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Designing and Developing Courses in Learning Management Systems: How do We Enhance Learners’ Experiences?

2/1/2021

As more and more instructors are designing courses in their institution’s learning management system (LMS), there is a need for these online course components to be well-designed and student-friendly. We are practitioners and scholars from the Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) field, proposing streamlined guidelines, called the Three-Tier Design Process, for designing and developing a course in an LMS. A paper describing the guidelines has recently been published in the journal College Teaching. This blog entry presents a brief description of the three-tier design process, who can use it, and what each tier includes.

What is Three-Tier Design?

Drawing from existing theories, models, and literature in the IDT field, the three-tier design process (TTDP) was developed to help faculty promote positive learner-centered experiences. While there are many instructional design (ID) models used to practice course design, the TTDP is not intended to compete with those ID models. The TTDP consists of three considerations for designing and developing a course in LMS that we call streamlined guidelines for creating effective learning experience and easy to use environments for all students. By following the TTDP, the course materials in an LMS can be presented in an organized manner. Students can enter the course using an LMS and know where to start, how to navigate, find specific materials, and understand the expectations without providing long explanations. Faculty and teaching assistants (TAs) without formal education in instructional design and learner-experience design will find the streamlined guidelines useful and practical. Practicing instructional designers in higher education may also use the TTDP for introducing course design to faculty and TAs.

What are the Three Tiers?

Tier 1: Design
“Tier 1 focusing on the design … serves as a firm foundation for the next tiers” (Ji, Muljana, & Romero-Hall, 2020, p.2). In this initial process, considering the alignment of learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments are crucial. One way to help accomplish this is by creating a table where course-level learning objective(s), module-level learning objectives, assessments, and learning activities are listed juxtapositionally. Table 1 displays an example of aligning module-level learning objectives, activities, assessments. When writing learning objectives, referring to Bloom’s taxonomy and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) objectives are helpful in identifying measurable learning outcomes. A list of learning activities should include clear instructions and relevant examples. Designing these course elements (i.e., learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment) with accessibility in mind will promote equal access to the information within the course materials. For example, if a learning activity involves watching a video, the selected video should include a closed caption.

Tier 2: Development
Tier 2 revolves around the course development process in an LMS. During this process, course materials are usually ready to be added to the LMS. Faculty and TAs may consider using concise language and/or bullet points rather than descriptive language. Therefore, students can easily read and skip to the area they need to locate, providing ease of scanning to students, especially those with reading disorders. Instead of listing all materials, the course content can be categorized and organized into meaningful segments, such as modules. A module may consist of a list of learning objectives, a to-do list (a list of learning tasks), learning materials (e.g., any slide presentations and/or other relevant documents pertaining to the modular topic), link to a discussion forum, link to assignment or quiz, and any examples for an assignment (see Figure 1). This will allow students to find what they need to complete the module.

Figure 1. A screenshot of a partial module page displaying the learning objectives, to-do list, and lecture slides for the respective module. Adapted from “The Three-Tier Design Process: Streamlined Guidelines for Designing and Developing a Course in a Learning Management System to Promote Effective Learning,” by W. Ji, P. S. Muljana, and E. Romero-Hall, 2020, College Teaching, Advance Publication, p. 9. Copyright 2020 by Taylor and Francis Online.

Tier 3: User-Experience Considerations
The steps in Tier 3 can further promote the user-experience aspect of the course site, such as ease of course navigation, easy access to resources, and communication from faculty or TAs. Boosting the ease of course navigation can start with providing a brief course tour or a “Start Here” page that the instructor expects students to visit first to introduce the course menu and layout. If the course incorporates the use of specific technologies (e.g., software), providing access to technical resources, such as links to tutorials and manuals of the software, is helpful for students. Therefore, students will not have to spend time searching for these resources; instead, they can use their time for studying. Faculty and TAs may want to ensure that their contact information is included accurately. Their schedule (e.g., office hours) may change each semester; therefore, updating this information helps students reach out to them successfully. Faculty and TAs may also provide multiple ways for students to contact them. Providing email etiquette can promote productive and efficient communication, such as how students should address the faculty or TAs, write the email subject, include the course ID or name, among others.

