Online Graduate Course Research Articles

Building virtual teams: experiential learning using emerging technologies

Currently, virtual teams are being used exponentially in higher education and business because of the development of technologies and globalization. These teams have become an essential approach for collaborative learning as well as task completion. Team learning, especially in an online format, can be challenging due to lack of effective training, communication and assessment measures. This article will introduce strategies, including adding a module on team processes, using Google applications for communication, and evaluating collaborative learning processes in addition to the products. These strategies were found instrumental in cultivating virtual teams through this case study of an online graduate course, and they can be valuable to online learning instructional designers or instructors who are interested in applying virtual teams in experiential instructional process.

Emergência de ambiente propício à aprendizagem da relação entre projeto pedagógico e ambiente virtual em cursos a distância: uma abordagem complexa

This paper analyzes an online graduate course for teachers of English. The study is geared towards the theory of complexity. It focuses more on the relationships between various elements and the inter-agents in this process, and less on the results. In as far as the pedagogical design of this contextualized course, one of the challenges that were identified in the studies involved seeking a better understanding of the factors that facilitated the creation of an environment that was conducive to the learning of the course components. For this study, we adopted as a guiding principle some notions from chaos theory/complexity, which form the epistemological basis of the analyses and the discussions of this research. In addition, we researched the properties of complex systems such as emergence, attraction principles, self-organization, adaptability and sensitivity to initial conditions, as well as external factors that occurred during a complex system. To this end, the analysis focused on the relationship between the pedagogical aspects of the course (the project), and its instructional design, aswell as online interactions and other factors and elements that could positively or negatively influence the creation of a favorable learning environment. The relationship between the educational project and the virtual environment led to other social dimensions such as reciprocity, collaboration (or lack thereof), learning strategies and learning environment. We conclude that the increased understanding of the characteristics, the functioning and the implementation of standards in distance education courses for teachers aids discussions about collaborative virtual environment practices in this field.

Despite Faculty Skepticism: Lessons from a Graduate-Level Seminar in a Hybrid Course Environment

Despite the fact that online education continues to grow, the vast majority of faculty remain skeptical that online courses can yield the same student learning outcomes as traditional face-to-face courses. In an effort to determine if online graduate courses can be effective, in this study we explore the extent to which qualities commonly found in graduate-level seminars can be replicated in hybrid graduate-level courses. A course for students in a higher education graduate program titled “The American Community College” serves as the study case. The course was developed as a hybrid with synchronous, asynchronous, and in-person elements intended to foster highly interactive exchanges of information, deep analysis of subject matter, and advanced means of communicating one's ideas; all elements of a successful graduate-level course. Web technologies including wikis, blogs, and podcasting provided creative and varied pedagogical tools, which could be fully realized only when students were immersed in the online learning environment. Data collected from students across two semesters and assessment of learning outcomes indicate the value and success of the approach and several advantages to in-person courses, generating a set of implications.

Push-and-pull lean strategy evaluation for online graduate courses

Purpose – This study aims to investigate if new ways of delivering higher education can contribute to economic revitalization by enhancing the economic competitiveness of the workforce. Design/methodology/approach – Case study/conceptual paper. Findings – This study establishes suggested criteria by which push and pull elements can be utilized to streamline the much needed pedagogical process for mid-career professionals taking asynchronous online graduate classes. Research limitations/implications – This study had very small sample and focused on further education of mid-career professionals. Originality/value – The current economic crisis requires new approaches to efficiently improving human capital, and this study proposes one successful approach.

The Development of a Discussion Rubric for Online Courses: Standardizing Expectations of Graduate Students in Online Scholarly Discussions

This paper reports on the design and evaluation of a rubric for assessing discussions in online graduate level education courses. The aims of the research were twofold. The first goal was to develop a discussion rubric that provides guidance to graduate students participating in online courses that are heavily discussion based. The second goal was to evaluate the efficacy of the rubric in student comfort with the expectations for the course and the quality of the discussions. Qualitative and quantitative course evaluations from four sections of an online graduate course are utilized to report on the effectiveness of the rubric upon implementation. Student average grades also show a statistically significant increase with the implementation of the rubric.

