Online Graduate Course Research Articles

Using a virtual flipped classroom model to promote critical thinking in online graduate courses in the United States: a case presentation.

Flipped classroom models encourage student autonomy and reverse the order of traditional classroom content such as lectures and assignments. Virtual learning environments are ideal for executing flipped classroom models to improve critical thinking skills. This paper provides health professions faculty with guidance on developing a virtual flipped classroom in online graduate nutrition courses between September 2021 and January 2022 at the School of Health Professions, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey. Examples of pre-class, live virtual face-to-face, and post-class activities are provided. Active learning, immediate feedback, and enhanced student engagement in a flipped classroom may result in a more thorough synthesis of information, resulting in increased critical thinking skills. This article describes how a flipped classroom model design in graduate online courses that incorporate virtual face-to-face class sessions in a virtual learning environment can be utilized to promote critical thinking skills. Health professions faculty who teach online can apply the examples discussed to their online courses.

Online Interdisciplinary STEM Education: A Case of Co-teaching for Social Justice

This paper presents the process two professors engaged in to develop a co-taught model for two online graduate courses taught concurrently as part of a justice-oriented STEM education curriculum. Students in the courses, who are k-12 teachers, contributed to the development of the courses across iterations through feedback and discussions with the professors. Our previous co-teaching experiences in face-to-face courses supported by literature on co-teaching in higher education online environments were instrumental in preparing for the initial semester and ongoing development of these two co-taught courses. Development of the courses also relied on extensive cogenerative dialogue that resulted in a merged calendar tool and revised discussion assignment strategies. Integration of content across STEM disciplines was enacted and modeled in both courses, in part through assignments that were connected across the two courses.

The community of learners in an asynchronous online learning environment: an illustrative case study in graduate courses

Online learning has been growing steadily as an essential instructional mode in most higher education settings. In response to its popularity, many studies have been conducted to provide a better understanding of how learning occurs in this environment. Various frameworks and theories have been adopted to examine learning in this environment. Drawing upon the community of learner model, the present study aimed to expand the understanding of online learning, moving more toward a situative, sociocultural approach to learning from an individualistic, self-regulated approach to learning. This study examined two graduate online courses as cases to illustrate how learning as a collective process of participation in activities work in an asynchronous online learning environment. The findings of this study could help expand and deepen the discourse on how everyone learn in online learning environments, providing a new approach to examining teaching and learning in online learning environments from a more situative, sociocultural perspective.

Using Text via Dialectical Journals to Nurture Liminal Spaces in Teacher Education

This article shares the findings of a study examining the use of dialectical journals as liminal spaces for the development of critical reflection in practicing teachers. In an online graduate course on critical teacher inquiry designed to foster teachers as antiracist multicultural educators, teachers engaged in dialogue with themselves as they responded to self-selected text segments in assigned readings throughout the course. Using Mezirow’s theory of transformation and specifically the typology of critical reflection of assumptions and critical self-reflection of assumptions, we analyzed the online dialectical journals of 23 teachers to better understand how their engagement with key texts both represented and influenced their reflective development and engagement in transformational learning. We conclude the journals to be powerful liminal spaces for teachers to engage in reframing of their assumptions.

Project-based Community of Inquiry for Effective Online Graduate Course on Life Cycle Assessment

This article aimed to present the improvements on the instructional design of a postgraduate course, namely Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), for effective content delivery in online teaching and learning due to COVID-19 pandemic. The community of inquiry framework was used as the basis for this improvement. It was aided by project-based learning to enhance the educational experiences and improve content delivery efficiency. Conventional active learning teaching pedagogy was maintained in the early part of the course. Next, an open-ended project became the pillar of the second part of the course for performing a comparative LCA in a team. To ensure all students have high individual accountability, each team member performed a LCA study independently for a sub-scope of the project. Meanwhile, their teammates supported each other as each sub-scope is interdependent on the project. WhatsApp was used to promote interactions between students-students and students-instructors to provide just-in-time feedback, and weekly consultations were offered to students to monitor student progress. Based on the course evaluation, the students felt optimistic about the changes. They agreed that these new delivery methods helped them in mastering the subject matter.

