Follow up to USDOE Report

In June, I wrote a post about the Department of Education’s Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (2009). In that post, I reported the main findings listed in the press release, but had not fully evaluated the report. I took this opportunity to do so. The report has a lot to offer, so bear with me here!

The report outlines the following four purposes (U.S. Department of, 2009, p. xi):

1. How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face-to-face instruction?
2. Does supplementing face-to-face instruction with online instruction enhance learning?
3. What practices are associated with more effective online learning?
4. What conditions influence the effectiveness of online learning?

It is a quantitative meta-analysis of existing empirical studies, contrasting the effectiveness of online, blended, and face-to-face learning. A process of research followed by thorough screening, coding, and full-text analysis yielded 51 studies for evaluation. The screening process looked for reports that (a) compared the modalities in question, (b) focused on learning outcomes, (c) demonstrated strong research methods and design, and (d) gave enough data to evaluate impact. Additionally, to control for inappropriate influence, they weighted studies based on their sample size before combining results during the data analysis. They also tested for homogeneity, moderator variables, practice variables, condition variables, and methods variables.

The results demonstrated the following:

1. Blended (online and face-to-face) learning maintained the strongest learning outcome advantage, followed by online only, and then face-to-face. However, this is not directly due to the delivery medium, but has more to do with increased time on task, greater accessibility to resources, and overall pedagogical differences evident in blended and online learning.
2. There is no significant difference in outcomes when comparing blended and online only mediums.
3. Overall, studies found no significant difference between instructional methodologies that included multiple media (video, audio, PowerPoint, etc…), and those that did not.
4. However, some advantage is present when students have some control over how they interact with media. For example, can students pause or chapter-jump a video or narrated PowerPoint, or are they required to watch them completely and linearly.
5. Research regarding the effectiveness of including quizzing in online learning is inconclusive.
6. Including simulations slightly increases students’ outcomes.
7. Including tools or assignments requiring students to reflect on their learning is the most effective method for improving student learning outcomes.
8. Online learning is an equally effective choice for undergraduates, graduates, and professionals throughout a large variety of studies. However, it is not as effective for K-12. (Although available studies in this area were limited.)
9. Learning platforms combining asynchronous and synchronous methods seemed more effective than platforms with only one of these.

For online higher education, these results are encouraging. And, I am happy the effectiveness of online learning is unconstrained by the medium, and relies more on how it us utilized by educators. This is reminiscent of Gardner’s (2003) plea to ensure technology serves education, instead of the reverse.

Most significant to the development of our global society, is the overwhelming effectiveness of self-reflection, self-monitoring, and the concepts of transformational learning (Palloff & Pratt, 2007). This seems to fall in line with Goleman’s emotional intelligence (O’Neil, 1996), and Pink’s (2005) (video)arguments for the coming of a conceptual age. However, it does seem to decry connectivist (Siemens, 2008) theories in favor of constructivism or cognitivism.

Combining the above, with the reports’ call to “redesign instruction to incorporate additional learning opportunities” (U.S. Department of, 2009, p. 51), should lead to:

1. An increased focus on transformational and reflective learning
2. A stronger awareness of emotional intelligence
3. Organic course designs including (a) more learner controlled media, (b) student choice of assessment methods, (c) less traditional quizzing, and (d) combined synchronous and asynchronous methods.
4. An increase in hybrid or blended courses
5. Additional research studies focused on filling the “[lack] a coherent body of linked studies that systematically test theory-based approaches in different contexts” (U.S. Department of, 2009, p. 49).

References
Gardner, H. (2003, April 21). Multiple intelligences after 20 years. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Retrieved July 29, 2009 from [ http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf ]http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf

O'Neil, J. (1996). On emotional intelligence: A conversation with Daniel Goleman. Educational Leadership, 54(1), 6 - 11.

Pink, D. (2005, February). Wired 13.02: Revenge of the Right Brain. Wired. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from [ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html?pg=2&topic=brain&topic_set= ]http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html?pg=2&topic=brain&topic_set=.

Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educator and designers [Paper presented to ITFORUM]. Retrieved June 3, 2009, from [ http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf ]http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf

U.S. Department of education. (2009, May). Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. In B. Means, Y. Toyama, R. Murphy, M. Bakia, & K. Jones (Eds.), Office of planning, evaluation, and policy development (No. ED-04-CO-0040). Retrieved June 26, 2009, from U.S. Department of Education Web site: [ http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf ]http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

Motivation. Technology. Facilitation. Connection. Collaboration.

(Please explore the interactive mind map above. It represents my personal learning network. Using the buttons at the top you can zoom in and out (as will your mouse's scroll wheel), fit the entire chart to the screen, and others. You can also use your mouse to drag the map around and expand each node. Nodes with a circle at the end can be expanded. Nodes with a red arrow inside of them have a link to follow. To open the link, please click the red arrow and not the node name. Thanks!)

Networking is not new. To become the best, individuals have networked with each other and master teachers for centuries. So what is new?

1. We no longer have to move to study with masters. We can study and connect with them from our homes – with our families in the next room.
2. We can study and connect with peers and masters on our own time, and often in our own way.
3. We can study and connect with peers and masters from anywhere a mobile network signal will reach … even on top of the Mogollon Rim.
4. We can reach students in the variety of ways necessary to keep them engaged in difficult academic pursuits.
5. We can build a personal work environment tailored to our learning needs and style.

