copyright © 2008, henry t. ingle. not to be copied or reproduced without the expressed written...

Copyright © 2008, Henry T. Ingle. Not to be copied or reproduced without the expressed written permission of the author.

2008 Online TeachingExcellence Symposium

Henry T. Ingle, Ph.D., Vice ChancellorInstruction, Planning and TechnologySan Diego Community College District

Moving Toward an Improved Pedagogy for Online Instruction:Meeting the Needs of Diverse Student Learners

Friday, April 25, 20084:00-4:45 PM (Session R-116)

San Diego City College

Saville Theater


Goals and Objectives Proposed for This Session: Provide practical guidance to improve teaching and learning with a

“college-going” population that is highly diverse and differentiated in terms of their instructional background and needs.

Fill a gap in the professional practice of teaching and learning that focuses on the “enabling attributes” of diversity in online and distributed instructional settings.

Invigorate the curriculum development and instructional methods that faculty can tap to better manage and promote “student success for all learners” in electronic teaching-learning environments.


Composition of California’s Public High School Graduates by

Race/Ethnicity2004-05 (Actual), 2009-10 and 2014-25 (Projected)


High School Graduate Options


New

ThirdTier New

SecondTier

Outreach to the Three Tiers of the Changing Student Demography

CurrentDemography


Diversity today is highly correlated with socio-economic

status and class


The Under-Resourced Learner:Strategies for Success

Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D.


A rethinking and strategic repositioning of your major areas of concern in terms of the challenges being faced and the need to provide better planning responses to these questions.

• Why We Teach.....?• Who We Teach.....?• What We Teach....?• When and Where We Teach....? AND• How We Teach....?


Building on Your Strengths Through A Careful Analysis of Your Agility for Working With…


Promising Practices and Significant Trends: Diverse Learners in Online Instruction1. Faculty Re-tooling: Changing The More Traditional Faculty Role of Information

Presenter/Developer to Instructional Facilitator (Guide on the Side as Opposed to the Sage on

the Stage)

2. Interactivity: Creating and Using Interactive Learning Community Practices

3. Media in Combination: Integrating and Blending the use of multiple “next-generation”

communication tools in use by students to optimize the on-line learning experience

4. Diversity Proficiency: Don’t Assume You Know; Investigate and Develop The Appropriate

Plan

5. Moving Beyond the Technology: Putting course content online is merely a necessary

beginning first step (BUT Not Sufficient) for teaching effectively in a distributed learning mode

6. Global Learning Outcomes (GLOs): Pointedly underscore that the world is marvelous,

complex and ever changing because of its diversity


Promising Practices and Significant Trends: Diverse Learners in Online Instruction7. Student as Instructor/Instructor as Student: Tap Diversity in the day-to-day online

learning course management and delivery processes and procedures

8. The WEB as your Class: Think of the Internet and WWW as Your Teaching and Learning

Space, as Opposed to Just Focusing on Your Course Site

9. Making Diversity a Routine: Purposely Integrate Multicultural/Global Perspectives, and

Diverse People and Places

10. Transformational Learning Outcomes: Contextualized and Transformative Learning

Experiences Work Effectively With All Learners and in particular, in Promoting Important Student Learning Concerns for Diversity

11. Connecting the Dots: Everything in an online setting merits being connected

12. Student-centered Perspectives: Significant Aspects of Success With Diverse Learners in

the Online Teaching-Learning Environment Needs to Focus on the Student User Experience


Changing The More Traditional Faculty Role of Information Presenter/Developer to Instructional Facilitator (Guide on the Side As Opposed to Sage on the Stage)

There is need to employ pedagogical approaches that can enhance the

power of online interactivity with and across all students, the

instructor, the content and its perceived relevance to the student.

That is, effectiveness with diversity in online learning environments

requires changes in the faculty role that moves him/her from merely

that of the broadcast mode or information presenter to the more

challenging, yet demanding, role of facilitator, mentor, advisor,

synthesizer, shaper of the learning community dialogue, and

provider of feedback and guidance.

Faculty Re-tooling


Creating Interactive Learning Community Practices

Time and time again, the most recent online learning research

concludes that the type, frequency and level of interactivity across

the instructor and students, both in synchronous and asynchronous

learning activities, is key to the learning success of diverse students.

There is need to cultivate and model techniques in online classes

that require student communication and information sharing

behaviors on a routine and regular basis , as well as structuring

diverse learning teams on assignments, chat room discussions, and

research projects tapping a wider array of WWW/Internet resources.

