Humanizing Online Instruction: Building a Community of Inquiry in a MOOC

Whitney Kilgore, CECS 6320, Fall 2014

Why is this

important?

Fall 2002: 1.6 million U.S. college studentsvs. Fall of 2010: 6.1 million students

enrolled in at least one online course.Growth rate of online enrollments 18.3%

overall enrollment climbed only 2% (Allen & Seaman, 2011).

Changing Technology

NewPedagogical Methods

Create a “high-touch”learning experiences

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-education-revolution-drifts-off-course

It’s Metacognitive!

Instructional Design Methodology

(Dick, Carey & Carey, 2009)

Evaluation Topic Measurement Instrument Results Conclusion

Community of Inquiry The Community of Inquiry

Instrument

56 participants responded.

91% felt the instructors reinforced

the development of and sense of a

community

only 54% developed enough trust

with each other to disagree.

The 4 week length was enough to

develop a community however,

participants did not develop

enough trust among each other.

Setting Personal Goals Self-reported 3-5 communication

goals to implement

49 participants developed their

individual communication goals

85% included using tools outside

the LMS to extend the community

of learners

Behavior and Interactions Data collected from LMS and

Survey

1,645 discussion posts

153 quiz submissions

56 survey submissions

1 day high: 152 participations

50 completed the first assignment

30 completed the course

60% completion rate

Advice for Future Faculty VoiceThread recorded comments Participants voiced the need to

connect with students outside the

Learning Management System

and how important they felt social

presence was to persistence and

retention.

Some participants were concerned

about tech. Those that had tech

proficiency expressed the need to

use more tech.

Follow up Interviews Reflections from participants 6

months later (email)

3 participants shared how the

course impacted their teaching

and experiences

They highlight the importance of

effective pedagogy, mention they

have tried new ways to humanize

courses they design and teach,

they are still connected to people

from the course, and they mention

how effective it was to learn about

humanizing through a first hand

experience.

Evaluation Data – Previous Course

(Crosslin, 2014)

Design Model

Schedule of Live Events Google Hangouts

The Canvas Network

Course Structure and Activities

Emerging Technologies: flipgrid

VoiceThread

According to Katy Jordan, a PhD researcher at the Open University in the UK, “most MOOCs have

completion rates less than 13%”.

Dropout Detective

Formative Course Review Cycle

Reviewers/Editors Review/Edit Type Deadline

Module Leaders:

Robin Bartoletti & Dave

Hallmon

Individual Module Reviews December 1, 2015

Whitney Kilgore Edits made based upon feedback

from Module Leaders Feedback

December 10, 2015

Robin Bartoletti (Master QM

Reviewer)

Chrissi Nerantzi (Academic

Developer at Manchester

Metropolitan University – UK)

Maha Al-freih (PhD student at

George Mason University)

Joyce Seitzinger (Learning

Experience Designer at LaTrobe

University – Australia)

Using the QM CPE rubric December 30, 2015

Whitney Kilgore Edits made based upon feedback

from the QM CPE reviews

January 15, 2015

Carrie Saarinen (Canvas.net) Canvas Course Review January 30, 2015

Whitney Kilgore Edits made based upon

Canvas.net feedback

February 15, 2015

Summative Evaluation PlanScale adapted When to administer Purpose

Online Learning Readiness scale.

Contains 5 subscales:

1. Self-directed learning

2. Learner control

3. Motivation for learning

4. Computer/Internet self-

efficacy

5. Online communication self-

efficacy

First week of the course To measure any changes in the constructs according to the cyclical model of

self-regulated Learning by Zimmerman (For example, we can correlate

micro analytical measure with subscales to measure any changes in efficacy,

motivation, self-directed learning…)

Stages of adoption of technology

(SA)

First week of the course A way to assess the effectiveness of the MOOC (changes in participants

adoption of the technologies covered in the Human MOOC)

Forethought phase

Micro analytical measures

Included in the first course

assignment

To explore participants SRL processes as a temporal process and context

specific

Community of Inquiry (CoI)

Instrument

Administered during the last

week of the course

Measure the participant sense of community, teaching presence, social

presence, and cognitive presence in the MOOC.

Self-reflection

Micro analytical measures

Appended to the Community

of Inquiry survey

To explore participants SRL processes as a temporal process and context

specific

Performance phase

Micro analytics

Data generated through

Canvas and AspirEDU

To explore participants SRL processes as a temporal process and context

specific by collecting evidence of different process (for instance help

seeking in forums or emails, number of times users access resources within

different modules…)

Did it go according to plan?

Significant scope creep– Badges first design

– Live event scheduling

– Addition of GMU researcher• Research tools

– More course evaluators (good thing)

– Redesign several times = 200+ hours

– Still need to create video content and course communication and intervention plan