Conclusion

Facilitating learning is about successful communication exchanges. Instructors attempt to send the ‘message’ to students and hope for a mutual response from them. However, ‘noise’ can hinder the communication process. The TTDP helps reduce these unnecessary ‘noises.’ As a result, students can identify the learning actions they have to conduct. The ID process can be complex; the TTDP is intended for those without a formal education in ID to manage the complexity of promoting positive learner-experience through a user-friendly course site in an LMS.

Article and Authors

Ji, W., Muljana P. S., & Romero-Hall, E. (2020). The three-tier design process: Streamlined guidelines for designing and developing a course in a Learning Management System to promote effective learning. College Teaching. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2020.1865253

Weiwei (Will) Ji is an Instructional Designer and an adjunct faculty member at Arkansas Tech University. He can be reached via email and LinkedIn.

Pauline Salim Muljana is formerly an Instructional Designer at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Instructional Design and Technology program, Darden College of Education and Professional Studies, at Old Dominion University. You can connect with her via Twitter, LinkedIn, or her personal website.

Enilda Romero-Hall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at The University of Tampa. She is also the Graduate Coordinator of the Instructional Design and Technology program. You can connect with her via Twitter, LinkedIn, and her personal website

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Building Relationships and Community Online: Strategies Based on Breakthrough Collaborative's National 2020 Virtual Summer Program

1/4/2021

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Alex Serna & Jee Deogracias

When you walk into the middle school summer program for any of Breakthrough Collaborative's 24 affiliate sites across the country, whether in Miami or Sacramento, you immediately recognize something unique and special. In San Juan Capistrano, if you walk into Sillers Hall, where students and staff gather to eat, you'll be taken aback by 136 students cheering and chanting in unison (let's be honest, these are middle school students who in their natural environment aren't the most inclined to want to do cheers). It is quite a sight. That energy and community never falters throughout the six-week summer program, which aims to reverse the summer learning slide, prepares our students for college, and builds community. In addition to supporting highly motivated, traditionally underrepresented students, Breakthrough also empowers and trains college-aged students (referred to as “teaching fellows”) to become the next generation of educators and advocates.

Going into our 2020 summer program amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, affiliates were forced to find alternatives to in-person programming. The situation left Breakthrough leadership with a huge challenge: how do we recreate the energy, spirit, and community of a 40-year-old, in-person program to a virtual setting?

Like many others who embarked on online learning for the first time this past spring, we were initially apprehensive. Several critical questions were looming which would determine the program’s outcome: Will students show up? Will they show up consistently? Will they have technology tools at home to participate? Will we prepare students for the fall and beyond? Will teaching fellows feel impacted by the experience? These concerns were especially salient considering local and national reporting and research that indicated low student attendance rates and engagement, especially among historically underrepresented students, when school districts switched to remote learning in the spring.

With agility, fortitude, and positive spirits, Breakthrough staff across the country not only reimagined core components of a traditional Breakthrough summer but also developed creative alternatives to best meet the needs of both students and teachers. While the summer wasn't without its challenges, we found many examples and lessons learned to celebrate and share.

Our newest white paper, "Breaking Through the Distance: How Relationships Foster Online Learning," summarizes our key learnings as six strategies that educators and others can use to best position their students for success during virtual learning. We share our strategies below:

Strategy 1: Believe that online learning is possible.

Hold positive mindsets and high expectations.

Strategy 2: Be flexible in translating programs to online formats.

Redesign programming while staying true to essential program goals.
Reassess and adjust continually based on feedback from students and staff.

Strategy 3: Create safe spaces in small and large groups to build relationships.

Cultivate belonging, not only through small groups, but also through large group community-building opportunities.
Create safe spaces for both students and teachers to allow for meaningful learning.
Build connections in the "off" times though open office hours, community work times, and other non-academic opportunities.

