Project Based Learning

What are your students learning from the projects/assignments in your course? Turn your projects to “Project Based Learning” experiences for your students. Take the time to go through your online and hybrid assignments and see if they fall under the heading of Project Based Learning. Take a look at this article comparing projects to Project Based Learning.

Ask the following questions about your assignments/projects.

Does it…

• promote critical thinking
• allow creativity while learning
• promote student-to-teacher and student-to-student interaction
• resemble real world experiences

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking about your projects/assignments!

Don’t forget to check out past tips of the week on the NCCC eLearning Blog.

Donna Simiele, eLearning Technology Support Coordinator

 

Mayer, Amy. “friEdTechnology.” What’s the Difference Between Doing Projects and Project Based Learning?. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <https://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.friedtechnology.com%2F2012%2F11%2Fwhats-difference-between-doing-projects.html?gname=slnonline>.

Twitter is one of the best tools you as an educator can use to create your own personal learning network (PLN).  The following video does an excellent job of explaining how educators can use Twitter as a  Personal Learning Network and shares ideas on how you create lists, and even create a daily or weekly online magazine that can be crowed sourced from those you follow on Twitter.  Be prepared to bookmark some great new resources. I have a separate list in my Twitter account that I titled “Online Education”, added people and organizations I follow on Twitter to the list, and then created a weekly news magazine using paper.li.  This crowd sources the tweets by my selected people and organizations to automatically generate my weekly  news magazine.

NCCC Weekly eLearning News

About the NCCC Quality Review Project

• The NCCC Quality Review process is a faculty-driven, collegial course design review process. The rubric does not evaluate the faculty member or the faculty member’s content expertise.
• The review is driven by an adapted version of the Quality Matters™ rubric, a detailed and annotated document based on research literature and national standards.
• This project will help NCCC maintain and enhance the quality of its online courses through a process of continuous improvement.
• This review process is not a part of NCCC’s faculty evaluation process. It evaluates the online course itself. The reviewers evaluate the course before it goes live so that the focus is on the course design, not the faculty member or how the course is run.
• The review process is completely voluntary.

 What is the NCCC’s Course Design Review Process?

1. The interested faculty member requests a copy of the NCCC course design standards rubric from the Electronic Learning Coordinator. This rubric guides the review.

2. When the course is ready for review, the faculty member requests a course design review.

3. Two QM-trained peer reviewers, members of NCCC’s faculty, use the rubric to review the course design. They communicate with the instructor as needed during this process (approximately three weeks).

4. Peer reviewers offer suggestions and recommendations for enhancements to the course design.

5. The faculty member reviews the suggestions, determines what modifications to make, and may request that peer reviewers look over a revision of the course.

6. A course meets NCCC Quality design expectations when reviewers answer “Yes” to all 3-point essential standards and earn 85 or more points on the overall standards, all of which are given in the rubric. Our goal is to assist faculty in this process.

7. The faculty member receives recognition that the course was Peer Reviewed – Quality Design Assured with a Quality Assured NCCC Certificate.

 Why have your course reviewed?

• Improve the design of your online courses as a way to increase student learning, success, and retention.
• Gain new ideas for structuring and teaching your course.
• Build a network with other online faculty.
• Learn, grow, and excel at teaching eLearning courses.
• Receive recognition that your course was Peer Reviewed — Quality Designed Assured Certificate.
• Show your commitment to continuous instructional improvement.

If you would like your course reviewed or interested in become a reviewer , please contact Donna Simiele or Lisa Dubuc in elearning.

Are you looking for information on how to use emerging technologies in your instruction? The SUNY Tools of Engagement Resource can help.

The State University of New York- Tools of Engagement Project (TOEP) was funded by a SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grant (IITG). The result is an excellent on-demand discovery resource for professional development. It was designed to encourage faculty to explore emerging technologies.  The resource provides ideas for incorporating various technologies in your instruction, online resources for each technology and media, discovery exercises, and a section on “What Does the Research Say?”

