them worked because the ITC staff transferred the presentations to laptops for the meeting rooms and he didn’t do any testing of his presentation ahead of time. In the end, the videos worked (after hotel/conference staff came to help), but it was definitely a distraction to the session.It turns out that the videos that didn’t work early in the session were about the engagement tips and with the videos not working, we weren’t going into much detail on the tips. The videos did end up working, so we went back and covered them, but it was a pretty surface level. I had a hard time following the different engagement tips that he presented. I thought that each of the tips (included above) could be broken out to make a much longer list with examples and ideas for how to implement them.Overall it was a very high-level session. I completely understand the desire to engage with the session attendees and to get audience participation, but when that’s all the session is, I feel like the session isn’t what I hope it’d be.

The Importance of an LMS

I haven’t posted anything besides conference notes in the last year, or so it seems. I’ve been to ITC eLearning in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Desire2Learn Fusion conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. My postings during these events were notes from the sessions that I went to, but I haven’t done any free writing or reflections on much lately. Well now we change that.If you don’t follow me on a personal level (my professional presence has been non-existent lately), you likely don’t know that I’ve been evaluating Learning Management Systems lately. Having experience with Blackboard, Canvas, and Sakai, I wanted to see what LMS could meet the needs for my employer. And for me.This goal is what prompted my attendance at D2L Fusion in July. I wasn’t overly familiar with D2L, but knew that higher education sang its praises. So I figured I needed to at least investigate. Without going into detail about my findings and the recommendations that I am making, let’s just say that I explored and carefully vetted the platform.What prompted this post, however, has nothing to do with vetting an LMS. What prompted this post is on something I heard, third hand, from someone in my organization. The comment that I received is that an individual was choosing not to use the LMS that we are using because they felt it was “too clunky” last time. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this comment. Is our LMS perfect? No. Does it aid in learning from the program participants? Without question. So why would someone choose not to use the platform? Is it really so bad that they chose to “short” the learning potential of the students? That boggles my mind. So what makes the platform so clunky?Many people who complain about an LMS are those who don’t spend time learning the platform. Are there easy ways to post content, links, documents, videos? Of course! But those who don’t take the time to fully learn the product will never understand that. Is there a user friendly way to post a reflection of a learning experience in a discussion forum? Of course! But those who don’t take the time to fully learn the product will never understand that.What irks me even more is that people who complain about the LMS feel that they have to do everything themselves. Like they are on an island with no instructional or administrative support. Regardless of your industry or higher education/corporate environment, that just isn’t the case. There’s always someone willing to help. Or at least someone willing to teach you how to quickly and easily use the platform.A Learning Management System is such an important tool, possibly the most important tool, to facilitate and guide student learning. I’m hoping that as time goes on, I’ll be able to clearly articulate its importance…</rant>

Brightspace 101: Getting Started in the Learning Environment

I’m hoping this session is more about what is different with Brightspace rather than a general overview of LMS platforms. Otherwise I may have to step of this session also…

Intelligent agents

  • Send automated/customized messages to students based on conditions (things done or not done)
  • Can be used for students and instructors

Activity feed

  • Can post comments/documents/links for “real-time” communication
  • Cannot do date restrictions/adaptive release (would have to be done in announcements)

Announcements

  • Can use “replace strings,” allowing you to customize announcements (ex: {FirstName})
  • Possible use: MDTP survey embedded field (2017MDTPATL) – Use SIS id?

WYSIWYG editor

  • Pointing to a file or announcement within a course and then copying course with auto update links to the new course.

Learning Object Repository

  • Can make changes to content or assessments and cascade the changes to courses (if desired)

Modules can have details/descriptions.

  • Possible place to put objectives?

Completion tracking within the course

  • Interactions are only “done” when the interaction is submitted (not auto checked when opened)
  • Content pages can be set to manual completion checking, where students would have the ability to check/uncheck items for completion (can be used as a reminder to view something later on).

Check That Off My List! Engaging Students with Checklists

Checklists are an easy way of allowing students to see what requirements are needed for a period of time. You can create due dates for the requirements, as well as use Intelligent Data for release conditions. With the due dates, you can put checklist items on the course calendar, which can show on the course home page. The checklists can include links, HTML, videos, etc.

The question I have is, how is this different than announcements? Why use checklists instead of assignment due dates, which I assume would also show up on the course calendar.

The presenter did say that the checklist alone is not to be used as an assessment tool, which I agree with.

Overall, a pretty great session(for what I caught of it).

Getting Your Feet Wet: An Introduction to Brightspace

I’m hoping that this session answers some of the questions that I have. It seems like from the show of hands, only 1/2 of the group has logged into D2L before, and I may be the only enterprise/corporate user.

  • You do have the ability to create sub-modules. The sub-modules will appear in the content list on the left side of the course, but it does not appear in the table of contents.

I started feeling like this session was for people who have no knowledge of any LMS. Since that’s not my situation, I started getting bored/lost. Time to move onto a new session…

Let’s Fidget With Our Custom Widgets

The first breakout session of D2L Fusion. I have absolutely no idea what to expect and I have no idea what I plan to do with the results of this session. Not even being a D2L customer, I’m hoping to get ideas on what the course homepages can do/how they can be customized.

So with that, let’s look at some custom widgets…

So overall, the session was fairly basic. From a beginning user, it seems like the steps of creating a widget in D2L seems pretty straight forward. The hardest part is getting the embed code or generating the iframe for the content. What I didn’t see, that I would be interested in, is how to put checklists in a widget on the course homepage. A visual representation of what the students still have to do for that week or module, and one that updates as assignments are completed would be beneficial. Add that to the list of questions to have answered…