Helen's+contribution

Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009) offer a checklist to enable the successful design of an online course. The checklist suggests that designers must ensure that they:
 * The Course structure **
 * Determine learning outcomes- as these inform structure, the design of learning activities and assessment
 * Consider 'chunking' the work - dividing the work into modules, weeks or units and ensuring learners have enough work for each but are not overwhelmed- there may be natural points where you stop providing material and give them time to do something with it.
 * Decide on level of interactivity with material and with instructor and students- ie is it daily interactions with instructor or student- or self-paced with no interaction
 * Structure the course to be facilitated rather than taught in a didactic manner.
 * Consider how the different activities are structured or used to present opportunities for developing knowledge and skills
 * Decide on a rubic for any reflective activities
 * Consider accessibility and differentiation of learning activities with care

In this paper we critically analyse the ‘Global Environmental Change’ course in relation to this checklist.We also draw on the work of John Biggs’ whose influential concept of ‘constructive alignment’ has two elements. Firstly the ‘constructive’ refers to the construction of meaning by learners in and through well designed learning activities. Secondly the ‘alignment’ element refers to the work of the teacher in creating a learning environment to support the designed activities and outcomes (Biggs, 2003). In the course ‘Global Environmental Change’ there are eighteen learning outcomes – an ambitious number for a relatively short course (14 weeks) that are rarely referred to in the course materials or activities. Biggs (ibid) recommends five or six learning outcomes to enable successful alignment to teaching and learning objectives and assessment tasks and it is suggested that where there are a large number of learning outcomes a course may risk becoming a curriculum that is ‘a mile wide and an inch deep.’ (Biggs and Tang, 2007, p.**?** **Maggie?**)

As the Global Environmental Change course has eighteen learning outcomes Biggs would suggest that the course may struggle to support deep learning. Marton and Säljö (1976 cited in Wilson Smith and Colby, 2007) pointed out some of the differences between deep and surface approaches to learning. A surface approach involves minimum engagement with the task, for instance memorization or applying procedures that do not involve reflection. In contrast, a deep approach involves the learner constructing their own meaningful learning, building relationships between elements of the content and coming to reasoned conclusions (Wilson Smith and Colby, 2007). Bloom’s learning taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) provides definitions for six major categories in the cognitive domain - // Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, //// Analysis, Synthesis, // and // Evaluation. // Analyses of many courses over the years have shown a marked emphasis on objectives that fall into the Knowledge category (Krathwohl, 2002). However it is the comprehension- evaluation categories that are considered to lead to deeper learning. In this course of the 18 learning objectives 10 are largely focused on the knowledge category as they are described by verbs such as ‘understand, attain, describe and recognise’. However, there are also some higher order objectives in which the course tutor uses verbs such as ‘discuss, apply, evaluate and propose (alternatives)’.

The course objectives suggest then that aspects of this course support students to engage with the course material in a deep way. The instructor states at the beginning of the course that she would like the environmental issues that form the backbone of the course to be ‘talked about, challenged, researched, debated, discussed, cross-examined, re-evaluated and analysed by ALL OF YOU…’ In particular the way that the discussion space is organized encourages all students to reflect and think about their own learning and to share this with other learners on the course.

Each week a folder is released on to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) with an introduction (with hyperlinks), some guided reading and 5 to 10 thought questions to be addressed and discussed. **Here could do with a screenshot of one of the thought question examples.** Importantly the thought questions include some that use case study and real life examples and scenarios, encouraging learners to apply their learning and new knowledge. Scholars have suggested that online discussions often prompt deep level thinking as they allow time for editing and critical thinking and there is a capacity to go back to content and review it (Wickersham and Dooley, 2006; Hara, Bonk, Angeli, 2000). In this course different roles are assigned to students each week. For instance, some students are asked to be the ‘direct responders’ who must post a response to 3 or 4 of the thought questions by the third day of the week given for the discussion. Others are then asked to comment on these first postings by the fifth day when the discussion is opened up to anyone to participate in. Another group of students are named the ‘conference agents’ for the week – their role is to summarise the discussion for others. In this way the discussions offer the learners an opportunity to show and apply their understanding, and analyse, synthesise and evaluate it.

Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009) ask course designers to consider how the different activities are structured or used to present opportunities for developing knowledge and skills. Biggs would add that these activities should support ALL students to engage in high level (or deep) learning and that they should carefully reflect the learning objectives.

In this course there are four core course text books but the instructor also provides a range of additional resources and links for students through the ‘(Not) just for fun’ space and the library skills and Action Alert spaces (where she posts recent issues coming up in the press and elsewhere about environmental issues). Students are also encouraged to add to the webliography section which is a shared space where students can upload web references that they’ve found useful and want to share. Many of these strategies encourage students to share and reflect upon their own learning therefore developing meta-cognitive knowledge. However, these meta-cognitive elements are not mentioned in the course objectives. In addition, there is little variety in activity types with learners engaging in knowledge construction through collaborative work in the asynchronous thought question discussions but no group work assessed activity or opportunities to engage in other types of learning tasks.

To enable constructive alignment Biggs (ibid) also states that the learning outcomes should be reflected in the assignments. In this course the tutor suggests that the home assignments generally were designed to make sure students had ‘basic’ scientific knowledge and therefore the questions had correct answers (provided in an answer key). These assignments checked the learners’ ‘declarative’ knowledge (Lehmann and Chamberlin, 2009). The thought questions were assessed on ‘level of understanding and engagement with fellow students and the issues.’ The tutor looked for links made to resources, and well reasoned arguments therefore testing whether learners were able to apply their knowledge. From the evidence available the thought questions were a mix of question types – some of which have particular answers (scientifically correct answers) and others that encouraged interpretation and application of ideas. The midterm examination tested factual and basic knowledge plus some thought questions that assessed critical thought and understanding. In the final examination learners were presented with five new thought questions and assessed according to the ‘depth of their understanding’. In sum the assignments and activities do appear to reflect the emphasis in the course objectives on knowledge acquisition alongside the application and critical interpretation of this knowledge. However, we would argue that the course objectives could be effectively reduced and synthesized and that the course tutor should look at matching course objectives more carefully to specific learning activities and assessments throughout the course. In addition, reference is needed in the course objectives to the meta-cognitive elements of the course.

In our early analysis of the course, we thought that the tutor experience as e-moderator was the most interesting issue to look at in more detail. We identified a basic contradiction in what the course tutor said about her own pedagogical approach. She stated that she wanted the learners to construct meaning together and appeared to hold a constructivist approach to learning. However she also admitted feeling overwhelmed by the amount of facilitation (and time) that was required, believing that there was an expectation that she would respond to each learner posting individually.

Research suggests that tutors often find online teaching time consuming and over whelming (Connolly, Jones and Jones, 2007; Anderson et al, 2001). Garrison and Anderson (2003) point out that online teaching involves the tutor developing ‘teaching presence’ as well as social and cognitive presence. Teaching presence is defined as ‘ the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.’ (Anderson et al, 2001, p 5). In order to have ‘teaching presence’ an online tutor has three roles: (Anderson et al, 2001).
 * to design the learning experience (including administrative duties and assessing learners)
 * to facilitate and co-create a social environment for learning
 * to be a subject matter expert, scaffolding learning experiences

We have already considered the learning design in part 1 of this paper. In facilitating and co-creating a social environment for learning the tutor provided the learners with various spaces, away from the thought question discussions, where they could communicate informally. For instance, the ‘problem’ space was an area where students could pose questions and answer each other’s problems. The course tutor explains that learners almost always responded to each other before she could – suggesting lots of learner-learner support and interaction. She states that it ‘never felt like I was the tutor and they were students… rather they were all learners together, drawing from each others previous experience and knowledge’ again suggesting the successful creation of a ‘community of inquiry’. Unfortunately it is impossible for us to assess the methods and veracity of this assertion as we do not have access to the discussion forums. The fact that seven out of the 26 learners contributed to the discussions less than once per week may suggest that this was not the case for ALL students.