The Discovery Activities Include:

• Publishing to your blog

• Photo Sharing

• Blogs & Wikis

• Presentations

• Productivity Tools

• Social Bookmarking

• Citation Management

• Collaborative Spaces

• Social Media

• and More…..

This would be an excellent summer discovery project. Take a look.

SUNY Tools of Engagement

Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning
Niagara County Community College

I just created a new Open Education Resource page under the faculty resource section in my blog to list a few great resources that you can use to support your teaching. Open Education Resources are freely available for use, reuse, adaptation, and sharing.

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Smart History by Khan Academy
Smarthistory at Khan Academy is the leading open educational resource for art history. We make high-quality introductory art history content freely available to anyone, anywhere. Smarthistory is a platform for the discipline where art historians contribute in their areas of expertise and learners come from across the globe. We offer nearly 500 videos and these are being translated into dozens of languages. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker created Smarthistory and are the Executive Editors. Videos are also available on Khanacademy.org and the Khan Academy app. Smarthistory and Khan Academy are 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporations.

MERLOT
Free and open resources designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Specifically, MERLOT is a growing catalog of online learning materials, peer reviews, learning assignments, and user comments, organized by discipline into specific discipline communities and created to help faculty enhance their instruction, that anyone can use for free. At the moment has more than 14,000 resources. It was developed by California State University Center for Distributed Learning (CSU-CDL at http://www.cdl.edu).

Not only can you search the repository for resources in various academic disciplines, but there are a series of community portals

MERLOT Mobile Learning Portal
The mobile learning community portal provide you with the tools, resources, and ideas you need to help develop, discover, and/or use mobile computing in your teaching and learning activities.  Here you can find mobile apps for education,  learn teach strategies, and use the teaching with mobile apps template in the free content builder to share an capture your pedagogies for effectively using mobile apps in education.

Saylor.org
This site has a ton of open courses in many different disciplines. You can pick and choose resources to support your courses.

Khan Academy
A library of over 3,000 videos to support Math, Art History, Economics, Science, World History, Finance, and Computer Science. Students can make use of our extensive video library, interactive challenges, and assessments from any computer with access to the web. Teachers can get reports on student progress and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This is a college textbook publisher whose books are published under an open license. This allows professors to customize the books they order – edit, add to, mix-up – or use as-is. Students can access the books online for free or can pay for print-on-demand and audiobook versions.

The Orange Grove- Florida’s Digital Repository

is Florida’s digital repository for instructional resources. The repository provides an environment for educators to search for, use, remix, share, and contribute educational resources. The repository can also be integrated with your Learning Management Systems (e.g., Blackboard, Desire 2 Learn, Canvas) . Discover, contribute, and import repository resources directly from your LMS.

MIT OpenCourseWare
Here you can find course materials used in the teaching of virtually all of MIT’s courses available on the Web, free of charge. There are courses, videos, audio’s simulations and lecture.

If you know of other resources that should be on the list, please share.

Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning
Niagara County Community College
@ldubuc
http://ncccelearning.com

Faculty Focus posted an excellent article on How to Apply the Seven Principles of Good Practice to the Online Classroom. 

Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice to the Online Classroom

By: Oliver Dreon, PhD in Online Education

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Almost 25 years have passed since Chickering and Gamson offered seven principles for good instructional practices in undergraduate education. While the state of undergraduate education has evolved to some degree over that time, I think the seven principles still have a place in today’s collegiate classroom. Originally written to communicate best practices for face-to-face instruction, the principles translate well to the online classroom and can help to provide guidance for those of us designing courses to be taught online.

1. Encourage contact between students and faculty. Students need to know how to contact their online instructors and should be encouraged to communicate with us when needed. In my online courses, I identify multiple means of contacting me (email, Skype, Twitter, etc) and clearly post times when I’ll be available to chat during online office hours. While few students utilize the online office hours I provide, offering this time communicates to students that I am available if they need assistance and that I value this interaction.

2. Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students. For those of us who believe that people learn through socially constructing their understanding based on their experiences, this principle is critical. Online courses should not be independent study classes. Online instructors need to build collaborative structures into their courses to promote student-to-student interaction. In my experience, I find that students who feel isolated in an online course have difficulty being successful. In my online courses, I incorporate collaborative and interactive ventures early on. I also try to foster discussions where students communicate with one another, share ideas, and debate concepts. While interacting with the instructor is important in an online class, it is also important that students have a space where they can discuss concepts with one another as well.

3. Encourage active learning. Learning is not a passive activity. For students to learn, they must actively engage with the content in thoughtful, purposeful ways. As you develop your online course, consider ways to build active learning into the course content. This can include utilizing tools with a course management system (discussions, for instance) or other tools (GoAnimate, Animoto). But active learning isn’t limited to technological avenues in online courses. Someone teaching science online could utilize hands-on lab activities developed with common everyday items. Someone teaching psychology or sociology online could have students conduct observational work at a park or at the mall.

4. Give prompt feedback. This can be tricky, especially with instructors teaching larger online classes. While grading hundreds of papers can be overwhelming, students need to receive prompt feedback to know whether they are being successful or what they need to do to improve. If you have a few larger assignments in your class that you know will take more time to provide quality, constructive feedback, communicate this to your students. You should also include some smaller assignments that will not take as long to assess. While some experienced online instructors use the course management system to build automated responses into their courses, I believe that some students still need personalized feedback on their work that comes directly from their instructor.

5. Emphasize time on task. Learning takes time. Students and faculty working in online spaces need to realize this. Just because an online course may be more flexible schedule-wise does not mean that it won’t require a significant time commitment. It’s important for instructors to communicate expected time commitments but also be realistic with their expectations. Assigning students to read a 500 page book in a day may not be completely realistic. Have high expectations but respect students’ need to have time to interact with the content and learn.

6. Communicate high expectations. While it’s important to have high expectations for students, it is also critical that these expectations are clearly communicated to students. Likewise, it is helpful to communicate clear expectations for participation and for interaction. Do you want your students to log on daily? Do they need to submit assignments in a certain format? Is it okay for them to use emoticons in their discussion posts? These are just a few of the areas that online instructors need to consider as they develop an online course for the first time.

7. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning. Students learn in a variety of ways. While there will undoubtedly be some text-based content in an online course, it cannot be the only mode of delivery or assessment. Draw on the host of multimedia options available online to deliver content to students and to assess them. Instead of typing out some long lesson on the Middle Ages, check out YouTube or Vimeo for some available videos. Or better yet, use a screencasting tool like Jing to record a customized lesson. Instead of assigning a ten-page paper, have students create a video where they demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Dr. Oliver Dreon is the director of the Center for Academic Excellence at Millersville University. Follow him on Twitter @ollied.

Faculty Focus

 

Recently, I participated in a SLOAN-C Online Workshop on “Enhancing Your Course Accessiblility the Easy Way.” The online workshop was fantastic and I was able to get some great resources to share with you or your students. 

How to make a PowerPoint Accessible

How to make a PDF Accessible

How to use YouTube’s AutoCaption Feature to Generate Captions

Free Tools

• RoboBraille (text to speech)- is an email service that can convert digital text documents into either Braille or audio files.
• Natural Reader -text to speech – can also convert text into mp3 files to listen to them on any device
• PowerTalk– Automatic Speech for PowerPoint Presentations – Windows

 

You can view all of the resources I have tagged under “accessibility” in my Delicious Social Bookmarking account at:  http://delicious.com/lpirinelli/accessibility. And, I updated our NCCC Easy Guide to Accessibility Lesson with these resources.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Have a great day!

