Quality in online teaching

Quality in online teaching: Tools and strategies to enhance quality in virtual learning environments Morten Flate Paulsen A 45-minutes presentation at Nordic Knowledge on the Web Vasa, 24.11 .2011 http://twitter.com/MFPaulsen http://nettstudier.blogspot.com http://home.nki.no/morten www.slideshare.net/MortenFP www.facebook.com/mfpaulsen www.eden-online.org/blog/

About me
Worked with development of online education at NKI Nettstudier since 1986
Professor of Online Education
President of EDEN
Doctor of Education from the Pennsylvania State University, working for the American Center for the Study of Distance Education
Has been Adjunct Professor, at the Athabasca University in Canada and professor associado at Universidade Aberta in Portugal

20th anniversary in 2011, 8 in secretariat, 11 in EC
EDEN members from 400 institutions in 56 countries:
20th anniversary
200 institutional members
2000 potential members of NAP – Network of Academics and Professionals
Conferences
Research Workshop, Budapest October 2010
Annual conference, Dublin June 2011
Open Classroom conference Athens October 2011
Annual conference Porto 2012
EU-projects with 168 institutions
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-learning www.eurodl.org
www.eden-online.org

Members in Finland
HCI Productions OY
TKK Dipoli
University of Helsinki
University of Turku
www.eden-online.org/2012_porto.html

NKI Nettstudier was established as a correspondence school in 1910
One of Europe’s largest providers of online distance education
About 150 000 enrolments in online courses since 1987
Broad range of subjects from secondary to master level
About 400 distance education courses online (all in Norwegian)
About 12 000 online students in about 40 countries
About 70 % women
Individual progress plans/individual follow-up
Thousands of potential learning partners
Global student catalogue with 1200 profiles
Always room for more students
Exams at local schools and embassies
November 2011 www.nki.no

College, vocational- and secondary school Picture from: http://youtu.be/NXBNVauG9bE

400 online courses Picture from: http://youtu.be/NXBNVauG9bE

http://issuu.com/mfpaulsen Cooperative Freedom is discussed in these books that are fully available on the internet

Resources on cooperative freedom
Cooperative online education www.youtube.com/user/nki2008#p/a/u/2/HVXtbLg5ycE
Kooperativ frihet som ledestjerne i nettbasert utdanning www.nettskolen.com/forskning/kooperativ_frihet/
E-viva em Portugal http://nettstudier.blogspot.com/
Transparency in Cooperative Online Education www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267
Cooperative Online Education http://seminar.net/index.php/volume-4-issue-2-2008-previousissuesmeny-124/100-cooperative-online-education
Cooperative Freedom and Transparency in Online Education www.slideshare.net/MortenFP/futuralia-3400339
Visualizing student profiles www.slideshare.net/MortenFP/visualizing-student-profiles-through-nkis-online-catalogue-and-student-network
Transparency for Cooperation http://toonlet.com/archive?m=s&i=11245

Six Dimensions of Freedom It is difficult to combine individual flexibility and cooperation http://ppel4.pbworks.com/

One may say that:
Individual learning is conducted alone
Collaborative learning depends on groups Cooperative learning takes place in networks

NKI provides cooperative online education Independence with the help of others

The most interesting pedagogical challenge in our lifetime is to provide online education that combines individual freedom with meaningful cooperation.
I have struggled with this challenge since I first introduced my Theory of Cooperative Freedom in 1992.
www.ednews.org/articles/10626/1/An-Interview-with-Morten-Flate-Paulsen-Focusing-on-His-Theory-of-Cooperative-Freedom-in-Online-Education/Page1.html

Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning seeks to develop virtual learning environments that allow students to have optimal individual freedom within online learning communities.
Cooperative learning is based on voluntary participation in a learning community
Cooperative learning benefits from transparency
NKI’s Philosophy: We facilitate individual freedom within a learning community in which online students serve as mutual resources without being dependent on each other.