That is, interactivity with a capital “I” across all elements that shape

teaching and learning online.

Interactivity


Integrate and Tap multiple “next-generation” communication tools in use by students to optimize the on-line learning experience

Increasing the effectiveness in virtual learning environments on the

WWW and the Internet for diverse learners, suggest that we strive

for 100 percent online delivery of all instructional, testing and

assessment activities, as well as administrative, counseling and

advising, financial aid and related student-centered support services

in terms of ease of access, availability, convenience and reliability.

In addition, there is need to work with the evolving transformation of

the change in the arsenal of evolving technological resources to

strengthen the online learning opportunities provided in structured

courses.

Media in Combination


Integrate and Tap multiple “next-generation” communication tools in use by students to optimize the on-line learning experience (cont’d)

The fact that many students already own and carry mobile communication

devices (such as iPods, texting devices and cell phones) remains a key

factor in their potential use for instruction as does the tremendous pace of

technological innovation in sectors, such as mobile broadband, second life

and Web 2 social learning tools facilitating blogs, use of a Wiki, and text-

messaging. Students from all backgrounds find these communication

technology tools engaging and instructors rate them as highly effective with

diverse learners. At the same time, the use of these devices in tandem with

the online course, allows educational institutions to connect to these devices

to broaden their outreach and access to support success with critical

student learning outcomes that often come into play when linking across

home, work and schooling environments in a virtual way.

Media in Combination


Don’t Assume You Know; Investigate and Develop The Appropriate Plan

Work proactively to develop a hospitable, culturally sensitive working

relationship with your course content, instructional materials,

student learner characteristics and learning needs, as well as the

resources and capabilities provided by the course platform for

greater proficiency in managing the intricacies on your course

delivery platform as the instruction progresses and evolves. It is the

quality and relevance of the interplay of these variables, and not

merely the quantity and availability of the course information, that

determines how well the learning experience will eventually benefit

all learners in the course and in particular, learners with diverse

learning needs.

Diversity Proficiency


Putting course content online is merely a necessary beginning first step (BUT Not Sufficient) for teaching effectively in a distributed learning mode

Plan for ongoing minor and major changes and revisions throughout

the life of your online course. That is, a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even

multiple editions of a course are natural and expected after the first

delivery. Online learning requires a continuous follow-up “tweaking

blitz” and sometimes “major overhaul” using evidence-based

feedback from the learners, review and critique of your course by

other colleagues and technical experts, as well as input from

changes in the environment and the knowledge base about working

appropriately with diverse learners.

Moving Beyond the Technology


Pointedly underscore that the world is marvelous, complex and ever changing because of its diversity

Striving for excellence in all on-line instruction requires that we tap the

diversity across the students in the course in terms of age, gender,

socio-economic status, geographic location, language, work

experiences, perspectives, etc. To limit the online learning

environment to one set of perspectives or set of background cultural

characteristics in any one instructional setting is like “…going to a

huge community potluck and insisting on eating nothing but the

Jell-O you brought. Life is much more interesting when you can

sample from all the dishes your neighbors have perfected….” (AS,

2007).

Global Learning Outcomes (GLOs)


Tap diversity in the day-to-day online learning course management and delivery processes and procedures

Online learners increasingly want to function as developers of the

course content and learning activities through the use of the digital

media technologies available to them, as opposed to merely being

recipients of the information packaged and provided to them.

Effective online instructional practices require planning to integrate

opportunities for the students to develop and share unique learning

perspectives, experiences and expertise as part of the on-going

teaching-learning process where the students are often in the role of

instructor and the instructor can assume the role of learner or

student from time to time.

Student as Instructor/Instructor as Student


Think of the Internet and WWW as Your Teaching and Learning Space, as Opposed to Just Focusing on Your Course Site

Strategically work to expand, tap and integrate the expertise and

resources of the library staff plus other experts and informational

sites and resources on the larger WWW and Internet as part of your

online course on an on-going basis. This will invariably lead to the

identification of a diverse set of teaching-learning opportunities that

may not have been known to you and as a result, markedly improve

the quality of the online teaching-learning experience and student

success outcomes.

The WEB as your Class


Purposely Integrate Multicultural/Global Perspectives, and Diverse People and Places

When developing and revising your online course, continuously work to

appropriately identify and integrate cross-cultural and globally

oriented content, readings, web sites, different people and places

and other relevant diversity-focused resources into the assignments,

discussions and projects.

