Every college student registers for classes, hoping for academic success. However, college study can be challenging, even for those students who often get As and Bs in elementary and secondary schools (Macalester University, n.d.). Research tells us that lack of time management skills, life challenges that are out of students’ control, content challenges, and not knowing how to learn are among top factors contributing to academic failure in college. (Fetzner, 2013; Texas A&M Today, 2017, Perez, 2019) In this blog, we will examine the importance of teaching college students time management skills, and how we should teach them those skills.

Why should we teach college students time management skills?

Fetzner (2013) reported top 10 ranked reasons students drop courses in college, after surveying over 400 students who dropped at least one online course:

7% – I got behind and it was too hard to catch up.
2% – I had personal problems (health, job, child care).
7% – I couldn’t handle combined study plus work or family responsibilities.
3% – I didn’t like the online format.
3% – I didn’t like the instructor’s teaching style.
8% – I experienced too many technical difficulties.
2% – The course was taking too much time.
0% – I lacked motivation.
3% – I signed up for too many courses and had to cut down on my course load.
0% – The course was too difficult.

Student services staff at Oregon State University Ecampus also confirm, based on their daily interactions with online students, that many college students lack time management skills (Perez, 2019). Now that we have realized that many college students lack sufficient time management skills, do we leave it for students to struggle and learn it on their own? Or is there anything we can do to help students develop time management skills so they thrive throughout their college courses? And who can help?

Who can help?

Many higher education professionals, including instructors, instructional designers, advisors, student success coaches, and administrators can help students develop time management skills. For example, at New Student Orientation, there could be a module on time management. Perez (2019) raised a good point that usually New Student Orientation already has too much information to cover, there will be very little room for thorough/sufficient time management training, even though we know it is an area that many of our students need improvement. Advisors can help students with time management skills. Unfortunately, with the current advisor/college students ratio and 15 minutes per student consultation time, that is very unlikely to happen either. Last but not least, instructors can help students with time management skills in every course they teach. If instructors are busy, instructional designers can help with templates or pre-made assignments to give students opportunity to practice time management skills.

How can instructors teach students time management skills?

How could instructors and instructional designers help students from falling behind? A couple crucial solutions are teaching students time management skills and giving students opportunities to plan time for readings, quizzes, writing original discussion posts, responding in discussion forums, working on assignments, homework problems, papers, and projects. Regarding self-hep materials for time-management skill, there are abundant resources on how students could improve time-management skills on their own. Apps and computer programs can help us manage time better. Sabrina Collier (2018) recommended over ten time management apps, including myHomework Student Planner, Trello, Evernote, Pomodoro apps, StayFocused, Remember the Milk, and more.

I personally use outlook calendar, google calendar, and word document to create my personalized study at the beginning of a new term. Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence provides an online tool for course workload estimation that is worth checking out. Read-O-Meter by Niram.org will estimate reading time for you if you copy and paste the text into text input window. In Canvas Learning Management System, to help students plan their total study time needed, instructors could help students visually and visibly notice time needed for study, by stating estimated time for each and all learning activities, such as estimated reading time, video length, estimated homework time, etc. The following is an example Dr. Meta Landys used in her BI 319 online course.

Task list for students with the estimated time to complete each item

Image 1: Task Time Estimate and Visual Calendar of the Week in BI 319 “Critical Thinking and Communication In the Life Sciences” online with Instructor Dr. Meta Landys.

At program and institutional levels, keeping important dates visible to students will also help students stay on top of their schedule and not miss important timeline. At Oregon State University, a user-friendly calendar is created for parent and family of our student population, which includes important dates regarding academic success and fun campus events. For example, on the page for October 2019, the calendar shows October 6^th as the last day to drop a fall term course with a 100% tuition refund, and the last day to add a fall term course online without departmental approval. These important dates could also be added to Canvas course modules or announcements, just as friendly reminders to students to make relevant decisions in time.

Image 2: Oregon State University Parent & Family Calendar with important dates such as last drop to drop a course with 100% tuition refund; first date to register for a course for the coming term, etc.

It is true that there are plenty of resources on time management for students to learn by themselves. However, not all students know how to manage their time, even with the aid of digital tools. The problem is that when students are not required to make a detailed schedule for themselves, most of them will choose not to do it. The other side of the problem is that there is very few activities which students are required to show instructors that they have planned/scheduled time for readings and all other study activities for the courses they are taking. In Canvas, to train students in time management skills, instructors could give an assignment in week 1 to have students plan their weekly learning tasks for each of the 11 weeks. Students can use a word document, excel spreadsheet, apps, or google calendar to plan their time. Charlotte Kent (2018) suggests asking students to include sleep time, eat time, commute time, worry time, and free time and four to eight hours of study time per week per course. Yes, scheduling worry time and free time is part of the time management success trick!

Image 3: A color-coded google calendar example of scheduling study time for a student taking two courses online while working full time and raising children.

To sum it up, there are many ways instructors can help students to develop time management skills, instead of assuming it is individual students’ responsibility to learn how to manage time. Instructors could make estimated study time for each learning activity in a module/week. Instructors could require students to plan study time for the entire term at the beginning of the course. And instructors could recommend students to use apps and tools to help them manage time as well! If you have other ways to help students manage time well, feel free to contact me and share them with us: Tianhong.shi@oregonstate.edu.

References

Collier, Sabrina. (2018). Best Time-Management Apps for Students. Top Universities Blog.

https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/best-time-management-apps-students

Fetzner, Marie. (2013). What Do Unsuccessful Online Students Want Us to

Know? Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 17(1), 13-27.

Kent, Charlotte. (2018). Teaching students to manage their time. Inside Higher Ed. September

18, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/09/18/how-teach-students-time-management-skills-opinion

Perez, M. (2019). September 2019 Oregon State University Ecampus Un-All-Staff meeting.