Processo de institucionalização do curso de administração pública a distância em uma Universidade Federal

Este trabalho objetivou analisar o processo de institucionalização do curso de graduação em administração pública a distância da Universidade Federal de Lavras e, especificamente, analisar as fases do processo de institucionalização e identificar evidências de isomorfismo e legitimação. Para tanto, o estudo baseia-se na teoria de Tolbert e Zucker (1998) que subdivide o processo de institucionalização em três distintas fases: habitualização, objetificação e sedimentação. Para a coleta de dados, realizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas com os coordenadores do curso, do Centro de Educação a Distância e do departamento de Administração e Economia, totalizando 11 entrevistas. Essas foram gravadas e transcritas. Após a transcrição, realizou-se análise de conteúdo temática com o apoio do software livre Weft QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis). De uma forma geral, pode-se perceber que está ocorrendo o processo de institucionalização do curso de administração pública a distância, apresentando um estágio moderado de habitualização e objetificação, e um estágio de baixa sedimentação. Nesse processo, evidenciaram-se o isomorfismo coercitivo e a legitimidade regulativa.

Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses

 Abstract—As digital learning continues to spread and gain in popularity and acceptance, it is essential for both the providers and the users to understand the factors that impact student satisfaction and performance in online courses.In this study student evaluation parameters from 93 online graduate courses with total of 4920 student enrolments were analyzed for their interdependences as well as their correlation with student performance measured through final grade distributions. The results show that student course satisfaction is strongly correlated with students' instructor satisfaction, while the students' course satisfaction is moderately correlated with student satisfaction with facilitators. There is a positive correlation between students' final grade distribution and their overall satisfaction with the course as well as between the students' final grade distribution and the satisfaction with the instructor. On the other hand, the correlation of the students' satisfaction with the facilitators did not have statistically significant correlation with the final grade distribution. The results point to the critical importance of the instructor of record in online courses and to the significant impact of the students' satisfaction with instructor's performance. Moreover, the same factors have statistically significant impact on the performance of students in the class, together with the student perception of the overall academic quality of the course. At the same time, the data show that facilitators have a significantly lower impact than the instructors to the students' overall educational experience in online courses.

Exploring Badging for Peer Review, Extended Learning and Evaluation, and Reflective/Critical Feedback within an Online Graduate Course

The use of digital badges for peer-credentialing web-shared work offers the promise of extending classroom learning beyond explicit course objectives and evaluations. This pilot study of peer-awarded badges examines the results of an online graduate course where students voted on and evaluated the web-shared work of their colleagues on different criteria than used by the instructor, encouraging critical review of colleagues, extending student learning in lateral ways, and suggesting activities for later course work. Although voting was anonymous, student evaluation results were quite consistent across the class and students appeared to have extended their perspective on course content areas (emerging technologies in this case) through the process of peer review. Students expressed warm, cordial communications within the course that may have been enhanced by learning about the personal and professional interests of colleagues through this peer-review process.

Mobile app design for teaching and learning: Educators’ experiences in an online graduate course

<p>This research explored how educators with limited programming experiences learned to design mobile apps through peer support and instructor guidance. Educators were positive about the sense of community in this online course. They also considered App Inventor a great web-based visual programming tool for developing useful and fully functioning mobile apps. They had great sense of empowerment through developing unique apps by using App Inventor. They felt their own design work and creative problem solving were inspired by the customized mobile apps shared by peers. The learning activities, including sharing customized apps, providing peer feedback, composing design proposals, and keeping design journals (blogging), complemented each other to support a positive sense of community and form a strong virtual community of learning mobile app design. This study helped reveal the educational value of mobile app design activities and the web-based visual programming tool, and the possibility of teaching/learning mobile app design online. The findings can also encourage educators to explore and experiment on the potential of incorporating these design learning activities in their respective settings, and to develop mobile apps for their diverse needs in teaching and learning.</p>

Collaborative learning using VoiceThread in an online graduate course

Collaborative learning enables participants in a learning community to externalize and share knowledge, experiences, and practice. However, collaborative learning in an online environment can be challenging due to the lack of face-to face interaction. This current study examined twenty graduate students’ experiences of using VoiceThread for a collaborative activity in an entirely online course to explore students’ perceptions of using multi-modal communication for collaboration and knowledge sharing. The results of this study revealed that graduate students had very positive experiences toward using VoiceThread for collaborative learning. The participants found VoiceThread easy to learn and use, and reported that audio and video interaction on VoiceThread helped connect them with their peers. More than half of the participants interacted with peers using audio, followed by text and then by video. Half of the students felt they were more connected to peers; however, feeling more connected did not result in more participation as most of the students only participated at the level that met the course requirement. Participants identified benefits and drawbacks of using VoiceThread for collaboration as compared to using text-based discussion forums. The most frequently mentioned benefit of using VoiceThread for collaboration exemplifies its multi-modal affordance that enables learners to communicate emotion, personality, and other non-verbal cues conducive to better understanding and interpretation of meanings. About half of the participants indicated that they preferred VoiceThread to text-based discussion forums for collaborative learning activity. Challenges and implications for future research are also discussed.