NKI offers flexible start and progression plans
Unique tool for individual planning and progress support
Individual deadlines

Example of individual progress plan

Tools and strategies to enhance quality in a virtual learning environment with:
12.500 students
400 courses
150 part-time teachers
60 full-time employees
should be systematic, continuous and cost-effective
www.nki.no

Strategies and tools to enhance quality
Large scale online education needs systematic, continuous and cost-effective quality measures
Transparency improves quality
Teacher Support Services
Quality Barometers

Transparency or privacy ?

Transparency improves quality … of system data, course content, course work etc….

Audio Journalism: Berghs School of Communication (Sweden) Video Journalism: UPDATE – Danish School of Media and Journalism Text Journalism: NKI Distance Education (Norway)

Transparency promotes cooperation Dalsgaard, C. and Paulsen, M.F. (2009) Transparency in Cooperative Online Education. IRRODL, Vol 10, No 3.

The ideas are adopted by the EU-project e-teacher 2.0 | E-teacher 2.0 | www.e-teacher-2.eu |

Three degrees of transparency
Low: Private e-mail
Medium: Class forum
High: Global web2.0 services
Transparency provides better quality and more cooperation, but both students and teachers should be comfortable with the chosen transparency level.

Transparent feedback to the right people Online Education Barometers should have individual readings cooperative readings, aims, , warning levels and transparent feedback loops Ideal for Individual Start and Progression

Barometer Questions
What to measure?
Which scale?
Transparent for whom?
Possible to show trends?
What about Evaluation Moment, Frequency and Fatigue?

Online teachers deserve decent support services http://nettstudier.blogspot.com/2011/08/online-teachers-deserve-decent-support.html 1992: Online course for online teachers 2004: Response Barometer 2010: Peer counseling and self-evaluation 2011: Quality Barometer for Teachers

Response Barometer for Teachers
Introduced in May 2004
Resulted in much discussion in the teachers’ online forum
A few teachers voiced strong criticism, doubts and reservations
The average response time for all 150 teachers in 2010 was 1.77 days . In 2008 NKI introduced an automatic e-mail reminder to the tutors who had one ore more assignments waiting for 7 days or more.

Quality Barometer for Teachers Percentages shown in the teacher’s individual barometer and the cooperative barometer for all 140 teachers, are updated continuously as additional evaluations are submitted. The impressive barometer readings show the percentages of Very satisfied and Satisfied evaluations. After a random anonymity delay, the student’s comments are shown in the Teacher Details Report .

The Teacher Evaluation Window

Barometer Reading after 4017 Evaluations Evaluation Number Percent Very Dissatisfied 15 0,4 Dissatisfied 26 0,6 Neutral 364 9,1 Satisfied 1565 39,0 Very Satisfied 2047 51,0

Peer Evaluation of Teachers In 2010, NKI introduced an online course structure for systematic peer evaluation among all the teachers. Random feedback the teachers have given on student submissions are sent to a colleague who evaluate it and give advice on possible improvements. Professor Torstein Rekkedal has conducted a survey among the first participants and concluded that they perceive it as motivating and informative. They also reported that they learned at least as much from giving feedback as they did from receiving feedback. They will therefore both give and receive feedback on each other's work in the future.

Teacher Self-evaluation
Last school year, the majority of the teachers also delivered self-evaluation of one of the feedbacks they gave on student assignments. The experiences were so positive that future self-evaluation will be included in an online course structure in which the teachers will use the online submission system to evaluate their personal presentations, activity in forums and feedback on student submissions.

Star teachers deserve Golden Apples along with other stars who are awarded with gold medals, Oscars and Grammies. Therefore, NKI has introduced a new, and hopefully sustainable, scheme for nominating and awarding online teachers of the year. Årets nettlærere

Thank you I care, so I share: http://nettstudier.blogspot.com http://home.nki.no/morten https://twitter.com/MFPaulsen www.slideshare.net/MortenFP www.facebook.com/mfpaulsen www.eden-online.org/blog

Quality in online teaching

by Morten Flate Paulsen on Dec 07, 2011

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Quality in online teaching — Presentation Transcript