Strategy 4: Prioritize connections with families.

Ask for regular feedback from families.
Share highlights and challenges with families in a student-centered way.
Offer regular and accessible family events.

Strategy 5: Define and communicate expectations for online participation.

Set clear digital expectations and norms through technology trainings.
Rely on multiple indications of online student engagement.

Strategy 6: Immerse students in real-world content that is relevant and fun.

Infuse social justice and real-world examples throughout the program.
Keep learning fun and joyous.

In reflecting on summer 2020, it was somewhat surprising to discover how powerful the relationships were by the end of the virtual summer, but also exciting to know that the essential elements of a Breakthrough program are still as powerful online as it is in person. As one student remarked, "Despite having a different environment this year, every class still had a sense of community." In many respects, we were able to re-create the energy and community reminiscent of Sillers Hall virtually.

The Collaborative’s successes are evidenced in the data; by the end of the summer:

92 percent of students completed the summer program, comparable to in-person summers;
81 percent of students felt more prepared to learn at school in the fall;
76 percent of students felt better prepared to use digital tools/technology at school in the fall; and
87 percent of teaching fellows reported that their 2020 experience was "very good" or "excellent," higher than recent, in-person years.

The successful summer reestablished in our minds that forging relationships and building community are critical components to student engagement and academic learning. While teaching and learning virtually can create physical distance between teachers, students, and peers, leading to feelings of isolation and disconnection, some practices can mitigate those challenges. We learned that not only can we build community virtually, but in order to do so, we have to engage and center the voices and experiences of our students and families. In that way, we can continue to learn, grow, maybe do some cheers, and ultimately, build a community that supports students on their path to college and success in life.

Alex Serna, M.Ed is the Executive Director at Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano. He can be reached via email ([email protected]) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexserna1/).

Jee Deogracias, Ph.D. is the Director of Research and Evaluation at Breakthrough Collaborative. She can be reached via email ([email protected]) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jee-deogracias).

Read the full Breakthrough Collaborative white paper at this link: https://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/white-paper/

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November 11th, 2020

11/11/2020

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Surveying online interaction

11/11/2020

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Drawing on several strands of literature, this study develops a comprehensive survey that systematically collects information on online college instructors’ use of instructional practices that the literature suggests are promising in promoting interactions in an online setting, as well as instructors’ perceptions of online education. We administer the survey to all online instructors at a large community college and examine how reported frequency of interaction-oriented instructional practices may cluster to form meaningful groups of instructors. K-means cluster analysis distinguishes between two profiles of instructors–a high-practice user group and a low-practice user group. The high-practice user profile is predicted by more teaching experience, greater self-efficacy for using learning management systems, and greater perceived benefits of online learning for students. The findings have several implications for future research examining pedagogical behavior, as well as the design of professional development activities aimed at enhancing the use of effective online instructional practices among college instructors.
Read the full paper here.
Address correspondence to: Gabe Avakian Orona, [email protected]

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Pods for the People!

8/1/2020

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Galvanizing family and community action in support of children's schooling

By Yenda Prado
UC Irvine PhD candidate, EdM. Harvard Graduate School of Education, BA Stanford
@PradoYenda

Pandemic learning pods – intentional groupings of small cohorts of children for the purposes of socialization, education, and play – have garnered a great deal of debate. Presented as simultaneously being both an innovative and clever solution for families faced with remote learning in the COVID era - as well as a potentially problematic practice perpetuating existing educational inequities - opinions have varied depending on who is doing the podding and how the podding is being done.

This debate has been predicated on the notion that pods are a phenomenon largely centered on the behaviors of affluent, often white, suburban families in well-resourced neighborhoods. In this narrative, pods are positioned as exacerbating opportunity and resource hoarding, potentially draining public school resources, and exacerbating existing equity gaps.