Oregon State University. (2019). Parent & Family Calendar 2019-2020. Retrieved from

https://families.oregonstate.edu/sites/families.oregonstate.edu/files/web_2019_nspfo_calendar.pdf

Oregon State University’s Learning Management System (LMS) migrated to Canvas in 2014-2015. The Canvas migration was based not only on the company’s feature alignment with our learning platform needs but also on the outstanding customer service Canvas Instructure has provided to our LMS user community including students, faculty, instructional designers, and administrators. How Canvas provides customer service offers an example we can model to continue to exceed student expectations.

According to Michael Feldstein’s July 8, 2018 report, major players in US LMS market include Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, Bright Space, Sakai, Schoology, and others (Feldstein, 2018).

LMS Market share in North America

Figure 1: US Primary LMS Systems, July 6^th, 2018 (Feldstein, 2018)

Of these major players in the LMS field, Canvas is most noticeable with fastest growth in market share among U.S. and Canadian higher education institutions.

LMS history and Market Share

Figure 2. LMS Market Share for US and Canadian Higher Ed Institutions (Feldstein, 2018)

Different people suggest different criteria when comparing LMSs. Udutu.com provided a list of 7 things to think about before purchasing a LMS:

Be clear on your learning and training objectives;
Don’t be fooled by the high costs of an LMS;
Know the limitations of your internal team and users;
Pay for the features you need, not for what you might need;
The latest new technology is not necessarily the best one;
Customer support is everything; and
Trust demos and trials over reviews, ratings and “industry experts”

(Udutu, 2016). Noud (2016) suggested the following ten factors to consider when selecting a LMS:

Unwanted Features;
Mobile Support;
Integrations (APIs, SSO);
Customer Support;
Content Support;
Approach to pricing;
Product roadma;
Scalability, Reliability and Security;
Implementation Timeframe; and
Hidden costs.

Christopher Pappas (2017) suggested 9 factors to consider when calculating your LMS budget:

Upfront costs;
LMS training;
Monthly Or Annual Licensing Fees;
Compatible eLearning Authoring Tools;
Pay-per-User/Learner Fee;
Upgrades and Add-Ons;
Learning and Development Team Payroll;
Online Training Development Costs; and
Ongoing Maintenance.

Of all of the above lists, I like Udutu’s list the best because it matches with my personal experiences with LMS migrations.

I first used WebCT between 2005 and 2007, participated in migrating from WebCT Vista to Blackboard in 2008, and Angel to Blackboard migration in 2013-2014. During my seven years of using Blackboard as instructional designer and faculty support staff, my biggest complaint with Blackboard was its unexpected server outages during peak times such as beginning of the term and final’s weeks. In 2014, I moved to Oregon State University (OSU). The OSU community was looking for a new LMS in 2013 and started piloting Canvas in 2014. At the end of the pilot, instructor and student feedback was mostly positive. Not subject to local server outages, the cloud-based system was stable and had remained available to users throughout the pilot. Of course no LMS is perfect. But after careful comparison and feedback collection, we migrated from Blackboard to Canvas in 2015. So far in my four years of using Canvas, there has not been a single server outage. Canvas has the basic functionality of a LMS.

Canvas wanted to expand their market share by building up positive customer experiences. They were eager to please OSU and they provided us with 24/7 on-call customer service during our first two years of using Canvas, at a relatively reasonable price. The pilot users were all super satisfied with their customer service. Several instructors reported that they contacted Canvas hotline on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and their calls were answered immediately, and their issues were resolved.

Michael Feldstein (2018) summarized that Canvas’ “cloud-based offering, updated user interface, reputation for outstanding customer service and brash, in-you-face branding” have helped its steady rise in the LMS market share. As instructors and instructional designers, we can learn a lot from the CANVAS INSTRUCTURE’s success story and focus on improving the service we provide to our students, such as student success coaching, online recourses, online learning communities, etc. Would you agree with me on this? If you have specific suggestions on how to improve the way we serve our students, feel free to let us know (Tianhong.shi@oregonstate.edu ; @tianhongshi) !

References:

Goldberg, M., Salari, S. & Swoboda, P. (1996) ‘World Wide Web – Course Tool: An Environment for Building WWW-Based Courses’ Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 28:7-11 pp1219-1231

Feldstein, Michael. (2018). Canvas surpasses Blackboard Learn in US Market Share. E-Literate, July 8, 2018. Retrieved from https://mfeldstein.com/canvas-surpasses-blackboard-learn-in-us-market-share/ on February 2, 2019.

McKenzie, Lindsay. (2018). Canvas catches, and maybe passes, Blackboard. InsideHigherEd. July 10, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/07/10/canvas-catches-and-maybe-passes-blackboard-top-learning on February 2, 2019.

Moran, Gwen (October 2010). “The Rise of the Virtual Classroom”. Entrepreneur Magazine. Irvine, California. Retrieved July 15, 2011.

Noud, Brendan. (February 9, 2016). 10 Things to consider when selecting an LMS. Retrieved from https://www.learnupon.com/blog/top-10-considerations-when-selecting-a-top-lms/ on February 2, 2019.

Pappas, Christopher. (June 13, 2017). Top 9 Factors to consider when calculating Your LMS Budget. Retrieved from https://blog.lambdasolutions.net/top-9-factors-to-consider-when-calculating-your-lms-budget on February 2, 2019.

Udutu. (May 30, 2016). How to choose the best Learning Management System. Retrieved from https://www.udutu.com/blog/lms/ on February 2, 2019.

Wikipedia. (n.d.). WebCT. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCT on February 2, 2019.

