Cross-Institutinal Online Course Development: A Model for Collaboration, Development & Design
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The APUS Instructional Design Team led a cross-institutional and cross-functional course development project in a new LMS. A development process was utilized to facilitate collaboration employing the CoI Framework for process construct and in content creation. Internal and external methods utilized to create the multimedia instructional asset are discussed.
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Cross-Institutinal Online Course Development: A Model for Collaboration, Development & Design
- 1. Orlando, FL
- 2. A Model for Design, Data & Collaboration Jennifer B. Staley, M. Ed., American Public University System Angela M. Gibson, Ed. D., American Public University System Lori Kupczynski, Ed. D., Texas A&M University-Kingsville
- 7. Design
- 20. Modeling & LMS Practice Technology CoI
- 22. Positive & Helpful Facilitation of Discourse Social Presence More Practice Exploration Integration
- 24. Forums Resources Information Multimedia Application
- 25. Sync LMS LMS Content Gradebook More Practice
- 26. Collaboration
- 29. Collaboration
- 30. Tools
- 31. Collaboration
- 33. Design
- 34. Initial Data Consult Initial Project Consultation Meeting Mock Up Design Meeting Pre-Development Development Integration
- 35. Review Approval Transfer Quality Control Delivery Survey Review & Reporting
- 37. Jennifer B. Staley: jstaley@apus.edu; @jennystaley Angela M. Gibson: agibson@apus.edu; @AgilistaAG Lori Kupczynski: Kulpk000@tamuk.edu
Notas do Editor
- Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our presentation!Over the next 20 minutes or so, our presentation will cover three primary themes: Design, Data, and CollaborationFirst, we will share our design concept and how the CoI informed and impacted our final product.Next, we will share data that influenced our course development as well as an exciting first look at our first cohorts end of course data!!!Finally, we will describe our cross institutional teams, the tools we used and how we successfully completed it in the time allotted.We will do our very best to leave time at the end for your questions & answers, but please feel free to ask questions during the presentation if you are so inclined. We are also available afterwards for further inquiry.
- What influenced our design concept?How did this impact our learning design?How did the CoI inform and impact our design?
- Who influenced our design concept?Primarily it was our Faculty and Program directors. Other faculty support groups provided their feedback, but the primary driver for this design was our faculty!We asked them:what do you want from new faculty training? What could have been done differently/better from the new faculty training that you experienced?How could the areas of administration, library, faculty hiring, faculty support, etc. provide information that would benefit you as a faculty member?What would YOU want?!What you see on the slide is the feedback they gave us. The list is in no particular order.I believe the top three learning elements our faculty want in their training course were:Andragogy and how they can apply to their classroom course materials and in their interactions to effectively reach our adult student populationCommunity of Inquiry: what is it? How do I apply it to my classroom? How does what I do in the classroom affect the end of course survey which is used to evaluate me?Effective practices for teaching & learning in the online environment; where can they go to find this information?
- How did we create a learning design framework to meet those needs?We created the course objectives that worked to achieve the desired points indicated on the previous slide: Teach faculty members about the history and culture of APUS.Familiarize them with the resources available to maximize teaching effectiveness.Prepare them to teach APUS courses using our learning management system.Familiarize them with APUS policies and procedures.This was accomplished through the application of three cross cutting themes: foundation, infrastructure & application
- Foundationally we enabled new faculty to get to know APUS, our students and understanding their administrative responsibilities as a new faculty member, and locating and accessing teaching and learning resources to support their teaching experience.We provided Infrastructure support by demonstrating to faculty how to access courses, navigate the LMS, prepare their course content & structure; teach their course with effective communication & interaction, assess their student’s progress, and manage their course.Finally, we wove both andragogy and community of inquiry applications into the course materials as well as the course design & framework to model and illustrate to the faculty candidates how to put theory into practice and how to apply what they have learned in their classrooms.Let’s start with a short discussion of the CoI.
- The CoI Framework isA process model of learning in online and blended educational environmentsGrounded in a collaborative Constructivist view of higher educationAssumes effective online learning which requires the development of a community of learners that supports meaningful inquiry and deep learningwww.communityofinquiry.com
- The framework is a process model that helps us understand how learning takes place in an online environment. It consists of three interrelated but distinct presences which include social, teaching, and cognitive presences.
- Social Presence defines the ability of students to form communities, get to know each other, and interact in a collaborative fashion to help them optimize learning.
- To create an optimal educational experience we want to support the students’ ability to form learning communities through the development of social bonds with each other. We want to encourage computer mediated communication aka “forums or discussion boards” in order for them to feel socially and emotionally connected.
- We see Social Presence when students Express emotion & self-project (Affective expression, such as expressing emotion & self-projection);Communicate openly (setting the learning climate & creating opportunity for risk free expression); andIdentify with their group and collaborate with each other (Group cohesion which is accomplished through group identity and collaboration).
