Basic Design and Communication Considerations for Online Course Development

Basic Design and Communication Considerations for Online Course Development

Jason B. Huett, Ph.D.

Media and Instructional Technology

University of West Georgia

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Jason Huett : Centennial Lecture Series 2 :: 20

Overall Outline

BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES

RESEARCH RESULTS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION


Overall Outline



RESEARCH RESULTS

CONCLUSION

>>INTRODUCTION


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?


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).


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.


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.


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-to-face courses.

Development of distance education courses is a worthy professional scholarship/service activity that should be counted toward tenure consideration and promotion.


Overall Outline

>>BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS


RESEARCH RESULTS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION


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).


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.


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.


Overall Outline


>>MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES

RESEARCH RESULTS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION


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).


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:


Overall Outline



>>RESEARCH RESULTS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION


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 M to L

Total ARCS Motivation

Score

Y Y L M to L


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 M to L

Total ARCS Motivation

Score

Y Y L M to L


Research Findings for Performance

Posttest Mean Difference

Pooled Est. of

Standard Dev.

Sig Effect size

Approx Power (p=.05)


Average 7.3044 7.3392 .000 1 .98 .91


Research Findings for Performance

Posttest Mean Difference

Pooled Est. of

Standard Dev.

Sig Effect size



Average 7.3044 7.3392 .000 1 .98 .91


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!


Overall Outline



RESEARCH RESULTS

>>CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION


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.


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.

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Basic Design and Communication Considerations for Online Course Development