I pledge that I have acted honorably in completing this assessment.

There are two sides to the story of security of online assessments. On the one side, cheating does exist in online assessments. Examity’s president Michael London summarized five common ways students cheat on online exams:

The old-school try of notes;
The screenshot;
The water break;
The cover-up; and
The big listen through devices such as Bluetooth headset (London, 2017).

Newton (2015) even reported the disturbing fact that “cheating in online classes is now big business”. On the other side, academic dishonesty is a problem of long history, both on college campuses and in online courses. The rate of students who admit to cheating at least once in their college careers has held steady at somewhere around 75 percent since the first major survey on cheating in higher education in 1963 (Lang, 2013). Around 2000, Many faculty and students believed it was easier to cheat in online classes (Kennedy, 2000), and about a third of academic leaders perceived online outcomes to be inferior to traditional classes (Allen & Seaman, 2011). However, according to Watson and Sottile (2010) and other comparative studies (Pilgrim & Scanlon, 2018), there is no conclusive evidence that online students are more likely to cheat than face-to-face students. “Online learning is, itself, not necessarily a contributing factor to an increase in academic misconduct (Pilgrim & Scanlon, 2018)”.

Since there are so many ways for students to cheat in online assessments, how can we make online assessments more effective in evaluating students’ learning? Online proctoring is a solution that is easy for instructors but adds a burden of cost to students. Common online proctoring service providers include ProctorU, Examity, Proctorio, Honorlock, to name just a few (Bentley, 2017).

Fortunately, there are other ways to assess online learning without overly concerned with academic dishonesty. Vicky Phillips (n.d.) suggested that authentic assessment makes it extremely difficult to fake or copy one’s homework. The University of Maryland University College has consciously moving away from proctored exams and use scenario-based projects as assessments instead (Lieberman, 2018). James Lang (2013) suggested smaller class sizes will allow instructor to have more instructor-to-students interaction one-on-one and limit cheating to the minimum therefore; Pilgrim and Scanlon (2018) suggest changing assessments to reduce the likelihood of cheating (such as demonstrating problem solving in person or via video, using plagiarism detection software programs like TurnItIn, etc.) , promote and establish a culture of academic integrity (such as honor’s code, integrity pledge), and supporting academic integrity through appropriate policies and processes. Kohnheim-Kalkstein (2006) reports that the use of a classroom honor code has been shown to reduce cheating. Kohnheim-Kalkstein, Stellmack, and Shilkey (2008) report that use of classroom honor code improves rapport between faculty and students, and increases feelings of trust and respect among students. Gurung, Wilhelm and Fitz (2012) suggest that an honor pledge should include formal language, state the specific consequences for cheating, and require a signature. For the honor pledge to be most effective, Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, and Bazerman (2012) suggests including the honor pledge on the first page of an online assessment or online assignment, before students take the assessment or work on the assignment.

Rochester Institute of Technology (2014) ’s Teaching Elements: Assessing Online Students offer a variety of ways to assess students, including discussions, low-stake quizzes, writing assignments (such as muddiest point paper), and individual activities (such as staged assignments for students to receive ongoing feedback), and many other activities.

In summary, there are plenty of ways to design effective formative or summative assessments online that encourage academic honesty, if instructors and course designers are willing to spend the time to try out suggested strategies from literature.

References

Bentley, Kevin. (2017). What to consider when selecting an online exam proctoring service. Inside HigherEd. (June 21, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2017/06/21/selecting-online-exam-proctoring-service on February 22, 2019.

Gurung, R. A. R., Wilhelm, T. M., & Filz, T. (2012). Optimizing honor codes for online exam administration. Ethics & Behavior, 22, 158–162.

Konheim-Kalkstein, Y. L. (2006). Use of a classroom honor code in higher education. Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology, 7, 169–179.

Konheim-Kalkstein,Y. L., Stellmack, M. A., & Shilkey, M. L. (2008). Comparison of honor code and non-honor code classrooms at a non-honor code university. Journal of College & Character, 9, 1–13.

J.M. Lang. (2013). How college classes encourage cheating. Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/03/how-college-classes-encourage-cheating/3Q34x5ysYcplWNA3yO2eLK/story.html on February 21, 2019.

Lieberman, Mark. (2018). Exam proctoring for online students hasn’t yet transformed. Inside Higher Ed (October 10, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/10/10/online-students-experience-wide-range-proctoring-situations-tech, on February 22, 2019.

Michael London. (2017). 5 Ways to Cheat on Online Exams. Inside Higher Ed (09/20/2017). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2017/09/20/creative-ways-students-try-cheat-online-exams on February 21, 2019.

Derek Newton. (2015). Cheating in Online Classes is now big business. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/11/cheating-through-online-courses/413770/ on February 21, 2019.

Vicky Phillips. (n.d.). Big Fat Online Education Myths – students cheat like weasels in Online Classes. GetEducated. Retrieved from https://www.geteducated.com/elearning-education-blog/big-fat-online-education-myths-students-cheat-like-weasels-in-online-classes/ on February 21, 2019.

Chris Pilgrim and Christopher Scanlon. (2018). Don’t assume online students are more likely to cheat. The evidence is murky. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-07-dont-assume-online-students-evidence.html on February 21, 2019.

Rochester Institute of Technology. (2014). Teaching Elements: Assessing Online Students. Retrieved from https://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/tls/sites/rit.edu.academicaffairs.tls/files/docs/TE_Online%20Assessmt.pdf on February 21, 2019.

Shu, L. L., Mazar, N., Gino, F., Ariely, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2012). Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end. PNAS, 109, 15197–15200.