Making Diversity a Routine


Contextualized and Transformative Learning Experiences Work Effectively With All Learners and in particular, in Promoting Important Student Learning Concerns for Diversity

Make it easier for learners to take away from your course both what

you intended and what different learners expected to learn so that

the knowledge, skills and abilities they acquire are enduring and

applicable to a variety of settings in their real life today and as they

grow and evolve. And in the process, you will be providing

important “anytime, anyplace” learning that connects and links

instruction across their respective worlds of work, schooling and

home-settings. It makes for more meaningful, useful, life-changing,

and enduring learning (transformative learning) that speaks to an

ever-changing curriculum.

Transformational Learning Outcomes


Everything in an online setting merits being connected

Given the interconnected networking environment in which online

learning takes place either in an asynchronous or synchronous

fashion, efforts to work with the integration of diversity need to keep

uppermost in mind that everything in an online courses needs to be

connected to everything else. To maintain and better facilitate

purposeful and effective instructional practices, online instructors

need to have students take away a series of important experiences

that will be reinforced and interconnected through all of the

information resources, information exchange and communication

practices at play in the course.

Connecting the Dots


Significant Aspects of Success With Diverse Learners in the Online Teaching-Learning Environment Needs to Focus on the Student User Experience

To assure student success virtually, it is increasingly important that

instructional leaders assist the learners in developing greater

proficiency in the use and navigation of the online technology

protocols that move beyond just the “look and feel” of the course or

the “technology bells and whistles”. Simple and clear design is

often better when working to develop, package and deliver

appropriate online instructional materials and the necessary training

and skills to work in a virtual telecommunications environment.

The primary concern should be to make it easier and flexible for the

student to do or learn what is expected.

Student-centered Perspectives


Closing Questions to be Answered

1. How do we get from where we are to where we need to be?

2. What are the “Practices with Promise” for web-based, online and distributed learning environments?

3. And where does the element of diversity come into play in this educational change agenda?


Guiding Premises and Principles to Keep in Mind

The new technologies allow us simultaneously to live in the present, while we dream of the future, and to learn promising practices from the past.

This perspective needs to be ever-present and taking center stage in the process of conceptualizing, designing, shaping and delivering online instruction.


We need to be Shaping Instructional Delivery Approaches that:• are routinely tailored to purposefully integrate

America’s growing diversity resources in terms of both student learning needs and the ever-changing fabric of the society’s human tapestry

• give greater emphasis to a 24/7 learning environment that strategically connects the pathways across the Worlds of Schooling, the Home and Work


All of this is now entirely possible today. For not since

the advent of modern printing has education

experienced anything approaching the influence of

today’s technologies and new teaching and learning

approaches, media and methods.

We have barely begun to reach into the depth and

breadth of these opportunities for the betterment of

our educational agencies and the students we serve.


It will, however, require invigorating “out-of-box” thinking and actions…


And I genuinely believe that the recipe for making this happen is not unlike what educators like you and I have always done…


Letting new light bulbs burn brightly in our minds with different ideas…


And adhering to the action verbs that come into play when required change and innovation is needed:


with the change and

to

it along to the next stage of effectiveness.


A Four Actions Frameworkfor Handling the Expected Change

1Understanding Hurdle

Getting the New Message Across to All Stakeholders

2Responding to the

Vested Interest Hurdle

Opposition fromVested Interests

4Handling the

Resource Hurdle

Limited Resources

3Tapping Into the

Motivational HurdleNeed to Shape A New Visionand Commitment to Change


The Four Actions Framework for Embracing and Working with the Projected Expectations for

Change

CreateWhich factors/activitiesshould be created that we have never offered?

EliminateWhich of the factors/

activities that we take for granted should be

eliminated?

IncreaseWhich factors/activities

should we focus on increasing?

A NewClimate of

Change

ReduceWhich factors/activities

should be reduced?


Integrate Selective Elements of the Proven Old with the Expected New Behaviors


2008 Online TeachingExcellence Symposium

Henry T. Ingle, Ph.D., Vice ChancellorInstruction, Planning and TechnologySan Diego Community College District

Moving Toward an Improved Pedagogy for Online Instruction:Meeting the Needs of Diverse Student Learners

Friday, April 25, 20084:00-4:45 PM (Session R-116)

San Diego City College

Saville Theater

copyright © 2008, henry t. ingle. not to be copied or reproduced without the expressed written...

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