“Professional feeling”: One early childhood educator’s emotional discomfort as a teacher and learner

Using feminist and poststructuralist accounts of teacher emotion, the analysis presented in this article examines one teacher’s emotion as she participated in a 6-month ethnographic study of emotion in her preschool classroom while enrolled in an online graduate course focused on the sociology of childhood and socially just curriculum. Analysis followed the ethnographic procedures of Spradley’s Developmental Research Sequence to determine themes and patterns within field notes, audio and video data, interview transcripts, and online course documents. The findings showed that emotional discomfort was a central theme as the teacher considered the children’s play in relation to the knowledge acquired in the graduate online course and vice versa. More specifically, the findings revealed the teacher’s discomfort and the resulting struggle and ambivalence she encountered as new information about children’s social worlds disrupted her prior beliefs, values, and feelings. This study uncovers how emotional discomfort can provide productive grounds for reflection, disequilibrium, and dialogue about early childhood classroom practices.

When Service-Learning Is Not a “Border-crossing” Experience: Outcomes of a Graduate Spanish Online Course

Research on Spanish service-learning has focused mainly on the outcomes of service-learning for undergraduate students learning Spanish as a second language. This article examines the role of service-learning in a graduate online course for practicing Spanish teachers and the outcomes of the service-learning experience for three participants who identified themselves as members of the Spanish-speaking community. The results of the study illustrate the need to design service-learning courses that take into account the backgrounds and specific learning outcomes of these students.

Transcending Boundaries: An Aboriginal Woman’s Perspective on the Development of Meaningful Educational Opportunities and Online Learning

This paper serves as a personal reflection documenting my own perspectives on meaningful educational experiences for Aboriginal learners, by drawing on my educational journey as a graduate student. It begins by sharing a reflection of my first experience within an online graduate course that included a substantial amount of content exploring Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations in Canada. This reflection documents how the online course has shaped my own development as an Aboriginal scholar, and positions the online learning environment as a culturally safe space for engaging in controversial topics. This discussion involves looking at education within a historical context, reflecting on the present struggles involved in securing culturally safe spaces for Aboriginal students, and looking towards a vision for the future that promotes cross-cultural dialogue for the benefit of all learners. By drawing on my online course, this paper opens some conversation on meaningful educational experiences for Aboriginal learners.

Successful use of case studies in an online physiology course

As institutions respond to the need for greater flexibility in access to higher education, there has been increasing emphasis in offering distance education courses. To address this need, an online graduate course in physiology using case studies was offered at WCU. Topics in both animal and human physiology were organized as modules that contained a case study with questions, a pre‐recorded online lecture, and 3 research journal articles. We followed best practices for teaching and learning in distance education including preparation of materials before the course starting date, a discussion board for responding to pre‐ and post case discussion questions, and prompt reply to student queries. For exams, students generated their own questions based on unfamiliar cases and developed their own case study for the final project. Although only 20% of students had previously taken an online course, all students would recommend this course to others. Formative assessment indicated that students found cases interesting, informative, and presented at the appropriate level. Most students said that the online course took them more time; they learned more content and used the primary literature more than a traditional class. Our results indicate that a well‐organized physiology course using a case study format is a very effective model for online learning.

Teaching physiology online: successful use of case studies in a graduate course

To address the need for greater flexibility in access to higher education, an online graduate course in physiology using case studies was developed and offered in summer 2012. Topics in both animal and human physiology were organized as modules that contained a case study with questions, a prerecorded online lecture, and three research journal articles. We followed best practices for teaching and learning in distance education, including the preparation of materials before the course starting date, a discussion board for responding to pre- and postcase discussion questions, and prompt reply to student queries. For exams, students generated their own questions based on new cases and developed their own case study for the final project. Although only 20% of students had previously taken an online course, all students stated that they would recommend this course to others. Postcase assessment indicated that students found the cases interesting, informative, and presented at the appropriate level. Most students said that the online course took them more time but that they learned more content and used the primary literature more than in a traditional class. Our results indicate that a well-organized physiology course using a case study format is a very effective model for online learning.