George Watson. And James Sottile. (2010). Cheating in digital age: Do students cheat more in online courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 13(1). Retrieved from https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring131/watson131.html on February 21, 2019

Neuromyths made with wordart.com

In part 1 of Debunking Neuromyths and Applications for Online Teaching and Learning, we reviewed the neuromyths and neuro-facts about learning styles, intelligence, and emotions, and their corresponding online teaching applications. Here is part 2, where we will review the neuromyths and neuro-facts about sleep, memory, attention and creativity, and their corresponding online teaching applications.

#4 About sleep: “When you sleep, your brain shuts down.” Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding sleep: Sleep strengthens memory because the activity patterns, neurochemical and gene environments of sleep serve to clear noise and strengthen weakened networks of neural circuits for efficient subsequent cognitive processing demands. (Poe, Walsh and Bjorness, 2010)

Danger of this myth: It tempted students to procrastinate and skip sleep before important test to cram in missed study time.

Online learning applications from debunking sleep myth include:

Teach students the importance of sleep: sleep time brain activity enhances learning.
Teach students test preparation secret 1: spaced practice, retrieval practice, interleaving practices, way before the test day.
Teach students test preparation secret 2: review thoroughly (practice retrieval, teach others, explain it, etc. ) the night before test day.
Teach students test preparation secret 3: have plenty of sleep regularly, and especially the night before the test day.
Teach students test preparation secret 4: Eat balanced healthy food regularly, and on test day as well.
Teach students test preparation secret 5: Calm down and have a positive attitude. You are bound to perform at your best!

#5 About memory: “Memory is like a container, an assembly line, or a recording device.” Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding memory: Memory is malleable. We use our memory to manage situations we know very well. When faced with a new problem, we try to modify and adapt known solutions from previous experiences. (Brandeis.edu, n.d.)

The danger of this myth lies in the assumption of its accuracy.

Why is it important to debunk this myth? It helps liberating both instructor and students to focus on improve the learning environment and malleability of memory.

Online learning application of debunking the idea of “fixed memory”:

Encourage/motivate students’ effort to enhance memory.
Encourage instructors to provide multiple means of content presentation for strengthened memory connections.

#6 About attention: “The brain can multitask while learning, especially Gen Z”. Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding attention: Learning requires focused attention. Multitasking works only for routine or simple tasks. (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2018)

The danger of this myth lies in wasting time and low productivity during study.

Online learning application from debunking the myth of multitasking:

Content presentation in online learning needs to be in modular format to avoid cognitive overload and increase focused attention.
Offer time management tips to students. For example, use physical or digital devices, such as Pomodoro Timer, to help students concentrate on a focused study session.

#7 About Creativity: “Creativity is primarily a personality trait and can’t be taught.” Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding creativity: Creativity can be practiced and reinforced, just like other cognitive skills such as critical thinking (Miller, 2018). Koestler (1964) proposed a broader definition of creativity: the ability to make connections between two previously unrelated ideas or contexts.

The danger of this myth is the mission-impossible syndrome caused by self-denial of creativity, for both instructors and students. If instructors do not view themselves as creative, it is very unlikely for them to encourage creativity in their teaching. If the students do not view themselves as creative in the subject area, it is very unlikely that they will attempt to produce creative work.

Online learning application from debunking the myth of creativity:

As an instructor, model creativity in your mindset and teaching practices. Need help? Read these eight steps to becoming a more creative teacher.
Think of creativity as a skill.
As an instructor, openly share your original ideas with the class. Model what it looks like to be open to feedback and bounce ideas off of one another.
Encourage students to learn a variety of skills and subjects. The more unrelated the field, the better. “Learning different methods and practicing new skills not only engages different parts of the brain, but it inspires cross-pollination of ideas from one domain to the other. ” (Shah, 2018)
Practice generating more ideas or read the 18 idea-generating techniques or read these 19 ideas to promote creativity in your class.
Provide opportunities for both individual thinking and group thinking. (Shah, 2018; Johnson, 2011; Catmull and Wallace, 2014)

Feel free to contact your Ecampus instructional designer if you would like more information on any of the above topics. Enjoy your online teaching.

* This blog was inspired by Online Learning Consortium 2018 workshops on Neuro, Cognitive, and Learning Sciences, Bring Theory to Practice (Part I & Part II –new offering of part II coming again in March 11, 2019), facilitated by two amazing teachers: Dr. Kristen Betts and Dr. Michelle Miller. A big “thank you” to their passionate work in promoting the application of neuroscience in education!

* Icons used in this post comes from the Noun Project.

References:

Cast.org. (n.d.). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html#.XEc_189Kh24

Catmull, E. and Wallace, A. (2014). Creativity, INC. Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration. London, UK: Townworld Publisher.

Johnson, Steven. (2011). Where Good Ideas Come From. New York, NY: Riverhead books.

Marsh, H. W., and Yeung, A. S. (1997). Causal effects of academic self-concept on academic achievement: structural equation models of longitudinal data. J. Educ. Psychol.89, 41–54. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.89.1.41

Memory Adaptation. Learning by Trial and Error. Retrieved from http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~pablo/tron/t10.html

Miller, Michelle. (2018). Neuro, Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Part 1: Applying Theory to Practice. Online Learning Consortium online workshop.

Poe, G.R., Walsh, C.M., & Bjorness, T.E. (2010). Cognitive Neuroscience of Sleep. Progress in Brain Research, Volume 185, 2010, pages 1-19. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53702-7.00001-4

Shah, Raj. (2018). 5 Ways for Teachers to Nurture the Creative Genius in Their Students. Retrieved from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/01/5-ways-for-teachers-to-nurture-the-creative-genius-in-their-students/

Tokuhama-Espinosa, Tracey. (2018). Neuromyths: Debunking false ideas in education. New York, N.Y. : W.W Norton & Company, Inc.

