presentation to unisa - graduate education at a distance
DESCRIPTION
I stayed home and delivered this presentation via video conferencing at midnight on a cold night in March in Canada. Awww... my shrinking carbon footprint. Requested topic was innovations in graduate education at a distance.TRANSCRIPT
Innovation and Disruption – ODL and Graduate Education
Terry Anderson
Professor, Centre for Distance Education
Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada
* Athabasca University
34,000 students, 700 courses
100% distance education
Graduate and Undergraduate programs
Master & Doctorate
Distance Education
Only USA Accredited University in Canada
*Athabasca University
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Growth of Graduate education
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Growth of demand for grad programs
DEGREE INFLATION !!
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Fastest Growing group at AthabascaHighest Tuitions! Older studentsFaculty Research
• MBA• Master of Health• Master of Nursing• Master of Education
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Innovations in Online Graduate Education
• E-Portfolios• Social Networks• Production of Artifacts• Research opportunities• Peer review of Thesis• PLAR, MOOCs and Credentialing
E-Portfolio• Process and product• Archiving, artifacts and reflections• At a course, program or institutional level• CVs and the next step• Network entity and presence• Lifelong learning• Personal ownership of process and product• Exportable to other archives and use ??
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Innovations in online Graduate Education
• E-Portf
http://www.nie.edu.sg/practicum/practicum-structure/niefolio
Students Creating Net presence
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Social Networks
Social Media• Tools for Building Personal Networks of people and Resources• Means to reify and share knowledge• Ownership and identity• Supports long term partnerships, relationships, alumni• Weak and strong ties • Boundary crossing and serendipity• Place for coalescence of Sets into networks and groups, nets
into groups.• Discovery, external validation “danger of good ideas”
NOT Learning in a Bubble
Networks add diversity to learning
“People who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas” Burt, 2005, p. 90
Educational Theoretical Rationale• Social Presence• Cooperative work in self-paced programming• Interaction results in increased social, institutional and
academic integration, leading to increased completion rates (Tinto, 1987)
• Need to develop a virtual campus supporting community beyond course interactions
• Social Capital Building• Student Control and identity• Persistence and Networking (Connectivism)• Potential for community and alumni contribution
3 Generations of Distance Learning Pedagogies1. Behaviourist/Cognitive –
Self Paced, Individual Study
2. Social constructivist – Groups, classes
3. Connectivist – Networks
Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. International Review of Research on Distance and Open Learning, 12(3), 80-97
net
group
indiv-idual
Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. IRRODL, 12(3), 80-97.
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Production of Artifacts• Have you or your students contributed to Wikipedia this
week?
Persistence Rosetta Stone
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Students as researchers• More Challenging at
a distance• Need for
Synchronous, project management tools
Research Paradigms Quantitative ~ discovery of the laws that
govern behavior
Qualitative ~ understandings from an insider
perspective
Critical ~ Investigate and expose the power
relationships
Pragmatic~ interventions, interactions and their
effect in multiple contexts (design-based, action
research
Students Thesis reviews
Aghaee, N., & Hansson, H. (2013). Peer Portal: Quality enhancement in thesis writing using self-managed peer review on a mass scale. 2013, 14(1). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1394/2436.
“The underlying philosophy with this peer review approach is that students should manage their involvement without supervisors’ intervention firstly because supervisors might change the nature of dialogues (create a power asymmetry) and secondly because the Peer Portal is meant to reduce the work load for supervisors, not create another task to take care of.”
AGHAEE, N., HANSSON, H. 2013Peer Portal: Quality enhancement in thesis writing using self-managed peer review on a mass scale. IRRODL 14(1),
Moocs
•Massive: - Scalable, How big is Massive?
•Open – Free as in tuition for students, not as in editing, reproduction, remixing
•Online – may support F2F MeetUps
•Course – Bounded by topic and time frame, paced or continuous
Duke University/ CoursEra 2012Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach
Promoted to millions through Coursera
12,000 Registered, Paced
4,000 no shows first week
313 (4%) from 37 countries completed
Clow, D. (2013). MOOCs and the funnel of participation.
• “The students who drop out early do not add substantially to the cost of delivering the course. The most expensive students are the ones who stick around long enough to take the final, and those are the ones most likely to pay for a certificate”. Daphne Koller, Founder Coursera
The Interaction Equivalency Theorem by Anderson (2003)
• Thesis 1. Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student–teacher; student–student; student–content) is at a high level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even eliminated, without degrading the educational experience.
• Thesis 2. High levels of more than one of these three modes will likely provide a more satisfying educational experience, although these experiences may not be as cost- or time effective as less interactive learning sequences.
See http://equivalencytheorem.info/
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IS UNISA READY TO EXPLOIT THESE OPPORTUNITIES??
http://www.amazon.com/Quality-Software-Management-Anticipating-Change/
• Slides on SlideShare:• http://tinyurl.com/bzfdtlg
• https://landing.athabascau.ca
• [email protected]• Terrya.edublogs.org