- Teaching Presence consists of the design and organization of a course, facilitation of discourse, and direct instruction. The design and organization component refers to how our courses are laid out, how we, as teachers & faculty set objectives for students, and how we define and set up our curriculum and activities for the students. Typically this is done in conjunction with an Instructional Design group to help optimize learning interactions and experiences within the content and the course structure.
- Facilitation of discourse is a way that we communicate with our students in the discussion boards & forum areas of the classroom. This means we help them synthesize their ideas in order for them to realize personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
- Finally, we focus our students by helping them realize & resolve misconceptions, help keep them on task, provide them with new resources, and most importantly bring them together.
- Cognitive Presence is the process that we use to build knowledgebased on the presentation of problem based learning scenarios, which then culminate in indicators of higher order thought.It is also the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry.
- This starts with a triggering event in which a student is exposed to a question or topic that peaks their curiosity about the topic being explored. The student engages in the exploration phase in which they look at materials provided both in the course as well as seeking materials from outside the course.
- The materials are evaluated and students reach a sense of resolution in which they are able to take the knowledge they have acquired and apply it to both course based as well as problems that occur outside their course.
- For our second topic we are going to discuss the exciting topic of Data!!!! During which we will share 3 sets of data with you:The initial data that informed our project, course design and development;The new faculty training course pilot data; andAn exciting first look at the first set of end of course data from our first live New Faculty Training course!!!
- In early 2010 we held focus groups with APUS faculty, staff, and Program Directors (our version of Chairs) to find out what they wanted and what was needed in our new faculty training course. The Data was obtained through mixed-methods, using qualitative questions in three facilitated focus groups and quantitative questionnaires with qualitative open ended questions. What was the primary theme?? Faculty needed & wanted help!
- Specifically, what help did they need?Resources and information on training for LMS; Resources and information to understand the Community of Inquiry (CoI); Specific training for administrators; Technology based training; and Modeling of information as well as the opportunity for the practice and application of that new knowledge.Other themes included that influenced redesign:Faculty going through training don’t necessarily understand course set up; inconsistent classes; new faculty are high maintenance with basic functions; take stress off of administrators and departments and leverage IT help; need understanding about how to make a good class; and become aware of options both LMS based and instructional.
- Next we collected more data, this time from our new faculty training course Pilot which was conducted in January 2011. We surveyed current faculty from a variety of programs and departments across the university (which can include staff who are faculty) who had varying degrees of time teaching with our institution. None of these faculty had taken training or taught courses in the new LMS.We collected data during and at the end of the pilotDuring the course pilot we conducted weekly interviews during which we asked 3 open ended qualitative questions of each faculty memberAt the conclusion of the pilot we surveyed the faculty utilizing the mixed methods instrument, the CoI Surveyand this is what we found….
- On a 5 point Likert scale all averages range between 4.71-3. Highest averages for social presence items and facilitation of discourse. Lower averages for exploration and integration. Overall there was a high level of satisfaction. Emergent themes from the data includes: On the Positive side they found the course content helpful and informational; higher comfort level with LMS; interaction positiveOn the Constructive side, the faculty indicated the need for additional demonstrations for long instructions (specifically for some of the new functionality of the lms that many were still learning) and the need for model classroom to practice. What we found too is that it helped us work out a few bugs.
- Finally, the information that has us so excited is with data we recently received from the first cohort of new faculty training course participants, which we received in September 2011The course uses a mixed-methods instrument with quantitative questions on a 5 point Likert scale some of which are based on the CoI Framework survey. And this is what the data told us….
- Faculty indicated high rates of satisfaction and internalization of training concepts indicating Strongly Agree or Agree at the rate of 92% or higher.Themes from “what worked well” included: helpful & useful information; practice helps with application; excellent use of multimedia; helpful resources; and excellent forums & discussions.
- Themes from “what needs improvement” included: needing to sync the new faculty training content with new updates to LMS; still need more practice, and improve Gradebook instructions.
- Finally, we want to talk about Collaboration. We could not have done what we did, in the amount of time we had, unless we had the assistance from many different groups across the University. Additionally, we had to all support this initiative and work collaboratively…
- Luckily for us we didn’t have anyone that didn’t want to play with us …
- Rather, in our development and design sandbox we worked with at least fourteen (14) groups and over 40 faculty and staff!A few of the teams that contributed to this course areFaculty HiringDeansFaculty AdministrationProvostHuman ResourcesLibrary Electronic Course MaterialsCourse & CoI developer (outside consultant) Academic DeanCenter for Teaching and LearningStudent Services/DSAIT/Faculty SupportOffice of the PresidentMarketingInstitutional Research & Assessment/Research & Development
- Since collaboration is critical for a project of this depth and breadth, which tools did we use to support this effort?