Vaughan, Tanya. (2017). Tackling the ‘learning styles’ myth. Retrieved from https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/tackling-the-learning-styles-myth

neuromyths about emotions, fixed intelligence, learning styles (image generated at wordart.com)

As we have settled into the start of a new term, it is a good time to pause for a short moment and reflect: is there something new I can learn about teaching and learning and apply it in my teaching?

“Neuromyths: Debunking false ideas about the brain” (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2018) offers an easy read yet presents challenging ideas. Could our beliefs about teaching and learning be totally wrong as neuroscience develops and scientists unravel more and more understanding about how our brain functions? In this post, we will investigate three aspects of learning: learning styles, intelligence and emotions.

About learning styles: “Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning styles.” Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding learning styles: Although learning style have been widely used, the above statement is not supported by the science. Individual variance in learning preferences do exist. Yet evidence suggests that it is unhelpful to assign learners to groups or categories on the basis of a supposed learning style. (Vaughan 2017)

The danger of this myth lies in its potential to mislead students to think: “The content is not presented in my preferred learning styles, so I can not learn it well. Therefore, I don’t even need to make an effort to try learn it.” Instead of focusing on positive attitude and efforts, students can blame on content or curriculum not delivered to meet their individual learning styles.

Why is it important to debunk this myth? It helps redirect teachers’ efforts into developing real learning, real progress and real success through universal design for learning, such as multiple means of representations, multiple means of interactions, and multiple means of expressions. (cast.org, n.d.)

Practical applications of online learning for debunking learning styles include:

Provide content in multiple formats if possible
Interact and engage students at all levels: student-to-content interactions, students-to-students, students-to-instructor interactions.
Provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and express their learning.

2.About intelligence: “Intelligence is fixed.” Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding intelligence: Neuroplasticity is one of the main characteristics of adult human brains, where neurons and neural networks in the brain are capable of changing their connections and behavior in response to new information, sensory stimulation, development, damage or dysfunction (Encyclopedia Britannica). Cognitive psychology tells us that belief in one’s own abilities is highly relevant to successful learning (Marsh and Yeung, 1997).

The danger of this myth lies in its potential to lead both the instructor and students to think that because a student’s intelligence is fixed, there isn’t much to do about their learning success.

Why is it important to debunk this myth? It liberates both the instructor and students to believe that teaching and learning success is possible for everyone.

Online learning applications from debunking the idea of “fixed intelligence”:

Encourage and motivate students to to believe in malleable intelligence and the neuroscience evidences behind it.
Provide opportunities for students to reflect on past learning success
Provide opportunities for students to acknowledge their capability of learning well in the course.

3. About emotions: “The brain is for thinking, the heart is for feeling”. Is this statement a myth or fact?

It’s a myth. Neuro-fact regarding emotion: Emotions amplify memory. And emotions influence decision making. (Miller, 2018; Immording-Yang, 2015).

Danger of this myth occurs when instructors don’t consider the impact of students’ emotions on learning and motivations. Have you heard such sayings like: “I am a chemistry/biology/physics/math teacher. I only need to focus on teaching the content”? As a matter of fact, teachers can exert great influence in motivating students to have a growth mindset and challenging students to put in their best effort for learning.

How is it important to debunk such myth? It points out to both the instructor and students that students’ self-perception and their learning success are closely related. (Marsh, 1997)

Online learning applications from debunking the idea of “The brain is for thinking, the heart is for feeling”:

Show that you are welcoming through a welcome message using announcement, post or email.
Provide opportunities for students to get to know each other through text, audio or video-based messages, such as a week 1 discussion forum that allows everyone to introduce themselves to the class, using voicethread (a video, audio, and/or text-based commenting tool) to introduce everyone, or record a short video for self-introduction.
Tell your students that they can be successful in learning the content even though it might be challenging. With confident self-perception, they will have the motivation to persist throughout the term.
Tell your students that the most effective way for learning is through spaced practices, retrieval practices, and interleaving practices.

Feel free to contact your Ecampus instructional designer if you would like more information on any of the above topics.

* This blog was inspired by Online Learning Consortium 2018 workshops on Neuro, Cognitive, and Learning Sciences, Bring Theory to Practice (Part I & Part II), facilitated by two amazing teachers: Dr. Kristen Betts and Dr. Michelle Miller. A big “thank you” to their passionate work in promoting the application of neuroscience in education!

* Icons used in this post comes from the Noun Project.

References:

Cast.org. (n.d.). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html#.XEc_189Kh24

Immordino-Yang, Mary Helen. (2015). Emotions, Learning, and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

Miller, Michelle. (2018). Neuro, Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Part 1 & 2: Applying Theory to Practice. Online Learning Consortium online workshop, facilitated by two amazing teachers: Dr. Kristen Betts (Drexel University) and Dr. Michelle Miller (

Tokuhama-Espinosa, Tracey. (2018). Neuromyths: Debunking false ideas in education. New York, N.Y. : W.W Norton & Company, Inc.

Vaughan, Tanya. (2017). Tackling the ‘learning styles’ myth. Retrieved from https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/tackling-the-learning-styles-myth

I recently attended one of Bryan Alexander’s Future Trend’s Forum webinar session (recording on youtube) on apps educators use in their work and in their life and learned about some very interesting apps.