Navigating through Turbulent Times: U.S. Secondary Teachers Share Their Experiences as Online Learners and the Implications for Their Teaching Practice

This Participatory Action Research project was a collaborative endeavor designed to identify the challenges secondary in-service teachers face as learners in a virtual context and the implications their participation in graduate synchronous remote coursework had for them as middle and secondary classroom teachers teaching online. In this article we highlight the obstacles schools have been facing amid the coronavirus pandemic, present the fears consuming teachers, parents and students, describe the frustration with remote learning, summarize the pre- and post-coronavirus teacher stress, burnout, and attrition occurrences, outline preventative measures being taken to make schools safe and secure, and discuss how supporting teacher self-care, in turn promotes student wellbeing. We share lessons learned from identifying teacher stresses in the online virtual learning context and redesigning our graduate courses for our participants by modeling best practices for coping with technostress, incorporating technology tools, modifying pedagogical procedures and integrating various resources to enhance virtual instruction. Using thematic analysis we identified the following themes which impact the e-teaching-learning experience: a) juggling multiple demands in the home environment while learning online is distracting; (b) balancing work-life responsibilities is challenging; (c) teaching and learning in a virtual context is isolating; (d) dealing with technostress is overwhelming and (e) practicing self-care allows teachers to support student wellbeing. We summarize the findings from this project where the teachers reflect on their personal experiences while enrolled in online graduate courses and describe how the teachers’ experiences as learners, informed their teaching practice

Assessing Student Achievement of Learning Outcomes Through Academic Service-Learning: A Constructive Alignment Study

The purpose of this study was to determine if academic service-learning (AS-L) assessment activities are properly aligned with intended student learning outcomes (SLOs) and curriculum standards through the analysis of student post-reflections within one required online graduate course. Four coders analyzed post￾reflections from 77 students over a five-year period. The first goal was to determine the degree of alignment among assessment activities, SLOs, and curriculum standards. The second goal was to determine if students demonstrated differences in achievement when participating in online versus onsite AS-L projects. Results were mixed when determining the degree of alignment among assessments, SLOs, and curriculum standards. Students demonstrated comparable levels of achievement in learning outcomes when participating in both forms of AS-L. Implications of this study indicate that continuous self-assessment in aligning academic service-learning assessment activities to student learning outcomes and curriculum standards is necessary for successful demonstration of student achievement within today’s standards-based curriculum of higher education.

Applying Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction to Redesign an Online Graduate Course through the Rapid Prototyping Approach

Applying Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction to Redesign an Online Graduate Course through the Rapid Prototyping Approach

Effects of Video Lecture Design and Production Quality on Student Outcomes: A Quasi-Experiment Exploiting Change in Online Course Development Principles

In seeking competitive advantage, many online graduate programs have turned to improving the quality of video lectures by investing in instructional designers and in-studio production. However, it is unclear how much video lecture design and production quality improve student outcomes. We used a regression discontinuity to evaluate how video lecture design and production practices that adhere to principles of multimedia learning affect perceived learning and student satisfaction. The study involved 300 students taking an online graduate course at a large, public research university, where 194 students were exposed to video lectures designed and produced by the instructor and 106 students were exposed to video lectures designed in collaboration between the instructor and instructional designers and produced in studio. Our findings indicate that designing and producing video lectures in accordance with principles of multimedia learning has a meaningful causal effect on students’ perceived learning and a marginal effect on student satisfaction. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for video lecture development and design in the context of online business education and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Online Collaborative Learning: Analyzing the Process through Living the Experience

Online collaborative learning is a complex process as it requires thoughtful and pedagogical considerations regarding the design, implementation, and assessment. To understand online collaborative learning, it is critical to involve stakeholders’ perspectives of their lived experiences. A qualitative case study was selected to carry out the investigation. Two online graduate courses were purposefully involved in the study. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews and online observations of students and instructors. The collected data were analyzed using a constant comparative analysis method. The results revealed that multiple proactive supports (i.e., social, pedagogical, and technical support) play critical roles in fostering meaningful collaboration. Instructor presence is an essential factor that enables collaboration to occur as desired through setting the stage, modeling desired expectations, and guiding students to reach expected outcomes. Assessments also have an impact on students’ level of engagement; therefore, incorporating both formative and summative assessments for both the product and the process of collaboration is recommended. The findings of this study have implications for online collaboration scaffolding and implementation to support online instructors.

Designing Scholarly Conversations to Promote Cognitive Presence and Knowledge Building

In this exploratory study, a pedagogical intervention, called Scholarly Conversation, was designed and implemented with 26 students in an online graduate course at a public, comprehensive university in the United States. Applying the frameworks of community of inquiry and knowledge building, this paper explains the specific learning goals and design features of Scholarly Conversation. A coding scheme was developed from the conversation text data generated by a high-performing and a low-performing group of the class to describe how learners carried out Scholarly Conversations. Through group comparison, several elements were identified to explain the between-group differences on performance. Particularly, it was found that the two groups distributed their efforts differently during Scholarly Conversations. This study has implications for the design principles for the future Scholarly Conversations.

Enhancing E-Learning Through Integration of Online Formative Assessment and Teaching Presence

The proliferation of information communication technologies (ICT) continues to increase opportunities for effective pedagogical approaches and online learning. This paper reports a study on integration of online formative assessment from a teaching presence perspective of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. The effects of this integrative pedagogical approach on students' learning experiences are explored. The study was conducted in a post graduate online course. Case study research design was utilized. The study exemplified the core elements of formative assessment including integration of authentic assessment activities within teaching and learning processes, explicit learning goals, formative feedback, and documentation of evidence of learning. These elements were aligned to the functions of teaching presence, namely design, facilitation, and direct instruction. This approach enhanced meaningful engagement with critical learning experiences including interactive collaboration, critical thinking, reflective thinking, multi-dimensional perspectives, and self-regulation.

