NorthWest Teaching of Psychology Conference Des Moines WA November 23,2009

“Online education is possibly the biggest event in American intellectual life in the past 40 years. What’s happened is that a critical mass of intellectual capital in the country has moved outside the academy.” Dr. Gerald Heeger

 The Search for the Emerald City  Characters of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion and Tinman  The Wizard  Journey back to Kansas  There’s no place like home!

 History of Distance Education  DE Factoids  Research on DE  Pleasures, Pitfalls, Drawbacks of Online  “The Emerald City” – 7 Principles

 1728 – first course advertised  1833 – Swedish distance ed course  1840 – Isaac Pittman in England gives shorthand at a distance  1874 – Illinois Wesleyan University – degrees at a distance

 1883 – Correspondence University of Ithaca NY founded  Chautauqua Movement founded  1892 – University of Wisconsin – appears in catalog  1896 – William Rainey Harper found University of Chicago; university level correspondence courses

 1920 – educational radio  1962 – Telstar launched; advent of telecourses  1960s – computer based instruction sets the way for online learning  1983 – appears as a distractor in ERIC  1990 – world wide web protocol developed  Distance Education Demonstration Project  2006 – federal financial aid rules changed

 66% of post-secondary schools gave courses in  97% of two year schools offer distance education  Public institutions give more distance courses  12.2 million enrollments in 2007 (college-level, credit granting  77% of these enrollments are online  Asynchronous online delivery is most common  Growth rate of 20%  In , 1 million plus K-12 students took online courses

 Most studies compare F2F and distance delivery  No significant differences found  Some found online students performed better  Hybrid or blended was found to be best of all!  Studies also look at student outcomes, student satisfaction and student attitudes  Need for more randomized, controlled studied  Need to examine total programs not just individual courses

 Participation  Level of answers  Variety  Relationships with students  Lab for testing psychological principles  Mobility

 Greater time required  Time-intensive nature of course creation  Changing technology  Time management issues for students  Technology glitches  Informality

 Expands accessibility  Learning is a two-way street  Easier access to information  Web 2.0  What Do I Want my Students to Learn?

 Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education  American Association for Higher Education  Chickering and Gamson, 1987  Guiding principles for undergraduate education

Good Practice Encourages Contact between Students and Faculty

 Contact is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement in the discipline and school  Online courses promote interaction through easier access, discussions, space for interaction to occur, attenuation of perceived barriers

Good Practice Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students

 Learning is enhanced when there is a team effort and it is collaborative.  Online courses facilitate student to student contact through a ready space for communication and the reduction of time and space obstacles

Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques

 In online courses that require active learning, students fare better than in passive courses.  Active learning promotes thinking skills and touches on multiple learning styles.  Online courses are tailored for active learning

Visit the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collections. asp. You can also visit the M.E.Escher site at asp Have students identify Gestalt elements.

Have students visit the site Do the Christmas present problem. (Do NOT look at the solution until you have completed this activity.) As you solve the problem, take note of your thinking process. If you have a tape recorder handy, thinking out loud can be helpful. After you have thought about your thinking process, tell us what it was. Reread the section on problem solving. How might you better solve problems? Now, go back to the Grey Labyrinth site (or find another problem solving site) and try solving a different problem. How did you do the second time?

Have student play a game of cards or a board game. This gives them a chance to spend some time with their kids! Give them a list of brain parts. They must identify the function of each during the game. (e.g. occipital lobe – see the cards, board, pieces)

Put students into pairs. Have them go to ( a compendium of research with applications to daily life – it is from APA). They are to read one of the studies, then outline the components (question, IV, DV, etc). Finally they are to find an example from the news (or other popular press) related to the research. Each pair then posts to the conference. Each student must then respond to one posting with a suggestion for another related study.

Have individuals (or pairs or groups) choose (or assign) a historical figure. Their task is to find biographical information about the person including their biggest contribution to psychology, one primary source by the person, and one obscure fact that is interesting about the person. Each then shares their summary with the whole class.  

Several sites exist to assist you in building a webquest which is an inquiry oriented activity in which most or all of the information comes from online sources. They generally focus on the use of information, rather than the search.   m m  uesttemp.htm#introduction uesttemp.htm#introduction

Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback

 The online environment enables the instructor to give almost immediate feedback. There is no need to wait for the next class.  Most CMS (course management systems) have gradebooks that enable the student to see grades without any Buckley worries.

Good Practice Encourages Time on Task

 Online courses can make time on task more efficient.  Online courses makes it easier for the instructor to track student time on task and to remediate when necessary.  Online courses record all participation so students can see what they are doing.

Good Practice Communicates High Expectations

 Online courses can more easily post expectations in terms of objectives, etc.  Online courses make it easier for an instructor to highlight good work, thus giving other students examples of work that meets expectations.  The same high expectations held for face-to-face students must be maintained for online students.

Good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

 Different students have different learning styles and talents.  The online environment allows the instructor to tap into all of these. While it is primarily a visual element, it is possible to gear some aspects to auditory or kinesthetic learners.  Assignments can be somewhat customized to tap into various strengths.

Like the Wizard, can online solve all the problems of education today?

 Technology makes things easy – it won’t be a problem.  Teaching online is just like teaching face-to-face.  Teaching online will take less time.  Students today are tech-savvy so I can worry about content.  I’m good in the classroom, I’ll be good online.  Teaching online will be easy – I can just post my lecture notes.

 The class dynamics will be different online; there won’t be any interaction.  I’ll never get to know my students.  I can’t do active learning online.  I didn’t have any special training to teach in the college classroom. I don’t need any to teach online.

 Know your own learning style  Know your own teaching and learning philosophy  Recognize your tolerance for the unexpected  Acknowledge your own technology literacy levels  Assess honestly your motives and beliefs about online learning

 Faculty selection  Time demands  Equipment needs – both faculty and student  Technology literacy requirements  Student expectations  Enrollment limits  Intellectual property rights

 New paradigm for teaching  Technological competencies  Course design issues  Teaching as a skill  Time management issues  Support service issues

 MERLOT – a free and open resourcehttp://  Hawaii Community College faculty site – ebook/teachtip/teachtip.htm A terrific site with innumerable resources ebook/teachtip/teachtip.htm  website of students related to technology  Quality Matters – course design issues  Sloan Consortium  Tips from the U. Michigan

 Benjamin, L. T. (1991). Personalization and active learning in the large introductory psychology class. Teaching of Psychology, 18 (2),  Berge, Z.L. (2002). Active, interactive and reflective elearning. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3 (2),  Chickering A. W. & Gamson, J. (1987) Seven principles for good practice. AAHE Bulletin,  Clements, A. D. (1995). Experiential-learning activities in undergraduate developmental psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 22 (2)  Gamson, Z. & Chickering, A. W. (1992) Applying the Seven Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass  Lesgold, A.M. (2001). The nature and methods of learning by doing. American Psychologist, 56 (11),  McKeachie, W.J. & Hofer, B. (2001). McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research and Theory for College and University Teachers, 11 th ed.. Lexington, MA: D.C. heath & Co.  U.S. Department of Education. (2009. Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies. Retrieved 10/1/2009 from

Dr. Diane Finley Department of Psychology Prince George’s Community College 301 Largo Road Largo MD