Anti-app App:

?Forest: an app to monitor time off phone (for personal use or group use, family use, etc.).
? Flora: (free app) helps you and your friends stay focused on the task together (recommended by my wonderful co-worker Dorothy Loftin)

Apps for teaching and learning:

? Desmos: Graph functions, plot data, evaluate equations, explore transformations, and much more – for free!
➗Algebrabyhand: The most advanced drag and drop algebra tool for the web.
?‍♂️Fabulous is a science-based app, incubated in Duke’s Behavioral Economics Lab, that will help you build healthy rituals into your life, just like an elite athlete.
?Calm: App for meditation and sleep.
?Meet Libby: a ground-breaking ebook reader and a beautiful audiobook player to read any book from your local library.
?‍?Vuforia Chalk: Vuforia Chalk makes it easy when troubleshooting or expert guidance is needed for situations not covered in training or service manuals.
?Lingrotogo: language learning app. LingroToGo is designed to make time devoted to language learning as productive and enjoyable as possible. (The difference between this app and other language learning app is that it is based on educational theory, the developers claim.)
?Newsmeister: stay current with news challenge quizzes.
??‍?Studytree: StudyTree analyzes students’ grades and behavioral patterns to construct customized recommendations to improve their academic performance. Additionally, StudyTree serves advisors and administrators by providing them managerial access to the application, which enables insight to useful statistics and an overview of each student’s individual progress.
?Nearpod: Synchronize and control lessons across all student devices
Flipgrid: video for student engagement (recently purchased by Microsoft, not sure if any feature will change soon).

Fun Games:

Marcopolo: face-to-face messaging app for one-to-one and group conversations—bringing family and friends closer than ever with genuine conversations and moments shared. It could be used for student mock interviews and direct messaging within a group.
goosechase: scavenger hunts for the masses.

Productivity:

?Tripit: find all your travel plans in one place.
?rememberthemilk: the smart to-do app for busy people.
⌛wunderlist: the easiest way to get stuff done.
?Stitcher: Podcast aggregator allows you to get the latest episodes of your favorite podcasts wherever and whenever you want.
?inoreader: The content reader for power users who want to save time.
?Overcast: A powerful yet simple podcast player for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which dynamically shortens silences in talk shows.

Where to keep up with all the new tools and apps?

P.S. Icons come from emojipedia.org

If you have handy apps that make your life easier, feel free to share with us. We’d love to hear from you.

2018 Ecampus Faculty Forum concluded a month ago. However, I am still fascinated by the dedicated quality work our selected online instructors have showcased that day. You can access recorded sessions and view SlideDecks here.

Horticulture instructor Betsey Miller cares deeply about how to provide quality instructor feedback to students who truly want instructor feedback in peer review assignment , trying several rounds of three different ways of keeping students engaged and providing quality feedback

comments in discussion forum
grading rubrics
google form contest with students voting system

College of Business instructor John Morris uses a variety of strategies to prepare students in a career in business: teach students to use word cloud automation of words used in resume to see if their resume uses key words that future employers are looking for; use google collaboration documents to develop professional vocabulary, and peer view of individual case study analysis reports. (image from Canvas LMS Peer Review Tutorial on Peer Review)

History instructor Katherine Hubler goes far and beyond in forming connections with students and making her virtual presence known in her online courses through:

creating personal introduction to difficult topics
getting to know students by downloading roster, identifying where students are residing (off campus, on campus, etc.), special information about particular students from week 1 student introduction discussion forum activity; and put herself out there (so students can see her face, hear her voice through course intro video, weekly intro video, lecture videos, audio clips, etc. )
staying present during the week with timely announcements
providing regular and detailed feedback

College of Business instructor Nikki Brown shared her discoveries of what helps her as an online student when she took a fully online training certificate:

Lectures: notes and transcripts help greatly and she poses a question for online instructors to ponder: what is the point of your lecture?
Textbook vs no textbook: if there is no textbook used, please make sure all the resources are easy to find and are listed in one easy-to-find location as well.
Engage her online students by showing results of opinion polls to the whole class and showing how class performance curves so students know where they stand in the class as compared to their fellow classmates anonymously.
Estimated weekly reading time and estimated completion time for each assignment help students budget/plan study time efficiently.

With the help of Ecampus media developers, Statistics instructor Katie Jager helps all her students succeed in learning by creating visualization models and simulations of statistical applets. Computer Science instructor Terry Roaker uses reflective journals to help students practicing high level critical thinking and evaluating skills.

statistical Modeling

The lunch time keynote speaker, Professor Kevin Gannon, gently persuades us to design for accessible, equitable and dialogic learning, with a lens of inclusive pedagogical perspective.

Together with an interactive ball-passing course design challenge and solutions exchange activity, Ecampus instructional designers’ pedagogy session introduced audience to 12 common pedagogical approaches and listed over 20 approaches and their examples (link to pedagogy and for teaching strategy examples and resources on pedagogy and learning design strategies.

Jen Beamer from School of Biological and Population Health Sciences and Christine Kelly from College of Engineering shared their success recipe for facilitating engaging role play and debate in online discussion forum.

History instructor Nick Foreman and Ecampus media developer Mark Kindred presented their learner-generated content activity: timeline of Food Origins.

Timeline of Food Origins

If you are exploring online teaching strategies in any of the above areas, feel free to reach out to the instructors who have presented at Faculty Forum. I am sure they would love to share more in detail with you on the specifics of how they made it work for their online courses.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a practical tool for guiding course design to ensure that every learner succeeds, based on scientific insights into how humans learn (cast.org).

As seen from the illustration below, there are three main principles of UDL, namely:

multiple means of representations,
multiple means of engagement, and
multiple means of expressions

(image by Tianhong Shi, CC0)

There are many applications of UDL design principles in OSU Spring 2018 online courses.

