Effective Online Courses
By Jeff Bergin
It’s no secret that online learning is one of the fastest growing trends in higher education. Currently, 33% of higher education students now take at least one course online, and nearly 75% of academic leaders rate online education as the same or superior to brick-and-mortar courses, according to the Babson Survey Research Group’s 2013 Survey of Online Learning.
With less face-to-face interaction happening between students and teachers in an online course, quality learning design becomes even more of an imperative to ensure the experience is engaging, effective, and matches students’ digital expectations. Drawing on research from fields such as informatics, human factors, cognitive psychology, and human computer interaction, the learning sciences are interdisciplinary and explore how learning is manifested, demonstrated and measured.
Four Components of Learning Design & Evaluation
There are four distinct components that are important to consider when designing any learning experience. These components are necessary to deliver intended learning outcomes.
Educational Policy
This refers to the policies, held by the federal government, state governments, accrediting bodies and institutions that shape educational practices. Quality learning design meets these policy requirements in any number of ways, for instance, by supporting credit hour regulations; supporting accessibility recommendations; and supporting outcomes-based or mastery-based courses, such as those designed to be competency-based; and by providing transparent assessment and rigorous evidence of learning. Thus, courseware that is designed taking policy requirements into consideration is more likely to help instructors and institutional leaders ensure that they meet these requirements with relative ease.
Academic Research
There is a growing body of published, scholarly research around learning, from fields such as instructional design, educational psychology, and human computer interaction. Three important areas of applied research are instructional systems design, motivation and multimedia learning.
- Instructional Systems Design: This research ensures that products are engaging, intuitive, and match users’ expectations. Instructional design begins with the desired learning outcomes. Outcomes are broken down into objectives by the subject matter experts and instructional designers, who can then collaborate on the most effective strategy to obtain those said outcomes. The end result of this approach includes properly aligned assessments, practice, and instructional content (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) .
- Motivation: The ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) theory is a methodology to foster learner motivation in instruction (Keller & Suzuki, 2004) . First, motivating instruction should gain and then sustain the learners’ attention. Once the instruction has gained the attention or interest, learners must feel or believe that it has relevance to their lives. When learners feel the instruction is relevant, they then need to build confidence in their mastery of the content. Finally, the learners need to generate satisfaction from their mastery. If the learners are lacking motivation in any of the four areas addressed in the ARCS theory, motivational design is used to improve motivation where lacking. Motivated learners are more likely to be successful learners. The ARCS model allows instructors to create an effective motivational strategy in their courses. Therefore, user-centered design courses should reflect the ARCS theory, in order to avoid issues that inhibit motivation in learners.
- Multimedia Learning: The cognitive theory of multimedia learning is a research-based approach to helping students learn through the use of media components integrated into the course material. The theory has evolved with the understanding that effectively combining visuals, text and audio in programs for learning is complex, and requires deep and sophisticated examinations of how humans process information (Mayer, 2005) .
Learner-Centered Design
Learner-centered Design is an outgrowth of user-centered design or participatory design, in which the learner is placed at the center of the design process. This begins by creating learner personas then evolves to conducting design labs that involve actual learners, and culminate in increasingly sophisticated design reviews, design tests, usability tests, focus groups and survey research. The goal is to produce educational experiences that are intuitive, engaging, and consistent with learners’ expectations.
Multiple types of testing methods and associated technologies are leveraged throughout the learning design and evaluation process to collect extensive data that provides a better understanding of what occurs when students learn online. This information consists of “tasks successfully completed” during the process of taking a course, while measuring how and why the task was successfully completed (or not). Participants involved in testing exercises also complete surveys and participate in focus groups to provide more detail and context to the data they generated during the process of taking a course online.
Typically, there are three primary types of testing, including design testing, usability testing, and engagement testing. Each of these tests is measured using eye tracking software, two-way mirrors, screen recording technologies, usability software, and neurosignal headsets.
Third-Party Evaluation
This refers to the measures taken to ensure that a product or service meets rigorous quality standards devised by external experts and researchers.
- Endorsements: These include certifications, recommendations, and awards. Endorsements are provided by external reviewers, such as the American Council on Education (ACE), Quality Matters, and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) CODiE Awards.
- Qualitative and Quantitative Studies: These include formalized case studies with both qualitative and data-driven outcomes, often conducted by institutions, third-party vendors, and external partners.
Extensive evaluation is integral to making data-driven decisions. Evaluations provide stakeholders with detailed and reliable analysis of their product, processes, and future initiatives (Russ-Eft, Preskill, 2001) . By committing to regular formative evaluation, including those conducted by respected third-party reviewers, institutions can continue to measure the effectiveness of user-centered design including instruction, media, functionality, and assessments.
Today, nearly any course can be taught partially or entirely online — and the choices for designing a specific course are endless. But with more focus on performance-based funding, and potential changes in how institutions are evaluated, efficacy in higher education is more important than ever. Overall, when designing courses, institutions and educators should consider how their design model supports efficacy. What are some other components to consider when designing an online course? Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below!
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1) Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). “What is backward design?” in Understanding by Design. (1 ed., pp. 7–19). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
2) Keller, J. M., & Suzuki, K. (2004). Learner motivation and e-Learning design: A multinationally validated process. Journal of Educational Media, 29(3), 229-239.
3) Mayer, R. E. (2005a). Introduction to multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (pp. 1-30). New York: Cambridge University Press.
4) Russ-Eft, D. & Preskill, H. (2001). Evaluation in organizations: Enhancing learning, performance, and change. Boston: Perseus Books.
Authored by: Jeff Bergin, Ph.D., Head of Learning Design, Pearson
Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-design-effective-online-courses/
SKYPE: mschools, linkites, saket.dandotia, sharad.gour
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