I first began reaching outside of a traditional learning network as an undergraduate. With a 2400 baud modem, and the Compuserve BBS, I began to explore social and learning networks. Without realizing it, I started a personal trend of technical exploration that continues today. Reflecting on that journey, I realize that network grew proportionately to the technology I accessed. First BBS, then PINE, eMail, AOL, ICQ, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. Now, I have them all with me, any time, on my mobile phone.

Has this changed the way I learn? I do not know yet. What I do know, is I have expedient and nearly instant access to any piece of information I need to fuel my learning. Whether it is peers, instructors, professional connections, or anything stored in the mass of the internet, when I have a question I can connect and ask just one, or practically all simultaneously.

In a post on a Walden University discussion board, Dr. Moller (2009) posits technology is an “enabler instead of a driver” of learning strategies. A fantastically hopeful comment, as it implies we have much more potential to unlock and fill. I feel the key lies in the continued growth of collaborative technologies, and the many conversations taking place about how we learn.

References
Moller, L. (2009, July 20). Course Home Page. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3470109&Survey=1&47=4198219&ClientNodeID=984645&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.

Basic Instinct (sans ice pick) … (maybe)

During Howard Rheingold’s 2008 TED talk he traces a path of human development based on an inherent instinct to collaborate. Citing everything from mastodon BBQ parties to the modern economic engine, he deftly points out how our base programming may be wired to collaborate more than to dominate and defeat. While acknowledging the shrinking place of the survival-of-the-fittest, he speaks of this emergent culture of cooperative arrangements with a hopeful tone. And, I choose to believe him.

Now, there are examples of positive and negative cooperative arrangements throughout history. Some simply wanted to become king of the proverbial hill –generally for no real reason other than to prove it was possible. I imagine the populous of the world as pockets of cooperative arrangements akin to the hemispherical bubbles circling the drain after a bath. Some are countries, some are small religions, some are global industries, and some are just what is leftover. Normally, the bubbles will collide together, losing structure, and draining away with the bathwater. But, If the conditions are just right, and each bubble is strong enough to stay together, yet pliable enough to bend and merge without breaking, a single hemispheric bubble remains on top of the drain after everything else has washed away.

I like to believe that is how Rheingold sees it. If cooperative arrangements and collaboration are humankind’s basic instinct, we have a chance of not washing it all down the drain.

Of course, to reach that point we need to transform and re-educate. We need to teach as if collaboration is our first and most basic instinct. Thankfully, we have entered an era characterized by explosive growth in global communication between individuals, not just corporations and governments. Mobile phones, the semantic web, social networking, Twitter, and the promise of cloud computing increasingly support this collaboration. Constructivist theorists like D.J. Cunningham support the need for students to talk to each other, understand each other's viewpoints, and take responsibility for their own learning. Vygotsky called for strong relationships between learners, their culture, and appropriate mentors.

Rheingold calls for us all to begin and participate in the necessary “transdisciplinary discourse” to make this transformation possible. In education, that discourse must involve the _isms. What cooperative arrangements can be forged between educational theorists to create the ways of teaching necessary to foster and build a culture of collaboration?

The means exist.

The will to change must follow.

Matters of Perspective

I will be the first to admit my relatively novice status in the realm of educational theory and instructional design. And, of course, the more I learn, the less I know. However, reading the 2007 posts by Bill Kerr and Karl Kapp regarding learning theory was refreshing, comforting, and encouraging.

• Refreshing because their discussion is accessible, well structured, and less academic;
• Comforting because the struggle over the _ism gap is nothing new … we are still talking about it, and likely will be for years. It’s like an MC Escher sketch. From one point of view, the theories are miles apart; from another they support and build upon each other;
• Encouraging because they reinforce my own thoughts about the role of _isms in education.

I find the tension that fills the space between cognitivism and behaviorism buzzing with possibility. And I certainly don’t think behaviorism has been left on the side of an old country road, while the rest of the _isms cruise merrily along our beloved internet super highway. To continue the metaphor, I believe they all belong in a Prius, zipping down the HOV lane. Or, as Karl Kapp writes:

“What we need to is take the best from each philosophy and use it wisely to create solid educational experiences for our learners.”
- Out and About: Discussion on Educational Schools of Thought

Now, to answer Bill’s question from the preamble to his post: “What do we do about these _isms?”

We need them.

Most importantly, as Bill writes and like Kuhn’s (1996) thoughts on scientific paradigm shift, we have to discuss where we are, where we have been, and where we need to go in order to create necessary revolution. To do that efficiently, we must symbolize, label, and define. We must stake our tents, raise our flags, and fling our arrows until the dust clears and a new camp has formed.

As Huett, Moller, Foshay, and Coleman write:

"It is incumbent upon all professionals with a commitment to the potential of technology in education and training, no matter what their theoretical or ideological bent, to think outside the box, to collaborate and to advance the common vision"

References
Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago: The university of Chicago press. (Original work published 1962)
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W. R., & Coleman, C (2008) The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web. TechTrends 52(5), 63-67.