liberal arts online, march 9, 2012
DESCRIPTION
The Liberal Arts Online: an ACS Blended Learning Webinar Dr. Rebecca Frost Davis, Program Officer for the Humanities, National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) Improving technology, changing students, challenging finances, and alternative credentialing sources have all combined to create an online learning boom in higher education. For liberal arts colleges, online learning promises to enhance the curriculum by moving some tasks online to allow for more active learning face-to-face, increasing student time on task, connecting study abroad or internship students back to campus, adding curricular resources, or expanding access to liberal education. Whatever the motivation for considering online learning, liberal arts colleges are forging new ground in bringing the liberal arts educational model--highly interactive, close work between students and faculty--into an online context. This seminar will explore a variety of models for using technology to fulfill the essential learning outcomes of liberal education and suggest ways faculty might enhance their courses with online teaching.TRANSCRIPT
What is online learning?
Type your answer in the chat room.
Liberal Arts Online
An ACS Blended Learning WebinarRebecca Frost Davis
March 9, 2012
The Faculty Projecthttp://facultyproject.com/
“Free Courses, Elite Colleges”, Inside Higher Ed
Tracking Trends in Higher Ed
• Calls for Efficiency• MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses • DIYU—Anya Kamenetz• Open Educational Resources• Alternative credentials• Hybrid teaching • Flipped Classroom
What’s Missing?
Study of Online Learning
“most professors relied on text-based assignments and materials. In the instances when professors did decide to use interactive tools like online video, many of those technologies were not connected to learning objectives, the study found.”
---“Study Suggests Many Professors Use Interactive Tools Ineffectively
in Online Courses”
Are there approaches to online learning that fit liberal arts colleges?
How do we implement liberal education in an online environment?
Why go online?
• Pressures – New technologies & student expectations– Challenging finances– Business models under threat – Alternative credentialing models
Opportunities
• Connecting students back to campus• Free up curricular resources• Expand the curriculum– Sunoikisis: http://www.sunoikisis.org
• 5 Private Liberal-Arts Colleges Will Share a Professor
What do you do online?
(for teaching and learning)
Distance Education
“Distance education or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional educational setting such as a classroom.”
--Wikipedia definition for distance education
Looking for Whitman in . . .
• New York City College of Technology (CUNY)• New York University• University of Mary Washington in
Fredericksburg, VA• Rutgers University-Camden • University of Novi Sad (Serbia)
http://lookingforwhitman.org
• Personal student blogs• Aggregation via tags and news feeds
Frontispiece Project
Students choose frontispiece (inspired by the famous 1855 frontispiece from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass) along with a quote from “Song of Myself”
Annotation Project• Each campus
focuses on one set of writings connected to their place• Contributes to
larger project
Find out More
• http://bavatuesdays.com/looking-for-whitman-a-grand-aggregated-experiment/
• http://mkgold.net/blog/tag/lookingforwhitman/
• Matt Gold. “Looking for Whitman: A Multi-Campus Experiment in Digital Pedagogy.”Teaching Digital Humanities, ed. Brett D. Hirsch. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Forthcoming.
Networked World
• John Seely Brown, NITLE Fellow 2011– Explosion of data – Exponential advances in computation storage and
bandwidth– Large-scale, deeply-connected problems
• Ken O’Donnell– Assoc. Dean, Office of the Chancellor, California
State University, Opening Forum, AAC&U– Produce systems thinkers that innovate– Teach ability to work in a team structure
Networked Learning
• Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age.” elearnspace, December 12, 2004.
• Cathy Davidson and David Goldberg, Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age– Participatory learning
• Distributed team• Active and collaborative learning
Place-based, Networked Learning
ACS courses built on this model?
Bryn Mawr College
• Blended learning: courses in which students both participate in face-to-face classes and work through computer-based, interactive tutorials and quizzes that provide customized learning and instant feedback
• Spiro, Lisa. Blended Learning and the Open Learning Initiative in a Liberal Arts Context: Bryn Mawr’s Next Generation Learning Challenge Grant. New Learning Resources, a NITLE Initiative, December 23, 2011.
Hybrid Learning
• Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative• Kolowich, Steve. “Hybrid Education 2.0.” Inside
Higher Ed, December 28, 2009. • Department of Education, Evaluation
of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning : A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies
Open Learning InitiativeChemistry Module
Open Learning Resources
• Kahn Academy: www.khanacademy.org/• Codeacademy.com
Blended Learning
Do you use or know of open learning resources?
Global Learning
• Re-envisioning Diasporas at Swarthmore College and Asheshi University in Ghana
SUNY-COIL
• SUNY Center for Online International Collaborative Learning (COIL)
• http://coilcenter.purchase.edu/ • Globally Networked Learning• Faculty Guide for COIL Course Development
Challenges
• Technology– “minding and living with the gap” – “No-Frustration policy”
• Logistics– Time differences– Cultural expectations
Globally Networked Learning
Examples or ideas for the ACS?
Designing the Liberal Arts Online
• University of Mary Washington Online Learning Initiative
• Steven Greenlaw, Acting Director, University Teaching Center, & Professor of Economics– Goals– Activities– Tools– Context
Define liberal arts values
What are they for you?
Online Course Design Process
1. Define liberal arts values2. Develop process to ensure values are
integrated3. Faculty development: thinking about
teaching and learning
NITLE Symposium
• April 16 - 17, in Arlington, Virginia• Sunoikisis• Bryn Mawr, Next Generation Learning
Challenges• Mary Washington, Liberal Arts Online• SUNY-COIL
New Terms for Online Learning
• Place-based, Networked Learning• Blended Learning (aka Hybrid Learning)• Open Educational Resources (OER)• Digital Humanities• Globally Networked Learning• Learning• Liberal Education