Best Practices in Online Learning

 

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AUTHORS

Diane M. Billings, EdD, RN, FAAN Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning & Information Resources Center for Teaching and Lifelong Learning Indiana University School of Nursing 1111 Middle Drive Indianapolis, IN 46202

Helen R. Connors, PhD, RN, FAAN Associate Dean/Academic Affairs University of Kansas School of Nursing 3901 Rainbow Blvd. Kansas City, KS 66160-7502

INTRODUCTION

An increasing number of nurse educators are using web-based or web-enhanced courses to provide access, flexibility and convenience for their students and to reach new markets of adult learners. As this online learning marketplace expands, it is imperative that educators are encouraged to use best practices in education as they develop and offer courses. These best practices must be supported by outcome data related to the success of the new technologies and the impact on teaching and learning practices. With these technological advancements and changes in educational strategies it becomes important to discover the evidence for the best practices that promote excellence in web-based teaching and learning. In this chapter of the Living Book you will:

• Learn about the best practices in teaching and learning in nursing courses offered on the web,
• Use a model for identifying the best practices,
• Use a procedure for benchmarking the best practices,
• Identify examples of best practices, and
• Distinguish methods for gathering the evidence for best practices.

Best practices are documented strategies or tactics employed by highly successful organizations. These organizations may not be “best-in-class” in every area, but due to their drive for quality and excellence, their practices have been implemented, studied and perfected to make them most admired by others. These strategies, or tactics, are supported by research or evidence to illustrate their achievement.

Best practices in education are strategies used to produce good teaching and learning outcomes, including customer satisfaction. A review of the literature indicates that although there exists a great deal of anecdotal data to support the need for change in education, there are few synthesis studies or integrated research reviews to sustain the transformation of this research knowledge into educational practices.

The most widely-used best practices in post-secondary education are those defined by Chickering and Gamson (1987) and later applied to technology-based education by Chickering and Ehrmann (1996). Synthesized educational research studies reported in the literature provided the foundation for determining these educational practices. Drawing from a wide body of research studies, Chickering and Ehrmann found that when certain educational practices were implemented, learning outcomes improved.

www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

The table below displays the seven best practices for education and gives a brief definition of each.

Teaching and learning in web courses involves a dynamic relationship among the use of appropriate educational practices, web technology, and tools, and the development and support of learners and educators for teaching and learning in new ways. Course and program outcomes depend on the effective interrelationship of all of these components. A diagram of this model is shown below.

Click on the image to view full size

The following practices have been noted in the literature to contribute to positive outcomes for learners.

Practices Related to the Use of Technology

Teaching on the web requires a significant investment in infrastructure in order to be successful and promote productive use of teaching and learning time. A faulty infrastructure will result in dissatisfaction on the part of the learner and educator no matter how good the learning practices are. The learner needs to know the technology (hardware, software, and connectivity) standards as well as the course design and navigation. Knowing these things upfront can increase the success of the course or program. The table below demonstrates examples of evidence to support technology practices. In addition, the web sites provide some examples for giving learners adequate infrastructure information about web-based courses.

www2.kumc.edu/instruction/edtech/orient/vrorientation.htm

www.nursing.iupui.edu/online

ACTIVITY

Use the guidelines and examples above to assess your technology infrastructure to support your course or program.

Note: This table may be found in your word document.

Practices Related to Effective Use of Good Practices in Education

The application of the Seven Principles of Good Practices in Education as set forth by Chickering and Ehrman (1996) appears in an online article (see web site below) and is summarized in the following table. These provide the theoretical background and evidence to support positive outcomes in online learning communities.

www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

Exemplars from online courses that support best practices are provided for your review and critique at the web site below:

http://classes.kumc.edu/general/wbmodule/best_practices.htm

ACTIVITY

Examine your course(s) and determine examples of learning activities that fit with best practices.

Note: This table may be found in your word document.

Practices Related to Learner and Educator Development, Support, and Rewards

Faculty development and support for teaching on the web are crucial to the success of the course or program. Assessing faculty needs and assisting faculty to develop a plan of action to acquire this new skill set enhances the outcomes for web-based teaching and learning. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. There are a number of good sites already developed. Faculty also benefit from support that can be provided by an instructional support team. These team members may include a faculty member, an instructional designer, librarian, web programmer, and web server technician. Working together, educators can share their understanding of online teaching and instructional technology, implement standards and best practices, and collaborate in the development of technology-based teaching materials. The following widely used web site provides an example of an online faculty development program:

http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/facdev101/index.html

Other sites designed to support faculty as they incorporate web technologies in the classroom include these:

http://ils.unc.edu/disted/cmi/final2.html

http://www.mdfaconline.org/curriculum/curriculum.html

http://www.aaup.org/statements/Redbook/StDistEd.HTM

ACTIVITY

Do a search of the web for faculty development resources and find a site that best suits your needs. Add it to your list of bookmarks or favorites for later reference.