Over the 14 week course the tutor posted 338 messages and admitted that her contributions were often lengthy in nature. This suggests that she was an enthusiastic content expert who worked hard to ensure individual learners were scaffolded appropriately. However, this also led her to feeling that she ‘never managed to cope particularly well with the work load.’ Given the amount of roles the online tutor and moderator is expected to fulfill this is perhaps not surprising.

Vlachopoulos and Cowan (2010) suggest that e-moderators have a variety of roles in an online collaborative learning space that include:

(1) Identifying a posting (or lack of one) (a //significant posting//), which merits a facilitative response in accordance with the programme aims and task. (2) Constructing and //posting// an intervention which resonates both with the moderator’s style and purpose, and with the current and desired learning positions. (3) //Influencing//, but not directing, the students’ progress towards self-directed completion of their task, and achievement of the learning outcomes. Vlachopoulos and Cowan, 2010, p32

They point out that this is a difficult arena within which to work that is often influenced by external pressures on the tutor and a contradiction in the different roles they are expected to fulfill (for example as a tutor ensuring that work is completed and as a facilitator of a social learning experience). This means there are often differences in the intended and actual roles of e-moderators.

What **recommendations would we offer (future enhancements to the course)?**


 * Need to align the course objectives more carefully with the learning activities and the assignments and clearly signpost this for learners
 * Need to reduce/ synthesise the number of course objectives
 * Need to take meta-cognitive activity and outcomes into account in the course objectives document
 * Need for tutors to consider their moderation role before the course begins eg how much moderation do you expect to do/ how often and what kind (eg support, content, task oreintated) - and need to make this clear to the participants somewhere within the inductio n materials (ie managing learner expectations)
 * To consider including a wider variety of activity types, rather than just online discussions. Also to take advantage of the range of different media that could be utilised in online learning environments (eg podcasts, videos etc etc)
 * 'tutor presence' might be need for some greater consideration of the dialogue set up between the tutor and the learners in the induction materials in particular and weekly podcasts (a la Keith!)

Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D.R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. //Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5//(2), 1–17. Retrieved on November 1st, 2011 from http://sloanconsortium.org/jaln/v5n2/assessing-teacher-presence-computer-conferencing-context
 * References **

Biggs, J.B. (2003). //Teaching for quality learning at university//. Buckingham: Open University Press/Society for Research into Higher Education. (Second edition)

[|Bloom, B. S.], Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & [|Krathwohl, D. R.] (1956). //Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive Domain// New York, Longmans, Green.

Connolly, M., Jones, C. & Jones, N. (2007) New approaches, new vision: capturing teacher experiences in a brave new online world. //Open learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and eLearning// Vol 22, No.1, pp.43-56

Garrison, D.R. and Anderson, T. (2003) //E-learning in the 21st century: a framework for research and practice//. RoutledgeFalmer: London

Hara, N., Bonk, C., and Angeli, C. (2000) Content analysis of online discussion in an applied educational sychology course. //Instructional Science//, Vol 28, pp. 115-152

Krathwohl, D. (2002) A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. //Theory into practice//, Vol 41, No. 4 pp. 212-264

Lehmann, K. & Chamberlin, L. (2009) //Making the move to elearning. Putting your course online.// Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Co

Vlachopoulos, P. and Cowan, J. (2010) Reconceptualising moderation in asynchronous online discussions using grounded theory // Distance Education // Vol. 31, No. 1, May 2010, pp. 23–36

Wickersham, L. and Dooley, K. (2006) A content analysis of critical thinking skills as an indicator of quality of online discussion in virtual learning communities. //Quarterly review of Distance Education//, Vol 7, No. 2 pp. 185-193