The positioning of pods as vehicles for inequity, while certainly a reality under specific contexts, centers one narrative at the expense of another: quite a number of these pods are being formed by historically marginalized, working class, families of color seeking innovative solutions for our children in the tradition of community organizing and parent co-op models. Learning pods are also being considered by many middle and upper class families of color as well as community-centered organizations.

Many families considering learning pods hail from under-resourced or historically marginalized communities that have a rich history of collective community organizing and resource sharing – including my own. I’m reminded of my grandmother’s ancestral farming community in the remote valleys of western Mexico: despite a relative lack of monetary wealth, inequities related to educational disparities were mitigated by collective action. My grandmother coordinated with local families to teach English to small groups of children in exchange for other tangibles including errands, light housekeeping, and companionship. The local mothers organized and took turns voluntarily providing catechism lessons to the children. These collective efforts were supported by the broader civic community. Multiple such examples, in the U.S. and abroad, of collective familial and community organization abound and predate the dominant conceptualization of learning pods.

In times of emergency and crisis, families and communities revert to collective means of survival. This instinct in part explains the current re-imagined interest in learning pods across a diverse swath of families and communities. That the onus to mitigate the potential equity gaps arising from entrepreneurial solutions, such as formation of learning pods, is being placed on individual, potentially marginalized, families in crisis is akin to blaming the victim for the flood. Systemic issues require systemic solutions and our energies are better spent considering how familial and community-centered solutions can be taken up and supported at scale by systems that have the power to mitigate systemic inequity. Towards this endeavor, organizations and employers at the local, state, and federal level, should be supporting parents in their endeavors to ensure their children’s educations by bringing innovative solutions to scale for all families.

To date, there have been several burgeoning attempts to scale the concept of learning pods at low or no cost in underserved communities. Recreation facilities, libraries, and community centers, in partnership with San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, are aiming to serve over 6,000 school children across learning hubs stationed throughout the city. Brown University Education Professor Matthew Kraft has conceptualized the creation of a federally funded TutorCorps program, modelled after AmeriCorps, to address learning gaps resulting from school closures. In addition to districts partnering with universities to bring concepts like learning pods to scale, schools can also partner at the local level with their PTAs and local community resource centers to bring customized solutions and supports to families.

California has a vast opportunity to bring these kinds of ideas to scale, for example, by partnering with district and county organizations via its 23 California State Universities, as well as the University of California system. At UC Irvine, our Community Education Fellows initiative investigates how we can equitably take innovative educational efforts – such as learning pods – and partner with schools to make them accessible to a broad range of families. We connect UCI CalTeach undergraduate students with families across our partner schools in under-resourced communities. This collaboration includes the Orange County Educational Advancement Network and local partners to implement equitable and community-driven approaches to taking alternative education options to scale. Our goal is to engage in equity work by using community-driven approaches to bring alternative developments and solutions – such as learning pods – to scale for families from underserved communities.

Learning pods – when done in certain ways and contexts – can be a form of equity work that supports families and schools. When under-resourced, marginalized, working class, single parent households join forces to undertake community schooling endeavors – there is a real opportunity to proactively address inequities and for seemingly inequitable solutions to become equitable. This is especially true when organizations partner with families to offer support and infrastructure for organizing learning communities. Solutions to systemic inequities need to take root in the very systems that perpetuate those inequities. When families, particularly those that have been marginalized, come together in times of crisis to address their children’s needs – that becomes equity work. It is incumbent on all us to support their efforts by developing systemic solutions at scale to the current educational challenges. In doing so, we can honor the kinds of collective organizing carried out by my abuela and help ensure that all children have these opportunities now and in the future.

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Online Course Quality Rubric: A Tool Box

4/15/2020

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Students often find online learning more challenging than face-to-face courses due to the need for stronger self-directed learning skills and greater difficulties in enabling effective interpersonal interactions. How can online courses be designed and implemented in a way to better address these challenges? The Online Course Quality Rubric developed by the Online Learning Research Center aims to provide a systematic and descriptive benchmark for researchers and practitioners who are striving to develop a culture of high-quality college-level online courses.

