Basic Design and Communication Considerations for Online Course

Basic Design and Communication Considerations for Online Course Development Jason B. Huett, Ph. D. Media and Instructional Technology University of West Georgia . Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series

Overall Outline INTRODUCTION BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES RESEARCH RESULTS CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 2

Overall Outline >>INTRODUCTION BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES RESEARCH RESULTS CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 3

The Literature Supports the Following Assumptions about DE § Faculty are critical to the success of a distance education program. § Online learning is more work than traditional FTF classes. This applies to development time, maintenance, contact hours with students, etc. § Prof. fear that student evaluations are going to be lower for online classes than FTF. § Online classes can carry a certain "stigma" with them: the dark side. This, of course, begs the question: If online learning is more work, has the potential for lower evaluations and can lead to less reward, who would want to embrace it? Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 4

Supporting Faculty Training and Course Development § Whether development is by the individual faculty member or a team, the need is for simple, highly templated instructional models and tools for building learning objects and entire courses. § Training for faculty deploying online courses should be available and should be required and come with some form of compensation (pay, release time). § Faculty must be given a voice in the process, and faculty concerns about the program’s effectiveness must be addressed (control issues). Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 5

Supporting Faculty Salary, Workload, and Intellectual Property Rights § Standards for course payments, royalty payments, intellectual property contracts, workload reductions, and/or supplemental pay should be established. § Faculty should be granted paid training or leave time to develop online classes. § If faculty will be teaching a class created by someone else, they should be given time to adjust the materials and to get up to speed with the class. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 6

Supporting Faculty Salary, Workload, and Intellectual Property Rights § Class size in distance education classes should be strictly controlled. § Individuals such as teaching assistants or student employees should be used in distance education classes. § Faculty need to be granted intellectual property rights over their creations and paid when their creations are used. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 7

Supporting Faculty Promotion and Tenure § Distance education pursuits are legitimate scholarly work and the academic community should respect them as such. § Junior faculty should be encouraged to engage in distance education pursuits. § For promotion and tenure, teaching distance education courses should carry the same consideration as face-toface courses. § Development of distance education courses is a worthy professional scholarship/service activity that should be counted toward tenure consideration and promotion. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 8

Overall Outline INTRODUCTION >>BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES RESEARCH RESULTS CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 9

Design Considerations: Overcoming Negative Mindsets § Some people see DE is inferior to FTF instruction for a myriad of reasons. § Negative publicity surrounding diploma-mills. § The ill-considered “land rush” mentality of many universities. § Negative personal experiences with DE (often due to a lack of sound instructional design). Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 10

Design Considerations: Rethinking § An online class is not an FTF class, and you cannot just swap one for the other. § A new medium requires a new vision and mindset. § Get up to speed with the technology. § Take stock of your communication skills and personality. § Work out the goals of the class while putting yourself in the shoes of your distant students. Then you can start to re-envision the content, and its delivery. You might be a great FTF professor and stink at DE or visa versa. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 11

Basic Design Considerations § Follow good instructional design principles regardless of the medium of delivery. § Follow the KISS principal-You want students on message not distracted by the medium. § Be a good communicator and stick to strict timelines for responses to student questions and concerns. § Use group work judiciously. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 12

Overall Outline INTRODUCTION BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS >>MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES RESEARCH RESULTS CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 13

Motivation and Online Learners: What do we know? § Distance education is experiencing amazing growth (DETC, 2004; Huett, Moller, & Young, 2005; NCES, 2004). § There is a noted lack of research concerning the motivational needs of learners (Astleitner & Keller, 1995; Gabrielle, 2003; Means, Jonassen & Dwyer, 1997; Shellnut, Knowlton & Savage, 1999; Visser & Keller, 1990). § Visser, Plomp, Amirault, and Kuiper (2002) found that only six of 801 studies addressed motivational concerns of online learners. § The quality of many distance education initiatives can be seen as poor, with development “often undertaken with at best only a token consideration of institutional, logistical, and instructional needs” (Prestera & Moller, 2001, p. 4). Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 14

Motivating Students Through Communications Dear Students, It is my privilege to welcome you to the fall semester of ___. This letter serves to introduce myself and to offer you some advice and recommendations about the course and the assignments you will be completing for this class. I want you to enjoy and learn from this class, and I have no doubt that you will be successful! First, let me give you a brief personal introduction. My name is Dr. Jason Huett. I have taught this online section of ____for two years now. In addition, I have taught numerous different university courses for the last 13 years. If you would like to learn more about me, please feel free to access my personal website at ____ Second, I would like to offer some suggestions regarding how to proceed with the class: Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 15

Overall Outline INTRODUCTION BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES >>RESEARCH RESULTS CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 16

Research Findings for CIS and IMMS (p=. 01) Stat. Sig. CIS? Stat. Sig IMMS Effect Size CIS Effect Size IMMS Attention N N M M Relevance Y Y M to L L Confidence Y N M S to M Satisfaction Y Y M to L Total ARCS Motivation Score Y Y L M to L Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 17

Research Findings for CIS and IMMS (p=. 01) Stat. Sig. CIS? Stat. Sig IMMS Effect Size CIS Effect Size IMMS Attention N N M M Relevance Y Y M to L L Confidence Y N M S to M Satisfaction Y Y M to L Total ARCS Motivation Score Y Y L M to L Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 18

Research Findings for Performance Posttest Mean Difference Average 7. 3044 Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series Pooled Est. of Standard Dev. 7. 3392 Sig . 000 Effect size 1 Approx Power (p=. 05) . 98 Approx Power (p=. 01) . 91 19

Research Findings for Performance Posttest Mean Difference Average 7. 3044 Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series Pooled Est. of Standard Dev. 7. 3392 Sig . 000 Effect size 1 Approx Power (p=. 05) . 98 Approx Power (p=. 01) . 91 20

Preliminary Research Findings For Follow Up Study § Treatment group shows a 6. 35% failure rate compared to that of 19% for the control. § In addition, the treatment group has an average drop-out (non-completer) rate of 4. 76% compared to 15. 5% for the control. § Treatment group’s numbers compare favorably to those in a traditional FTF class! All of this in a study where the only difference is the presence of motivational e-mail messages delivered at roughly 10 -day intervals for the treatment! Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 21

Overall Outline INTRODUCTION BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES RESEARCH RESULTS >>CONCLUSION Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 22

Conclusion: Supporting Faculty In order to ensure the highest level of faculty performance in DE, we need to begin to clearly address e-Learning issues such as course development, salary, workload, intellectual property rights, and promotion and tenure. Each of these concerns can be seen as integral components in an DE system. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 23

Conclusion: Supporting Students § It seems feasible that the social aspect or sense of community created through motivational communications may be part of the necessary support structure distance learners need (Cathcart, Samovar, & Henman, 1996; Kember, Lai, Murphy, Shaw & Yuen, 1994; Moller, 1998). § While additional research is needed to validate the effects of these motivational communications, ongoing research suggests that efforts to improve motivational communications in distance learning situations could have significant returns. § Combining solid instructional design methodology with motivational communications can lead to greater student motivation, retention and performance. Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 24