Incentives and rewards also should be considered as a strategy for helping faculty members integrate technology into their teaching. An institutional culture that fosters instructional technology innovations sets the stage for positive outcomes. You might consider the following principle as you assess the importance of incentives and rewards.

ACTIVITY

Using the guiding principle listed above, describe the incentives and rewards that best meet your needs or the needs of your institution.

Note: This table may be found in your word document.

Learners also need to have a clear understanding as to their role and responsibilities in a web-based course. For the most part today’s young learners have a great deal of sophistication when it comes to computers and the internet; however, you may find that there is wide variation in abilities among the adult learner population, which crosses many generations. It is a known fact that most students take internet courses because they like the accessibility, flexibility and convenience of these offerings, but do they know what will be expected of them in this learning environment? Many of the institutions that have been doing web-based education for some time have developed online assessment and orientation materials to support students in this new learning environment.

The following web sites provide examples of what online students need to know in order to be successful:

http://www.webct.com/oriented/ViewContent?contentID=876625&communityID=866&categoryID=-1&sIndex=0

http://ts.mivu.org/?show=article&id=901

http://classes.kumc.edu/general/wbmodule/

The table below provides an outline of student and faculty development required to enhance best practice outcomes.

Outcomes

When the technology infrastructure, educational practices, and learner and educator development are in place, the following outcomes can be achieved. Now it is up to you to determine which outcomes you want to measure and which technology and educational practices will help you meet your desired outcomes. Keep in mind that the learner and faculty development/support can enhance or hinder the outcomes.

ACTIVITY

Now it’s your turn. Identify the source of data for each of the seven items of evidence and your school’s plan that supports these practices.

Note: This table may be found in your word document.

BENCHMARKING FOR BEST PRACTICES

Best Practice Benchmarking is the process of seeking out and studying the best practices of others that produce exceptional performance. Understanding how these best practices produce high quality results helps institutions assess strengths and weaknesses to gain insight into quality improvement. Benchmarking for best practices can yield great benefits in realizing performance improvements and help identify areas of gaps and opportunities. Studying best practices through benchmarking has been widely used in the business and health care service sectors as part of the Total Quality Management Movement, but only recently has it become popular in the educational arena. Benchmarking lets you know where your course or program stands in relation to similar courses/programs. It sets direction by giving you a goal to maintain or reach.

Types of Benchmarking

Benchmarking can take several forms, which often adds to the confusion about the process. Camp (1989) delineated the first basic taxonomy of best practice benchmarking. The four basic types proposed by Camp are: internal, competitive, functional, and generic. Each of the types focuses on identifying, observing, measuring and learning from best practices.

Determining Best Practice outcomes allows faculty and institutions to identify improvement opportunities and make evidenced based changes to address identified gaps in performance. Faculty, instructional designers, administrators and other stakeholders can use these outcome data to make informed decisions and changes in educational practices.

ACTIVITY

Match the following types of benchmarking with their definitions.

Evaluation of Use of Best Practices in Web-Based Courses

How can educators and other stakeholders determine to what extent and how effectively they are using the best practices in teaching and learning in web-based courses? There are several ways to gather this information, and from a variety of viewpoints. One approach is to solicit a peer review of the course and your teaching. Another approach is to collect formative and summative data from the students. National groups also have established guidelines and benchmarks for assessing web-course practices, and you can consider these standards and services as a way to assess your own work. Finally, accreditation agencies are interested in the evidence for best practices in online learning and many have established standards and guidelines for review.

Peer review:
As you develop and teach your web course, you may find it helpful to have your course reviewed by colleagues. This process is known as peer review. Colleagues with expertise and experience in web-based course development and teaching provide formative and/or summative feedback that will help you improve your course and your teaching. Peer review also is used to make personnel decisions such as employment, promotion, tenure or merit raises. Because so many nursing faculty are now developing web courses, there will be increasing interest in peer review. In order to assure accountability, you may want to consider establishing a peer review process at your own institution if you do not currently have one in place.