Prediction of student course selection in online higher education institutes using neural network

Students are required to choose courses they are interested in for the coming semester. Due to restrictions, including lack of sufficient resources and overheads of running several courses, some universities might not offer all of a student's desirable courses. Universities must know every student's demands for every course prior to each semester for optimal course scheduling. This research examines the problems associated with course selection in the context of e-learning. This study is focused on identifying the potential factors that affect student satisfaction concerning the online courses they select, modeling student course selection behavior and fitting a function to the training data using neural network approach, and applying the obtained function to predict the final number registrations in every course after the drop and add period. The experimental sample came from 714 online graduate courses in 16 academic terms from 2005 to 2012. Findings disclosed high prediction accuracy based on the experimental data and exhibited that the proposed model outperforms three well-known machine learning techniques and two previous, naive approaches significantly. This contribution finally ends with an analysis and interpretation of results, and presentation of some suggestions and recommendations for enthusiastic educational institutes regarding how to choose the best strategy and configuration to expand and also adapt the introduced system to their specific needs.

Web 2.0 and Information Literacy Instruction: Aligning Technology with ACRL Standards

The purpose of this article is to report on how Web 2.0 tools in an online information literacy instruction course aligned with ACRL's Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. A qualitative case study was undertaken on an online graduate course related to information literacy instruction. Data collected included: course activities, assignments, emails, online discussions, and surveys. The educational theory of constructivism and its adherence to reflection, active learning, and social interaction was used to find patterns in the data. Activity theory provided a framework for data analysis and interpretation related to the patterns of activities that took place while students used each Web 2.0 tool. Web 2.0 was found to enhance all five information literacy standards. These standards related to collaboration, information organization, creativity, discussion, and technology education.

A Decision Support System for Course Offering in Online Higher Education Institutes

Abstract Prior to every academic semester, every department's administrator is required to offer the best overall set of courses to meet student requirements, instructor needs and department regulations. The key contributions of this research is firstly, determining the potential factors that influence student behavior on the online courses they choose, secondly, modeling the course offering problem and fitting a function to a training set of data using neural network approach, thirdly, design and implementation of a decision support system to help the department's administrator to simulate student behavior in course selection process and support his/her decisions on the courses to be offered, and lastly, employing the proposed decision support system to perform what-if analysis and goal seeking behavior. The samples of the experiments came from 298 online graduate courses in 14 academic terms from 2005 to 2011. The results revealed high prediction accuracy on the experimental data. The performance of the...

Mobile microblogging: Using Twitter and mobile devices in an online course to promote learning in authentic contexts

This research applied a mixed-method design to explore how best to promote learning in authentic contexts in an online graduate course in instructional message design. The students used Twitter apps on their mobile devices to collect, share, and comment on authentic design examples found in their daily lives. The data sources included tweets (i.e., postings on Twitter), students’ perceptions about mobile microblogging activities, and self-reported Twitter usage. Based on the tweet analysis, we found that the students appropriately applied the design principles and design terms in their critique of design examples. While the students were mainly engaged in assignment-relevant activities, they spontaneously generated social tweets as they related peers’ authentic design examples to their own life experiences. Overall, they had positive perceptions toward the mobile microblogging activities. The students also indicated that the design examples shared by peers through mobile microblogging inspired their own message design work. We synthesized instructional design suggestions and challenges for educators interested in incorporating mobile microblogging in their instructional settings.<p style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px;"> </p><p> </p>

Sense of community in graduate online education: Contribution of learner to learner interaction

<p>Distance learning technologies offer a multitude of ways to build interaction into online courses to support learning. Based on social constructivism theory, this study explored which types of interaction are most predictive of students’ sense of community in online graduate courses at a regional comprehensive university. Surveys were used to measure sense of community and the frequency and importance of nine learner–learner interactions.</p><p>Interactions that were most predictive of sense of community were introductions, collaborative group projects, sharing personal experiences, entire class discussions, and exchanging resources. The interaction that offered the highest payoff to instructors was exchanging resources. The article discusses implications for online course design.</p>