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General Questions or Comments about the Distance Learning Group.
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Problem Solving with Faculty Online Course Needs
In the Sakai Teaching and Learning call today the question came up as to if there is a place for faculty to go to ask questions, get design ideas, or presentations on how specific pedagogical problems might have been solved. I'm hoping that this discussion forum may be a beginning to that. I've been solving online teaching and learning problems for close to 20 years (yes, even before Internet-based learning). Maybe together we can come up with new questions and answers too.
Great Idea
Hi,
I think that is a great idea, and one of the intents of this site, at least in terms of resources and practices. And I have to agree that the collective wisdom would be of great value. One of the comments also made, that I think merits some consideration is that the types of conversations those of us in support roles have are often a little different than those faculty have (even though we often turn around and talk with the faculty). So my response is somewhat in the form of a question, should we have a separate area for faculty or for discussing the items you mention: 'design ideas,' 'presentations,' 'pedagogical problems' that is different from the support role discussion area?
Faculty online course needs
I would find it interesting to read faculty posts about needs and challenges in distance learning. I agree with Rob that faculty might appreciate having an area separate from this one in which to discussion more general issues than the ones that might come up here (e.g., goals / structures of departments providing instructional technology services, faculty development programs, etc.)
That said, perhaps we should see how the discussion evolves within this group to see what kinds of topics arise. We may find there is a good deal of overlap and/or that faculty posts might generate discussions of interest to IT support folks.
Strategies for getting faculty to finish DL courses
I mentioned some of the problems we have encountered in getting buy-in from faculty who have been "assigned" the task of designing and teaching an online course. How have other institutions approached this problem?
For instance, we are working with a large school at Indiana University that wants to put one of their masters programs fully online. They are willing to pay faculty a healthy stipend to do the work, but the faculty, most of whom are tenured or tenure track, can't find the time to get the work done. Many of them are having trouble even finding the time to engage in the process. In this case, it doesn't seem like the money is enough. Perhaps they feel that their professional reputation or their chances of getting tenure depend very heavily on putting a class online.
I realize that this isn't necessarily something any of us in this group would have control over, but has anyone seen this kind of situation successfully managed? Are there strategies the director of their distance learning initiative might try that you have seen work? This seems to be a top-down initiative in the school, and the dean is on board, but I don't know what kinds of mixed messages the faculty may be getting about how they should be spending their time.
What is flexible and blended learning?
Hi everyone. What is flexible and blended learning? The Distance Learning sub-group within the Sakai Teaching and Learning special interest group assured me that the group was interested in thinking beyond conventional distance education delivery. I needed to hear this because my institution, Charles Sturt University in Australia, is actively encouraging ‘flexible and blended’ approaches to teaching, which is consistent with our strong interest in the Sakai Open Academic Environment project. (CSU’s Flexible Learning Institutewebsite will give you some idea how the university sees this kind of teaching.)
I am not familiar with the North American scene, but in Australia we see not only a natural fusing of distance education and face to face instruction in any number of permutations; we find the literature reporting on and anticipating this increasingly hybrid practice. Distance Education, the journal of the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, reflects this hybridisation of practice and theorising.
I’d like to invite members of this forum to explore the nuances, the possibilities and problems associated with the concepts of flexible andblended learning.
How could we use this forum to explore the changes happening around us?
What is flexible and blended learning?
For my teaching faculty, I define blended courses (blended learning) as those which are taught partly on-campus and partly online. The on-campus meetings would include more than just an orientation and/or proctored tests. I'm going to a workshop tomorrow at the annual Sloan-C conference and the workshop is titled "Blended Learning: Frameworks, Models, and Big Issues". I'll report back later.
I'm not sure how you would define flexible learning.
what is flexible learning?
Hi Caroline. I believe that when folk here talk about flexible learning they are referring to their broad approach to teaching a subject. I believe that in face to face contexts this would include the scope for adjusting teaching on the fly. In distance contexts flexibility is present in a design that accommodates students with special needs for example.
This is just a start. Would it be possible for members of this forum to draft a definition that would work for the Sakai community?
In my previous post I gave a link to a page on our Flexible learning Institute's website. The link, 'What is flexible and blended learning?', is now active (which it wasn't when I sent the earlier post):
The Flexible Learning Institute has created a Dialogue about Blended Learning Project called "Thought Pieces". This project has been developed to provide a dynamic space in which members of the CSU community can engage in dialogue about blended learning. (Source: http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/flexible-learning/projects/thoughtpieces.htm)
This Flexible Learning Institute page offers concise descriptions of both flexible and blended learning: http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/flexible-learning/standards/flexibleandblendedlearning.htm.
Cheers - Tony
Non-Sakai example of online learning
I've come across some non-Sakai examples of online courses which I trhink would be useful to look at especially as the ideas we glean from them can contribute to the construction of Sakai 3. Here is one from the University of Pennsylvania which appears to have many of the elements that I think we would like to see in Sakai 3:
https://pennlpscommons.org/
The system was apparently custom built, though it's not clear whether they began with an existing system and modified it or built it from scratch. At any rate, it clearly places a lot of emphasis on the social component of online learning, the building of community and interpersonal relationships that are not confined by membership in a specific course.