A. Multiple Means of Representations as seen in BA 354 S18’s weekly content planning.

- reading in text (Chapter 1 of Trevino and Nelson, Managing Business Ethics)
- listening to podcast (Ponzi Supernova podcast audio from Radio-lab
- watching instructor lectures in video (Course Introduction)
- Watching complicated assignment explained in video and graphics:

B. Multiple Means of Engagement as seen in BA 354’s discussion forums and assignment feedback:

- Students submit Personal Ethical Action Plan Initial submission – Instructor provides feedback students incorporate feedback from instructor and submit final submission;

Discussion forums: students post answers to prompts; students reply to peer classmates’ canvas discussion forum.

C. Multiple Means of Expressions as seen in BB 481/581 S18 and BA 354’s assignments:

Graphic expression – Assignment #1: Create a three-dimensional image
Audio/visual expression – Assignment #2: Create a video to explain what “reciprocal space” mean to you

Textual expression – Assignment #3 & #4: Literature search & Quizzes & Discussions & write a letter to a relative to explain why the Fourier transform is so important to NMR spectroscopy
Textual expression of application – Application type of project: Personal Ethical Action Plan

(Icons from SlidesCarnival’s Solanio template)

If you are interested in applying UDL in your courses, feel free to contact us at to brainstorm possible applications together.

Sunrise, Eureka, NV, 12/30/2017, on highway 50, the longliest road in America

Beauty is everywhere and in every moment, if we pay attention. I saw this beautiful sunrise driving by Eureka, Nevada on Highway 50, the loneliest road in America, during the tail of my one-week road trip vacation. Similarly, good teaching practices are flourishing in OSU online courses as we discover from our talks with Ecampus instructors. To inspire you to expand your teaching toolkit, here are some ready to use online teaching tips from the book “Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning” by James Lang.

Teaching Strategies	Online Teaching Tips
Retrieving	Syllabus Quiz Weekly reading journals Frequent quizzing such as quizlet practices or weekly quizzes
predicting	Pretesting with immediate grading and immediate feedback including exposure of content teaching; Role play: how might a person in a different role approach the problem? Asking students to predict what will be covered in next week’s lesson/reading, etc..
Interleaving	Open or close each class session with small opportunities for students to retrieve older knowledge, to practice skills developed earlier in the course, or to apply old knowledge or skills to new contexts. Weekly mini review session applying that week’s content to some new question or problem. Stagger deadlines and quiz dates to ensure that students benefit from the power of spaced learning.
Connecting	Solicit the prior knowledge of your students at the beginning of the term or individual lesson (such as private journaling or public introductory discussion) Ask students to create concept maps that answer questions or solve problems; use concept maps multiple times throughout the semester with different organizational principles. As much as possible, offer examples or cases from everyday or common experience but also – and more importantly – give students the opportunity to provide such examples on their own.
Practicing	Before the semester begins, brainstorm a comprehensive list of cognitive skills your students will need to develop to succeed in your course. (Identify Learning outcomes) Prioritize them; decide which ones students will need to develop most immediately and which ones can emerge only after they have developed some basic skills. Review your course schedule and decide where you can make space for small practice sessions in key skills prior to your major assessments; mark those sessions on the syllabus schedule. Prior to any major assessment, ensure that students have had multiple opportunities to practice the skills they will need to do well, from creating slides or writing paragraphs to answering multiple-choice questions.
Self-Explaining	For online homework or readings, create spaces for students to self-explain while they work; When students are demonstrating their homework, create a regular schedule of opportunities or requirements for them to self-explain their process. Use Peer Instruction: students provide an answer, pause and explain it to their peers, and then revise their answers. In all forms of self-explanation, push students to tie their knowledge of information, principles, theories and formula to the specific task they are completing.
Motivating	Spend time to get to know your students; learn about their lives and their interests, creating a positive social atmosphere in the virtual class space. Open each lesson by eliciting student emotions: give them something to wonder about, tell them a story, present them with a shocking fact or statistic. Capture their attention and prepare their brains for learning. Consider how practitioners in your field, or the skills you are teaching them, help make a positive difference in the world; remind them continually about the possibilities that their learning can do the same, from the opening of the course. Keep the overarching purpose of any lesson/ learning activity in view while students are working. Make it clear why they are doing this activity. Show enthusiasm for your discipline, for individual texts or problems or units, and for your hope that they will find them as fascinating as you do.
Growing	Provide early success opportunities through assignment sequencing or assessment design; Consider offering some reward for effort or improvement in the course (heavier weighting of your assessment toward the latter half or through a portion of the grade set aside for that purpose) Provide examples of initial failures or setbacks in your own intellectual journey or in those of famous or recognizable figures in your field to demonstrate that such failures can be overcome. Give feedback to students in growth language; convey the message that hey are capable of improvement, and offer specific instructions on how to achieve the improvement. Ask top students to write letters to future students about how they succeeded in the course; select and pass along the ones that highlight the power of effort and perseverance. Include a “Tips for Success in this course” section on your syllabus, and refer to it throughout the semester.
Expanding	Commit to reading at least one new book on teaching and learning every year. Subscribe to an e-mail list from Faculty Focus or Chronicle of Higher Education Create a personal learning network on Twitter. Attend a conference on Teaching and Learning in higher education (the Teaching Professor or the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching) Attend events on campus sponsored by Center for Teaching and Learning.

Lang, J. (2016). Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.

If you have good strategies for enhancing online teaching and learning, feel free to share with us by email EcampusFacultySupport@oregonstate.edu.

Have a wonderful winter 18 term!

Why should I care about humanizing online learning?

First of all, the United States Department of Education requires regular and substantive interaction between students and faculty in distance learning courses (Policy from DOE & interpreting the Policy from DOE).

Secondly, it is well documented that instructor-student interactions and quality and timely instructor feedback in online learning are prominent faculty behaviors that impact student retention and student satisfaction of online learning (Riedel, Dinauer, Jobe, Lenio, And Walsh, 2016; Bawa, 2016; Shaw, Burrus, Ferguson, 2016; Boling, Hough, Krinsly, Saleem and Stevens, 2012; Liaw, 2008).