This rubric differentiates itself from others as it identifies the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment and provides details and examples of how to optimize the design features and instructional practices to ease the challenges in a more deeply-reflective fashion than is required by a yes/no checklist.

The full version of the rubric provides an overall description of the quality expectations and concrete examples. The abridged version only includes quality expectations to make it easier for the course instructor or evaluators to go through all the elements quickly.

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Cultivating Community in Online Programs: Strategies and Tools

4/6/2020

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By Sharla Berry, PhD
Assistant Professor of Education Leadership – California Lutheran University
@Sharla_Berry

We are pleased to have Sharla Berry, PhD, Assistant Professor of Education Leadership at California Lutheran University author our blog today. Dr. Berry’s research explores how students and faculty define and experience community in online courses and programs. She also examines the interpersonal, academic, extracurricular and technical factors that support and undermine online learning communities. In today’s blog she highlights some of the core findings of this research, and its implications for researchers and practitioners. The highlighted findings are drawn from two qualitative case studies. In the first case study, she draws on interviews with 20 students in one fully online doctoral program, as well as video and message board data from six courses (Berry, 2017). In the second study, she interviewed 13 faculty who taught in the same online doctoral program (Berry, 2018, 2019). In this post, she focuses on the tools and strategies that support community in online programs in higher education.

Finding 1: Faculty Can Employ a Range of Student-Centered Strategies to Cultivate Community Online

In a case study of one online doctoral program at the University of the West (pseudonym), students described their community as an interactive and supportive social group. They developed feelings of membership, belonging, and trust, which they associated with increased student engagement and retention (Berry, 2017). This community was fostered in large part by instructors’ ability to cultivate social presence in the classroom. To establish social presence, students must feel supported in sharing elements of their “real lives” in the online classroom, including elements of their academic, professional and personal identities (Garrison, 2011).
Faculty cultivated social presence by using a wide-range of student-centered teaching strategies (Berry, 2017b). At the start of the semester, faculty would post warm and welcoming content to the course message board. In these posts, they would preview the course and also share information about their personal background and interests. Some faculty would even share photographs of themselves engaged in hobbies and encourage students to do the same. Activities like this helped students build rapport with faculty and with each other (Berry, 2017b). Once the semester was underway, the instructors used a portion of class time to allow students to share personal and professional updates. While some faculty were reluctant at first to cede class time in this way, students said that having some time to share personal accomplishments and work-related challenges helped them cultivate feelings of community (Berry, 2017b, 2019). Students noted that in an online class, you lose the opportunity for “water cooler discussions” that occur when people are in physical proximity. Therefore, it was important for faculty to be intentional about creating opportunities for “small talk” in the classroom.

Finding 2: The Format of Online Delivery Impacts Students’ Experiences

A core finding of my work has been that synchronous (compared to asynchronous) learning has a unique impact on students’ sense of community in an online program (Berry, 2017; 2019b). Several students had participated in distance learning in the 1990s and early 2000’s. They noted that asynchronous communication did not provide them with the same level of engagement and interactivity as synchronous communication. Further, all of the students in the study indicated that synchronous video played a key role in how they were able to connect with each other. Students were required to turn their cameras on during the synchronous meetings. Using a “gallery view”, students could see all of their peers and their instructor simultaneously. As a result of this increased presence (and accountability), students were more likely to be focused on the class than they would have been if their cameras were off. Using video also provided students with an opportunity to build community by learning about the lives of their peers. By seeing photographs, figurines and personal affects in the background, students were able to find similarities between peers and touchpoints for conversation (Berry, 2017b). In this way, synchronous video prompted more intimate interactions between students. These findings suggest that practitioners should consider opportunities for synchronous communication, including the use of video, when it is equally accessible to all students (Berry, 2019).