- As we do with most projects, we used a variety of tools for the many activities that were part of this project. For example we used Basecamp as our project management tool and Dropbox to share large files between internal and external folks working on the project.
- Our development timeline was aggressive, but we did it! I don’t think we realized how intense it was until it was all over and that is a testament to all of the hard work that every single person on this project put into it!
- The six high points of this project were:January 2010 Faculty Focus Groups conducted: as mentioned a few slides back, these focus groups focused on discussions concerning which elements are needed to enhance our new faculty training course. February – March 2010 – Faculty LMS Gap AnalysisMarch-April 2010 – Faculty Development Collaboration work IDD/CTL: During the Spring of that year the IDD Team was tasked with several analyses reviewing the current new faculty training as well as investigating challenges and concerns from faculty. Q1 2010 – Selection of new LMSQ1 2010 – Analysis and testing of new LMS(1) Near the end of August the IDD Team was tasked with re-development of a fully functional new faculty training course by the end of December. Not only did the Team need to redesign and redevelop the new faculty training elements that were identified during the focus groups, but they also had to learn the new LMS which no faculty and very few staff had yet to work in let alone view. (2) Pre-Development Began in September. This is when we reached out to all the groups that will have input and provide the content for the project, we set up meetings, gathered information, and set up our project processes, roles, tasks, etc.September 2010 - Pre-development of NFTC(3) We spend the month of October designing and developing the course; coordinating the acquisition of the content; designing the multimedia assets; attending standing meetings for primary stakeholders to ensure project movement and to resolve overarching issues; weekly touch point meetings with individual content providers to gather status to be presented to larger stakeholder groups, as needed.Late October 2010 – Production and IDD internal quality assurance checks(4) November was our review month. In early November the New Faculty Training review team, a representative subset of the 14 groups referred to earlier, reviewed the course and provided their feedback. Our tem performed two reviews, the first was conducted simultaneously as the external review so that all feedback could be analyzed, collated and applied as needed to the course at the same time. After which other team members who had not integrated or made any of the changes, tested and “quality assured” the course. Final changes were made based on that feedback.Early November: NFTC Review TeamLate November 2010 – IDD internal review (round 2) and testing(5) Then in early December we delivered the course to our center for teaching and learning. December 2010 – Collaboration with and transfer to the Center for Teaching and Learning(6) The CTL and Instructional Design team jointly ran the pilot in JanuaryFebruary 2011 – Analysis of data from PilotMarch 2011 – Reporting and consultations from resultsApril 2011 – First New NFTC cohort CTLSeptember 2011 – Release of data from first NFTC cohort of the training sessions. In January this year the CTL piloted the training course with existing faculty new to the LMS and the first new faculty cohort was trained in April 2011.
- How did we accomplish all that in such a short amount of time?Well, here on the APUS IDD team we have one philosophy: git ‘r done! Of course each project has it’s own personality, outcome, timeframes, stakeholders, etc. And we all know there are many instructional design process models out there, we’ve even created a few ourselves that have evolved over time, each depending on the project, but here are the high points of the process we followed for this project.
- Our steps, of which there are 12, are very similar to those that many of you use now when developing coursesInitial Data Consult: 5-10 days, data run, analyzed and report generated and shared with primary stakeholders.Initial Project Consultation Meeting: 1-2 hours, ask the customer what they want, their vision, concept, etc. ask lots of questions and discuss application of data findings with their vision. Define stakeholders, timeframes, resources, expectations, etc.Mock Up design Meeting: 5-10 days; create a mock up of a lesson/module to present to primary stakeholders so that the visual design, organization, navigation, nomenclature can be agreed uponPre-Development: 10-20 days, depending on resource/staff availability. Begin to reach out to all groups that will have input into content of project, set up meetings, gather information, set up internal processes (Dropbox, graphics bank, basecamp, etc.)Development: 20-80 days. course developed. Standing meetings for primary stakeholders to ensure project movement and to resolve overarching issues; weekly touch point meetings with individual content providers to gather status to be presented to larger stakeholder group.Integration: 5-10 days. course content and resources integrated into learning management system and quality controlled.And the one step that always takes more time than you realize is the Pre-Development step, but this is critical to getting the project going!
- Review: 3-7 days. final review of course & creation of course readiness documentation by development teamApproval: 1-3 days. reviewed and approved by course ownerTransfer: 5 days. course transferred from test to production environmentQuality Control: 1-2 days. final review of course before deliveryDelivery: 1 day. All have signed off and course is “Delivered” to ownerSurvey Review & Reporting: 5-10 days. Data pull, review of end of course survey data, reports generated & shared with owner.Which loops back around to the initial data consultative step.
- Before you leave this session today, we want you to think about How do you do this already at your own institution? Where are your existing working relationships? How do you collaborate across the enterprise?What are some effective practices that you can now employ at your institution?