How do we humanize online learning?

Think of the task for humanizing your students’ online learning experience as building a house. And there are three major pillars to this house, namely, Presence, Empathy and Awareness.

Presence

Here are a few strategies for building/improving online instructor presence:

Instructor self-introduction video/message/page
Weekly message to students through announcements, emails, weekly overview pages, weekly video, etc.
Discussion forum interactions with students (greet each student in first week’s class introduction discussion, pop in whenever appropriate to confirm, compliment, encourage, redirect, etc.
Comments in grades center and encourage students to take action on your comments (revise writing and resubmit; study and retake quizzes, etc. )
Communicate to your students as a whole group, in a small group, or individually whenever appropriate.

Empathy

For improving online instructor empathy, it is as simple as 1 and 2:

Admit your vulnerability: “I am new to online teaching. I welcome your honest feedback to help me improve this course so we can all have a meaningful learning experience.” “I am human. I make mistakes. help me if you spot one.”
Clear reasonable communication policy for the online course: “I am human. I have a life besides my online teaching. I will respond to students questions within 48 hour business day. Do not expect me to respond to you late hours or 20 minutes before an assignment is due.”

Fuller (2012) summarizes eight themes for building empathy in online teaching:

Theme 1. Instructors provide a “tips for online course success” document prior to class beginning.
Theme 2. Empathetic interactive instructors use synchronous chat rooms, besides the asynchronous announcements and email communications and discussion forum postings.
Theme 3. Instructors used a conversational tone.
Theme 4. Interaction is promoted through careful facilitation in the discussion boards.
Theme 5. Empathetic presence is practiced. Instructors related that they practice the use of presence so students know the instructor is there but more so than this. This is accomplished through selective discussion board postings, but also through frequent email contacts individually and to the group, usually responding within the same day or a few hours of an email.
Theme 6. Design “think forward type lessons” that offer clarity for student understanding. Instructors provide a high degree of redundancy and consistency of structure so concepts and instructions are clear. Lessons and modules are laid out similarly from week to week, so students get used to a consistent easy to follow format that allows them to focus on content and not waste time figuring out what to do or where to go in the LMS. Each weekly format allows the students to think ahead as to what is expected and required for success and learning to occur.
Theme 7. Instructors will frequently check that learning is occurring and that students understand structure by opening up a dialogue about an area or issue as they deem needed (i.e. formative assessment).
Theme 8. Instructors make a personal connection at the start of class. ” In the opening introductions (as students introduce themselves to the group through a discussion board) I make a concerted effort to respond to each student’s posting making a positive personal connection with something the student posted.”

Awareness

Several strategies for building awareness in online courses:

Survey students at the start of term: what can I do to help you be successful in this course? Do you have personal challenges that might hinder you from successful completion of the course?
Through formative assessments
At the end of each assessments (summary; Just-in-time teaching; Personalized teaching)

A Simple Step To Begin Humanizing Online Learning

Take a few minutes and watch these vivid examples of Oregon State University online instructor introductions.

Do you want to make a brief video introduction to your online students? Ecampus Course Development and Training Unit can help. Contact us today.

References:

Bawa , P. (2016). Retention in Online Courses: Exploring Issues and Solutions – A Literature Review. Sage Open. January – March 2016: 1-11.

Fuller, R. G. (2012). Building empathy in online courses: effective practical approaches. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education. 8.4. (October – December 2012): p38

Ladyshewsky , R.K. (2013). Instructor Presence in Online Courses and Student Satisfaction. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Volume 7, No. 1, Article 13.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2017). Humanizing Online Learning.Retrieved from http://page.teachingwithoutwalls.com/cihumanize

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2011). The excellent online Instructor: strategies for professional development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Riedel, E., Dinauer , L., Jobe , R., Lenio , J., and Walsh, L. (2016). Faculty behaviors and characteristics that impact student retention in online graduate programs at two universities. Online learning Consortium Accelerate Conference presentation, November 2016.

Shaw, M, Burrus , S., Ferguson, K. (2016). Factors that influence student attrition in Online Courses. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volumne XIX, Number 3, Fall 2016.

Sher, A. (2009). Assessing the relationship of student-instructor and student-student interaction to student learning and satisfaction in Web-based Online Learning Environment. Journal of Interactive Online Learning. Volume 8, No. 2.

Worley, C.D. (2015). Student Perceptions of Connectedness in Online Courses. Dissertation. Walden University. P87.

Ecampus Course Development and Training

Providing inspiration for your online class

Author Archives: shitia

Academic Success in College: Time Management (part 1)

Why should we teach college students time management skills?

Who can help?

How can instructors teach students time management skills?

References

What can we learn from the success of CANVAS LMS?

References:

Academic Honesty in Online Assessment

Debunking Neuromyths and Applications for Online Teaching and Learning: Part 2

Debunking Neuromyths and Applications for Online Teaching and Learning: Part 1

Apps Educators Use for Work and for Life

Anti-app App:

Apps for teaching and learning:

Fun Games:

Productivity:

Where to keep up with all the new tools and apps?

Kudos To OSU Ecampus’ Amazing Online Instructors: My Takeaways from 2018 Faculty Forum

Universal Design for Learning in Online Courses

There are many applications of UDL design principles in OSU Spring 2018 online courses.

A. Multiple Means of Representations as seen in BA 354 S18’s weekly content planning.

Ready-to-Use Online Teaching Tips

Humanizing Online Learning

Why should I care about humanizing online learning?

How do we humanize online learning?

Presence

Empathy

Awareness

A Simple Step To Begin Humanizing Online Learning

Contact Info