Here are some links to information about peer review; other resources are available in the reference section of this chapter.

http://www.cstudies.ubc.ca/facdev/services/guidelines.html

http://www.unl.edu/peerrev/

ACTIVITY

What is the peer review process at your institution? Locate the process and procedures. Are there provisions for peer review of web courses? What would be involved for you to obtain peer review of YOUR course?

Note: These questions may be found in your word document

Student review:
As educators, you are accustomed to soliciting information from students about your course and your teaching. You will want to continue to do this in your web course. However, you will need to adapt or even change the instruments you are currently using in the classroom for use on the Web.

Students’ input to understanding how well best practices are being used in your course is critical, and should be requested frequently. We suggest doing this during the first week of the course and after each module if this is the first time the course has been offered in a web format. If the course has been offered before, ask for feedback at midterm, and then at the end of the course.

At the beginning of the course. You may consider asking the students for feedback at the point the course begins. Here are some issues on which to focus at this point in the course:

• Can the students log into the course?
• Can they use the learning management software?
• Did the course orientation help prepare them for participation in your course?
• Do they understand what is expected?

During the course. You can gather information about how students perceive the use of the best practices throughout the course. You can gather data informally or formally, and you can use the information students provide you to make immediate adjustments to the course design or the teaching and learning strategies. Here are some things to understand as the course unfolds.

• Are course directions clear?
• Do students understand how to do assignments?
• Are students actively involved?
• Are students interacting with each other and you?
• Are there questions about content that can be explained more fully when the course is revised?
• Are learning resources accessible and obtained in a timely fashion?
• Are they spending too much or too little time on the course, and why?

At the end of the course. At the end of the course you will use course and teacher evaluations according to the procedures at your institution. Generally these instruments gather the following information:

• Was the course effectively designed?
• Did the course assignments contribute to learning?
• Was the faculty available to answer questions?
• Did the faculty have sufficient expertise to teach the course?
• Did the course utilize principles of best practices?

ACTIVITY

Locate the surveys or questionnaires used to gather information from your students about the course and teaching effectiveness. Are they appropriate for use in web courses? Are they providing YOU with helpful information for course improvement during and after the course? What suggestions (if any) would you make for re-designing your course evaluation?

Note: These questions may be found in your word document

National benchmarking

Several national groups are leading efforts to develop and implement common frameworks that guide assessment of quality, cost and outcomes of web enabled courses and programs (Billings, 2000). For example, the award- winning Flashlight program helps educators and institutions use assessment to guide their uses of technology and control costs.

http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/flashlight.html

One of Flashlight's benchmarking programs is "Evaluating Educational Uses of the Web In Nursing" (EEUWIN, pronounced 'you-win'). This program was created with the leadership and participation of Indiana University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Colorado. Templates to study web-based distance learning in nursing have been developed by the EEUWIN project team. These templates can easily be adapted for studying the influence of technology use on quality in web-based distance learning programs in other fields. To find out how you can participate in this benchmarking program send e-mail to Flashlight@tltgroup.org or visit the web site by clicking below:

http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/ftools.html

Accreditation

With the rapidly growing use of web-based courses in higher education, the national accrediting agencies in higher education and in nursing education are involved in assuring the public that the best practices in web-based teaching and learning are followed.

What accrediting agencies are involved in accrediting your program or your institution? Below are some links to various organizations and accrediting agencies that are involved in assuring standards for web courses.

http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/criteria/online.asp

http://www.ncahigherlearningcommission.org/
resources/electronic_degrees/index.html

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Publications/positions/whitepaper.htm

ACTIVITY

Select an agency and compare your course and program activities to the standards.

Note: This table may be found in your word document.

With the widespread enthusiasm and explosion of technology-based distance learning both supporters and critics of higher education are asking tough questions about the impact of this techno-pedagogy on learning. Designing, developing and implementing web-based courses within the best practices framework provides a mechanism for faculty and administrators to become more accountable for teaching and learning outcomes and to address these tough questions. Benchmarking against these best practices allows institutions to identify gaps in performance and strengthen its processes to achieve a quality educational program. Continuing efforts need to be made to provide evidenced based research to support best practices. All of us need to be a part of defining those practices. This chapter should give you the tools to participate in developing and enhancing “best practice in online learning.”

The references are located on a separate page.

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