Lisa Dubuc

 “You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow.”  John Dewey

 

 

11 NCCC Online Courses Receive the Quality Approval

The office of eLearning would like to congratulate the following online and hybrid instructors for completing the volunteer NCCC Quality Peer Review process and receiving the NCCC Quality Approved stamp and certificate. The recipients are:

• James Mezhir -EMG180
• Donna Simiele- OFT101
• Cheryl Chunco -ACC117
• Lynn Brochu- HED201
• Suzanne Buffamanti -ENG102
• Lisa Dubuc- DIG110
• Catherine Locascio -ECO101
• Catherine Locascio -ECO117
• Bob Borgatti- DIG111
• Bob Morris -ENG101
• Nick Locascio -BIO275

The above courses meet the eight general standards of the National Quality Matters standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses. In addition, the courses also meet standards set by the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework for Teaching, Social, and Cognitive Presence.  Once again, I would like to thank  those eLearning faculty who volunteered for this course review and for showing  your dedication to delivering high quality eLearning courses at NCCC.  We look forward to reviewing more courses this academic year.   If you are interested in becoming a reviewer or volunteer your course to be reviewed, please contact me.

Building Engaging Discussions in Your Online Course

Donna Simiele -NCCC eLearning

Discussions can promote community, collaboration, social interaction and conceptualization. There are many benefits to online discussion; 24/7 interaction, time to think before responding, allowing all students the chance to participate and a higher level of engagement. In addition, online discussions can be used as an extension of face-to-face discussions available to on campus students.

The first discussion within an online or hybrid courses should be an icebreaker activity.  This promotes community among the classmates.  Also, this activity introduces the forum to students and gives the instructor an understanding of writing techniques of each student.

Your second discussion question could be based on textbook reading, a video, a photograph or any material presented in the course.  Don’t just ask a “question”, this can end a discussion before it starts.  Promote interaction in the discussion; come up with activities that promote further learning and engagement. Questions throughout the course should be linear and require higher cognitive analysis as the course progresses. Ask controversial questions that will peak interest and foster engagement.

Uses for online discussions (Raleigh)

• Share Knowledge
• Reflect on ideas
• Improve critical thinking

Application ideas for online discussions (Raleigh)

• Case scenarios. Students can be divided into small groups or work in large groups to respond to cases that help them apply theories and concepts presented in class or in readings.
• Brainstorming. As a pre-class or post-class activity, students can use the online discussion format to brainstorm ideas on a topic.
• Role-playing. In small groups, students can each assume roles and develop scenarios around course content.
• Reaction postings. Students can react to posted readings, assigned readings, or web sites. Also, discussion questions related to the course textbook can provide the basis for discussion.
• Expand course content. Students may read different articles and post summaries or find appropriate web resources and post links. Students may react to each other’s postings.
• Extend in-class discussions. It’s frustrating to cut off a really good discussion at the end of class. Online discussions can quickly be established to allow conversations to flourish outside of class time.

Do your questions promote different styles of learning?

• Students learn by doing (tactile/kinesthetic learners)
• Some by seeing (visual learners)
• Some by reading (processing text learners)
• Some by listening (auditory learners)

Online Discussion questions can be derived from:

• Textbook readings
• Literature-Based – find existing, discipline-specific literature to prove or disprove, agree or disagree, or expand upon the concept under discussion.
• Non-Literature Based – videos, podcasts, surveys, audio files, interactive scavenger hunts, scenarios created by the teacher (Aikin)

Students will engage:

• If they see that someone has started the discussion.
• See that someone has responded to their posts.
• If the instructor has responded to their post or other students post. (I always look for faculty posts).

Ideas on how to get students engaged:

• Post a message in the announcement board thanking the active students for their informative response and place a summary of high points from the discussion.  Then place a reminder of when the discussion is due.
• Show students the Navigation pane in Angel so they can see what discussions are active and show numbers of unread posts.

Example Questions:

Appendix (Aikin)

For consistency, the topics of link resolvers and federated search engines have been used in the following sample discussion questions.  Federated search engines allow people to search multiple Web-based databases from one screen and with one search. Link resolvers connect searchers from a citation in a Web-based bibliographic database to links to the corresponding complete document.

Example 1.  Basic Constructivist Question.

How do you think federated searching and link resolvers will impact the work of information professionals and how will it impact searching?

Example 2. Literature-Based Question.

