Focused on the future of learning.

Transforming, Expanding and Enriching Learning Scenarios  with Cooperative Learning in Online

Self-Paced Undergraduate Courses

Luis GuadarramaLearning Designer

Centre for Learning Design and Developmentluisg@athabascau.ca

Research TeamJoshua EvansCorinne BosseCindy Ives

CLDD

Human Geography 302This course is a senior-level undergraduate, three-credit course in human geography. It is suitable for students who are interested in the geography, culture, and sustainable development of Canada’s North. The course has been designed to link to and build from knowledge that you may have acquired in other courses. It presents an overview of the human geography of the Canadian North, covering diverse topics such as:

♦ Imaginings of the North ♦ The biophysical features of Canada’s North ♦ Aboriginal culture and society

♦The history of European exploration ♦Contact with indigenous northern populations.

♦Political developments in the North ♦ Natural resource developments and environmental impacts.

Athabasca University-Undergrad Model

• Open Education: older than 16, but no requirements• Online Distance Education : no face-to-face

experiences• Continuous Enrollment: any month of the year• No cohort groups • Self-paced• Individualized Studies• No deadlines for submitting assignments• 6 Months Contract to complete a course (paid

extensions)• 1 Tutor Per Group: groups up to 30 students• Study Guides, course materials, readings, etc.• Tutors time constraints

Concerns before redesigning the course:

• Students were not grasping the vast cultural, historical, geographical, and economic richness of the curriculum.

• Limited learning scope: despite of the rich content of the course, students limited their learning scope just to certain areas in the course

• Students had no contact with one another, and yet they were selecting the same traditional topics for their assignments

• Students’ engagement was low and drop-outs and failure were somewhat high

• Students-students interaction didn’t exist in the former print-based course

• Students complained about isolation• The course was print-based only, with no online presence,

and content was dated

Learning Design Strategies

Cooperative Learning

Breaking Down & Sequencing Assignments

Open-Ended Assignments

Formative Assessment

Scaffolding and Guiding Students

Open Submission of Assignments

Use of Interactive Dynamic Maps

Constructive quality improvement: We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.

Reactive quality improvement: We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions.

Preventive quality improvement: We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.

Transparency is an important driver for improved quality.

Morten F. Paulsen (ICICTE 2012 Proceedings)

Cooperative Learning Individual flexibilityIndividual freedom Individual learning Learner Autonomy

Awareness of the activities of others

Cooperative gating Facilitates affinity to a learning

community Self-governed learning activities

Heterogeneous GroupingPositive Goal Interdependence

Promotive InteractionTransparency

Cooperative Learning

Paulsen, 2007, Dalsgaard, 2009

Individual Flexibility

Exploratory Survey - Evaluation Core QuestionsWhat are students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning in individualized online self-paced courses?

● To what extent do cooperative learning strategies foster positive attitudes towards individual self-paced learning?

● To what extent do the cooperative learning strategies adopted in the course foster students’ engagement?

● To what extent does Transparency works as driver for improved quality assignment?

● To what extent sequenced assignments design help students to:

○ develop better disciplinary skills? ○ engage in their learning process? ○ take greater ownership of their learning?

Survey released on: July 2015.Students get access to the

survey only at the end of the course.

Current active students = 37Responses N=9Likert Scale 1-5

Students’ average age = 30-40 Not yet enough data to make conclusions but tendencies

seem to be unfolding.

The new version of the course was open on January 1st, 2014

“The course has really opened my mind towards the Canadian North. Admittedly a region I have not paid attention in the past.”

“Picking my own topics was motivating”.

“I liked that the assignments built upon each another.”

“I like the course assignments and that should not be changed in the course.”

“ I like the content and challenging assignments. I get to read a lot of interesting contents and articles while conducting the research.”

“I love the course outline.”

“I really enjoyed the subject matter. Well delivered, the assignments are appropriate to the subject matter.”

“The quality of the course materials exceeded my expectations.”

“Google maps is very cool – good integration”

‘”I really liked the Google Earth component. It did wonders for the course home page which would have been sort of bland without it.”

“I was excited and nervous when posting assignments on the Google Interactive Map; the map gives me experience I had not with other course.”

“Using the map looked way better than if I had to access these assignments from some list.

“Obviously Google Earth is really cool and fun to use.”

“ This course teaches about the Canadian North in an interactive and interesting way. I would not know as much about the North if I had not taken this course.”

“Accessing other students assignments was informative and also gave me an idea of the course expectations.”

“Google interactive map is a Wow!”

“The interactive map : ) “

“I did not interact with other students at all.”

“The approval process for assignments is unnecessary. It takes away from the learners time to do assignments and doesn’t provide as much as guidance as it intend to.”

“It takes a lot of time to get the approval from my tutor.”

“I did not like posting on the interactive map, “nor needing to get approval for the majority of assignments.””

“I found that posting on the “course map” was not useful. I honestly didn’t read other students’ work.”

“The wait times between assignments.”

• Data collection will continue for another 8-12 months, depending on the number of responses.• In the meantime, we will continue monitoring the data. Based on results, we may plan focus groups with students to discuss areas

that may need further exploration. • We intend to have a focus group with tutors to learn about the impact of the course design in their teaching.• Once final results are reached, we plan to review again the course design based on the findings. • Final results will be disseminated and published in academic venues once conclusions are reached.

Thanks for your attention

Research Team:

Joshua EvansCourse Coordinator

Faculty of Humanities & Social SciencesCorinne Bosse

Learning DesignerCLDD

Cindy IvesVP Academic

Lead researcher:

Luis GuadarramaLearning DesignerCentre for Learning Design and Developmentluisg@athabascau.ca

Transforming, Expanding and Enriching Learning Scenarios  with Cooperative Learning in Online Self-Paced Undergraduate Courses

References: 1.Crisp, V., & Ward, C. (2008). The development of a formative scenario-based computer assisted assessment tool in psychology for teachers: The PePCAA project. Computers & Education, 50 (4), 1509-1526.2.Dalsgaard, C. & Paulsen, M. (2009) .Transparency in cooperative online education. The International Review of Research in Open and distance Learning. Vol 10, (3) http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267 3.Futch, L. S. (2005). Cooperative learning groups in online courses. Retrieved August 2014. http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~lfutch/cooperative.pdf 4.Hodgson, P. & Pang, M. (2012, March). Effective formative e-assessment of student learning: A study on a statistics course. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Mar2012, Vol. 37 (2), 215-225. 5.Miller, A.H., Imrie, B.W., & Cox, K. (1998). Student assessment in higher education: A hand-book for assessing performance. London: Kogan Page.6.Paulsen, M.(2012). Cooperative freedom and transparency in online education. ICICTE (International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education) 2012 Proceedings .UNESCO. Retrieved August 2014. www.icicte.org/Proceedings2012/Papers/Keynote1-Paulson.pdf7.Swan, G.I. (2004). Online assessment and study. In Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE conference, ed. R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer, &R. Phillips, pp.891–894. Rretrieved August 23, 2009. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/swan.html 8.Taras, M. (2008). Summative and formative assessment: Perceptions and realities. Active Learning in Higher Education ,9(2): 172–192.9.Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., Beishuizen, J.(2010), September). Scaffolding in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research. Educational Psychology Review, 22,(3), 271-296.10.Vonderwell, S., Boboc, M. (2013, May). Promoting formative assessment in online teaching and learning. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 57(4), 22-27.