1 / 17

A Foundation for Considering Online Course Quality

A Foundation for Considering Online Course Quality. What’s Out There. Prescriptive. Descriptive. Simple. Complex. Simple/Prescriptive. Exhibits emphases of particular institution Tends to focus on “minimum acceptability” Needs little training to complete form

derron
Download Presentation

A Foundation for Considering Online Course Quality

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. A Foundation for Considering Online Course Quality

  2. What’s Out There Prescriptive Descriptive Simple Complex

  3. Simple/Prescriptive • Exhibits emphases of particular institution • Tends to focus on “minimum acceptability” • Needs little training to complete form • Suited for systematic implementation

  4. Complex/Prescriptive • Can be quite esoteric with many “rules” • Can also be fairly comprehensive • Tends to focus on “minimum acceptability” • Evaluators need training • There are challenges to a systematic implementation

  5. Simple/Descriptive • Emphasis is on a skilled/knowledgeable evaluator • Relatively little dependence on the form • Categories provide some structure • Feedback can be robust • Likely to have smaller number of evaluators taking more time to complete

  6. Complex/Descriptive • Essentially a full-blown research study • Usefulness limited to a small number of courses of particular interest • Many hours to complete • Requires evaluator who knows the methodology and who has a diverse knowledge of online courses • Not for the faint of heart!

  7. Bottom Line • The practical isn’t particularly rigorous • The rigorous isn’t particularly practical • Scalability is an issue!

  8. A Foundation Theoretical basis (for comprehensiveness) + Synthesis of many online course standards (for practical relevance)

  9. A Foundation • Schwab’s (1973) Commonplaces • Learners • Teachers • Subject matter • Milieus

  10. A Foundation • Learning Environment Facets (Perkins) • Modular Reusability (Thompson) • Community of Inquiry (Garrison et al) • Spectrum of Teaching Styles (Mosston & Ashworth) (See packet for more information)

  11. A Foundation • Two dimensions of online courses • Nine “should” statements • Integrated best practices

  12. Two Dimensions Course Environment Course Experience

  13. Two Dimensions • Most sets of standards focus on course environment only • Some faculty focus on course experience • Both dimensions are necessary to tell the whole story

  14. Online Course Environment • Clearly communicate scope, sequence, and length of learning activities to students while providing feedback on progress. • Provide authoritative sources of reputable subject matter content. • Provide for abstract communication by each student. • Incorporate ready-made components for student manipulation or real life opportunities (or simulations) to apply course concepts. • Balance contextualization and reusability throughout the course environment.

  15. Online Course Experience • Instructors and students exchange substantive ideas related to course content. • Instructors and students provide facilitation/guidance of the course experience. • Instructors and students represent themselves as “real people” in the course experience. • Ensure that power roles of instructors and students are clear and consistent throughout the course experience.

  16. Framework for Best Practices

  17. Best Practice Examples

More Related