Professional Learning for Teachers of Nonacademic Disciplines Working in Underperforming Secondary Schools

This single intrinsic case study utilized complexity theory to explore a complicated narrative of in-service professional learning for teachers undergoing improvement plans in underperforming schools. This study is bounded within a master’s level online graduate course. We focused on the literacy learning of one student in the course, a U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps instructor who initially experienced difficulties implementing content area literacy approaches in his curriculum. These approaches were mandated by a nonprofit organization working with his school to improve test scores. The same organization also collaborated with and monitored the online graduate course to ensure that specific approaches were taught to teachers. Our goal was to use disciplinary literacy approaches to explore the unique literacy needs of subject area teachers. This study speaks to the gap between disciplinary and content area literacy approaches in in-service teacher education.

Design, Redesign, and Continuous Refinement of an Online Graduate Course: A Case Study for Implementing Universal Design for Learning

Design, Redesign, and Continuous Refinement of an Online Graduate Course: A Case Study for Implementing Universal Design for Learning

Closing the Transactional Distance in an Online Graduate Course through the Practice of Embedded Librarianship

Using the practice of embedded librarianship, a professor from the Graduate School of Education and the Education Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey collaborated to investigate its impact on the inherent transactional distance that exists in an online graduate course. Using Michael G. Moore’s three relational distances existing in the online environment—“teacher-student,” “student-student,” “student-course content”—the authors added two areas—”instructor-librarian” and “student-librarian”—that can close the transactional distance in online courses. Through course activities, structure, and access to the embedded librarian and specific library resources, students had increased opportunities for engagement, thereby reducing transactional distance.

Teaching Practice and Exploration of Chemical Engineering Graduate Online Courses under the Construction of “Emerging Engineering Education”

Teaching Practice and Exploration of Chemical Engineering Graduate Online Courses under the Construction of “Emerging Engineering Education”

Introduction

Introduction

Building Community in Asynchronous Online Higher Education Courses Through Collaborative Annotation

This design-based research study examines how a collaborative annotation tool, Perusall, supported the development of community within an asynchronous online graduate course. Students read and engaged with assigned texts uploaded to Perusall each week, providing numerous opportunities for students to interact and collaborate with each other using the tool’s various sharing and communication features. Both text interactions and peer-to-peer interactions on Perusall increased throughout the course, with peer-to-peer interactions increasing at a greater rate, indicative of community growth within the course. Collaborative annotation tools capture students’ thinking and processing in the moment, more closely mirroring the learning that one might see in a face-to-face class when students discuss content with their instructor and/or classmates. This study offers insights for teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders about new approaches for developing community in online educational contexts, especially considering the drastic shift to online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Multimodal pedagogy in TESOL teacher education: Students’ perspectives

Despite the increasing incorporation of multimodal practices into ESL/EFL classes, research on multimodal pedagogy in TESOL teacher education is still in its infancy. Empirical evidence also shows that ESL/EFL teachers lack skills to design and deliver multimodal practices. To bridge the research gap and innovate the TESOL curriculum, the author in this study implemented multimodal projects in two online graduate courses, and examined the students’ (pre-/in-service teachers’) perceptions on integration of multimodal projects. The analyses of semi-structured interviews and written narratives, supplemented with the multimodal products, revealed that the multimodal practices facilitated the students’ learning of content knowledge and their professional development. The perceived benefits included engaging and motivating content learning, retaining and deepening knowledge, fostering mutual learning in online community, enhancing digital learning, and fostering motivation to implement multimodal pedagogy. The students also conveyed challenges in topic selection, technology use, and time control, and provided suggestions on peer interaction, technology training, and task management. This study has significant implications for research and pedagogy in TESOL teacher education.

History, Research, and Theory to Practice: Scaffolding Framework for Graduate Online Courses

The expansion of modern technology has vastly changed and continues to change the way we learn, communicate, and connect with one another. Institutions of higher learning including Community Colleges and Universities, traditionally known for their face-to-face courses, have had to reconsider programmatic and delivery mode over the years to transfer their face-to-face courses into online courses based on the growing demand. With this transition, comes reflective reevaluation of curriculum and programmatic structure of courses. These programmatic courses must provide instructional experiences that are meaningful and purposeful for graduate students in higher education and prepare them in the same manner and level of quality as face-to-face courses. There is a need for pedagogical research to assist faculty and instructors to make this transition to online teaching. The following paper examines 1) the historical context of distance education 2) research on face-to-face instruction in comparison to online instruction 3) a modern framework for scaffolding graduate courses and graduate course content.