Finding 3: Faculty Need Support for Cultivating Online Learning Communities

In a case study of 13 faculty, I found that there was a wide range of faculty preparedness with regard to online teaching (Berry, 2018). Using the TPACK framework (Koehler and Mishra 2009), I found that some faculty had limited technical knowledge about how to operate a learning management system (LMS). These faculty benefited from targeted professional development that allowed them to tinker with the LMS (Berry, 2018). Other faculty, including early-adopters and self-taught technologists, desired professional development that focused on online pedagogy, which includes “deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning’’ (Koehler and Mishra, 2009, p. 4). It is here that institutional offerings were limited. Weekly faculty meetings formed a temporary substitute, as faculty used the time to discuss challenges associated with facilitating specific content online. However, faculty were unsure of different strategies to cultivate and assess deep learning in fully-online environments (Berry, 2018). There is a need for research and practitioner guides that address online pedagogy.

In this post, I have offered important considerations for teaching and learning online. Faculty may need to employ different teaching strategies and tools than they would in face-to-face classrooms. Drawing on my research, I have argued that online teaching can promote community through student-centered strategies. As practitioners make decisions about how to deliver online courses, this research urges them to consider the affordances of synchronous video. Finally, I found that faculty need professional development that is targeted toward their skill level, interest, and content area. Just as students find personalized teaching beneficial, faculty need personalized professional development to build online teaching capacity. This piece, and the related studies, provide starting points for researchers and practitioners who seek to promote a sense of community in online courses and programs.

Work Cited

Berry, S. (2017). Exploring community in an online doctoral program: A digital case study (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern California).

Berry, S. (2017b). Building Community in Online Doctoral Classrooms: Instructor Practices that Support Community. Online Learning Journal. Retrieved from https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/875/265

Berry, S. (2018). Professional development for online faculty: instructors’ perspectives on cultivating technical, pedagogical and content knowledge in a distance program. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-018-9194- 0(0123456789

Berry, S. (2019). The Role of Video and Text Chat in a Virtual Classroom: How Technology Impacts Community. In Educational Technology and Resources for Synchronous Learning in Higher Education (pp. 173-187). IGI Global.

Berry, S. (2019b). Teaching to connect: Community-building strategies for the virtual classroom. Online Learning, 23(1), 164-183. doi:10.24059/olj.v23i1.1425

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive
presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of distance education, 15(1), 7-23.

Garrison, D. R. (2011). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. New York: NY. Routledge.

Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60–70.

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OLRC Updates

Designing and Developing Courses in Learning Management Systems: How do We Enhance Learners’ Experiences?

What is Three-Tier Design?

What are the Three Tiers?

Conclusion

Article and Authors

Building Relationships and Community Online: Strategies Based on Breakthrough Collaborative's National 2020 Virtual Summer Program

November 11th, 2020

Surveying online interaction

Pods for the People!

Galvanizing family and community action in support of children's schooling

By Yenda Prado
UC Irvine PhD candidate, EdM. Harvard Graduate School of Education, BA Stanford
@PradoYenda

Online Course Quality Rubric: A Tool Box

Cultivating Community in Online Programs: Strategies and Tools

Want to write for us?

Archives

Categories

OLRC Updates

Designing and Developing Courses in Learning Management Systems: How do We Enhance Learners’ Experiences?

What is Three-Tier Design?

What are the Three Tiers?

Conclusion

Article and Authors

Building Relationships and Community Online: Strategies Based on Breakthrough Collaborative's National 2020 Virtual Summer Program

November 11th, 2020

Surveying online interaction

Pods for the People!

Galvanizing family and community action in support of children's schooling

By Yenda PradoUC Irvine PhD candidate, EdM. Harvard Graduate School of Education, BA Stanford​@PradoYenda

Online Course Quality Rubric: A Tool Box

Cultivating Community in Online Programs: Strategies and Tools

Want to write for us?

Archives

Categories

By Yenda Prado
UC Irvine PhD candidate, EdM. Harvard Graduate School of Education, BA Stanford
@PradoYenda