In the article you readon link resolvers and federated searching, the author provides advantages and disadvantages for both. Do you agree or disagree with his assessment of the good and the bad points of these new library technologies?

Example 3. Experiential Question.

In the article you read on link resolvers and federated searching, the author provides various advantages and disadvantages for both. Relying on your experience of searching these types of technologies, do you agree or disagree with his assessment of the good and the bad points of these new library technologies?  Why or why not?  Can you think of any other advantages and disadvantages that he did not address in this article?

Example 4. Post building.

Question 1: Identify what is, in your opinion, the most significant advantage to using link resolvers. Explain why you think it is an advantage.

Question 2: Now, compare the advantage you identified with some of the advantages your classmates identified. Reflect on whether your opinion about the most significant advantage has changed.
Question 3: Do not post until you have read the article on link resolvers. Focus on the author’s arguments against link resolvers. Show how his arguments contrast the advantages you or a classmate identified.

Example 5. An evaluative/reflective question.

You have shared some engaging thoughts so far on the advantages and disadvantages of link resolvers. Now, take one minute to think about what we have discussed so far about them, and share your thoughts with the class. For example, what concerns you about this technology? What confuses you about it? Is it an exciting technology for libraries, and why or why not? You may post anonymously.

Example 6. Final question with instructions. 

You have shared some engaging thoughts so far on the advantages and disadvantages of link resolvers. Now, take one minute to think about what we have discussed so far about them, and share your thoughts with the class. For example, what concerns you about this technology? What confuses you about it? Is it an exciting technology for libraries, and why or why not? Please respond to only one part of the question until everyone has had a chance to post.

Cited Work

Aikin, Lynn, and Diane Neal. “JOLT – Journal of Online Learning and Teaching.” JOLT – Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. <http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no2/akin.htm>.

Raleigh, Donna. “Facilitating Online Discussions, by Donna Raleigh | TTT.” Facilitating Online Discussions, by Donna Raleigh | TTT. N.p., 15 Nov. 2000. Web. 02 Oct. 2012. <http://www.uwsa.edu/ttt/raleigh.htm>.

Conduction effective online discussion (video)

Engaging the Online Student (video)

Other Resources:

Developing Online Learning Communities with Faculty and Students By: Barton K. Pursel, PhD and Crystal Ramsay, PhD in Online Education

 

On Friday September 28th I will be presenting on whether different disciplines are more effectively taught f2f, blended or online as part of our five week Innovator and Online Learning series. (Click here to register for my session.) This is the information I provided for my guest post on the SofthChalk Blog.

Having been teaching online for over 10 years, I’ve learned many strategies for making my online students feel just as much a part of a learning community as my face-to-face (f2f) course.

So, how do I do it?

Well for starters I have all of my content, assignments, and grades in the LMS (ANGEL) for both courses. My f2f course is more of a “flipped” classroom model, in the fact that I do little lecturing in class. Most of the content presentation is done online, this way both of my course sections get the same material regardless of the mode of instruction. We use in-class time for demonstrations, questions, hands-on assignments, and sometimes I show technology related videos, course casts relating to current technology issues, and to clarify the lessons when necessary.

In my online course we don’t see each other or have lessons in real time, but I want my students to know I am there. They need to know there is a “real” instructor teaching them. I want them to feel a part of a learning community and connected to NCCC, especially if they only take online courses and don’t come to campus. I know first-hand that students who don’t feel connected to the course, other students, and the instructor, are not as successful and dissatisfied with the online experience. I work very hard to bridge that gap and I do so with a few of my favorite online tools.

Here are my top 6 online tools:

1. ANGEL Tokens – When my students log into my course they don’t just see an image of me with some text that welcomes them to my course. Through the use of ANGEL tokens I can code the text to welcome them by name. When they read my announcement in ANGEL that advises them to go to the Learning Modules tab to get started, they see text that welcomes them by name. (I.e. Hi Lisa, Welcome to DIG110) ANGEL tokens allow you to pull the first or first and last name into any text. This is a nice way to address your students when they click on your course for the first time.
2. Screencasts (some with Webcam) – Once my students go to the learning modules tab, where all of the main course content resides, they click on a document. I use my webcam so they see and hear me and I proceed to make a screencast of how to get started in my course and how to navigate the course in the LMS. I also use Jing, Camtasia Studio, or Screencast-O-matic to introduce each learning module and to provide help support and feedback on some of the course projects. My students love when I go through their final capstone web 2.0 projects and go through the site they created and give them narrated feedback. They get better feedback, because I can show them what I like, how they included elements of good design, and provide suggestions for improvement and overall give them higher quality feedback than if I were to type text based feedback. Also, it saves me a whole bucket load of time to grade big projects in this manner. In turn it’s a win-win for both of us.
3. VoiceThread (Conversations in the cloud) – This is by far the best tool I have come across to really make students feel they are a part of a “real” class with “real” students and a “real” instructor. I absolutely love this web 2.0 tool.  As an icebreaker assignment I create an online activity, which is a 3 slide PPT uploaded to Voicethread and then I get on my webcam and introduce myself and guide the students for how I want them to introduce themselves to me and the class.  I get amazing feedback from students about the use of Voicethread in my courses.  This tool is not meant for threaded discussions but is an excellent tool for getting to know each other and for having conversions around a variety of media.
4. SoftChalk Lessons in the Cloud- SoftChalk Cloud – I’m not saying this because this is guest post on the SoftChalk blog. This tool is a must-have when creating professional looking online lessons that support both my f2f and online sections of this course. The tool is so easy to use. I have ten lessons in my course and all are uploaded to the SoftChalk Cloud. I have a quiz at the end of each and the scores are recorded in the score center. Some of the lessons include narrated lectures from me, they have text, images, video, activities, links to learn more, and the list goes on. Both of my sections are required to go through the lessons and take the quiz at the end. I do not spend all of my time lecturing in class and this tool makes it easy for me to provide content to my online section and “flip” my f2f section.
5. Facebook (Private Groups) – Yes, I use Facebook in my courses. I create a private group each semester so that my f2f students and online students can discuss societal issues related to web technology, emerging technologies, current trends in technology, for sharing course resources, and peer review. Our ANGEL LMS has a great discussion tool feature, but I never got the quality and quantity of interaction I was looking for until I moved from the LMS tool to the private FB group. I used to only use it for peer review and sharing resources for the capstone project, until students starting asking me, “Why can’t we use the FB group for all course discussions?” and I threw caution to the wind and decided to give it a whirl. The interaction sky rocketed in my courses, student’s loved it, and overall it increased the student success rates. They loved being able to use this medium to discuss course related topics with both sections of my class.This is now my third semester solely using the private FB group and I have no complaints. I had only one student say they don’t have FB and didn’t want to, but I explained to that person that it is a course requirement that is listed in the course information and being it’s a web technology course the whole concept of the course is to expose them to a variety of web technologies. My students learn at least one new web 2.0 technology per week, but it is a web technology course that is required of all digital media students and this hasn’t ended up being a problem for me.
6. Blogger – My students are required to keep a learning journal blog and they submit entries to me bi-weekly and write a reflection essay of what they learned based on their entries at the end of the semester. The students can choose to follow each other’s blogs. This is another way for my online students to connect with my f2f students if they choose to do so. Each entry must include details of what they learned in the learning module, four new terms learned with definitions, and must include digital artifacts. The artifacts can be links to articles, websites, online video, podcasts, or content they created using the web 2.0 tools learned in the course. My favorite part of teaching this course is reading the entries and essay at the end. Just the other day a student submitted his entry and it made me smile and think…This is why I Love Teaching. He gave me permission to share, so have a look.

If you have questions, comments, or would like to learn more about Teaching Well Online & the NCCC recipe of success, please view my blog. You can also subscribe to my posts and follow me on Twitter.  My blog and Tweets are devoted to learning innovation and Teaching Well Online.

Lisa Dubuc , NCCC Coordinator of Electronic Learning