Maintaining Excellence in a Culture of Efficiency:

Promoting Interaction and Engagement in Large Online Graduate

Classes

Stoerm Anderson, Ed.D.

Baaska Anderson, M.Ed.

Background

Constructive/experiential learning

Rapidly expanding enrollment

Increased class sizes/teaching load

Goals

Maintain excellence

Increase efficiency

Promote scholarship

Our approach

Focus on interactivity

Experiential learning

Building community

Peer evaluation

Reflection

Interactivity Student - Student

Learning community / Peer feedback and evaluation

Student - Teacher Provide general, public feedback when feasible Use essays, podcasts, discussion forums, blogs

(etc) Maintain personal communication as needed

Student - Content Provide excellent foundational content Build an extensive library of supplemental

resources

Experiential Learning

Practical major course projects (CPAs) Process-oriented development of meaningful

products

Heavily weighted in grading

Built constructively through module assignments

Hermeneutic revision encouraged

Student-directed learning experiences Projects evaluated in term of basic outcomes

Meaning-making through reflection-in-action

Promote peer feedback and evaluation

Building Community

Develop trust and community early! Promote connection through reflective

assignments

Model and reward appropriate interaction

Promote collaborative norms Scholarly discourse

Peer community as the first level of support

Building Community (2)

Instructor’s role in the learning community

Relinquish power / Increase agency of student community

Maintain active presence / Model appropriate interaction

Provide general, public -and- specific, personal feedback

Promote thematic connection between students’ work

Introduce transparency re: my educational decisions

Peer Evaluation Required -and- rewarded Focus on higher-order learning Improved summative evaluation

Strengthens final products (and grades!) Socializes students’ to peer-review process

Increased self-evaluation ability Anticipation of criticism leads to support or

revision Greater sense of accountability for work

Instructor evaluation more nuanced Peer-review allows greater focus on conceptual

evaluation and consideration of form

Reflection Reflective journals/blogs

Professional practice

Previous (and current) learning experiences

Connecting theory and practice

Reflective component to assignments

Process exploration

Hermeneutic circle

Results Student evaluations remain generally positive

Reflect more collaborative teacher/student relationship Reveal different comfort levels with learning community Personal engagment still important (esp. early in course)

Overall quality of products has increased Peers are a tough crowd / Self-eval vastly improved Students better prepared to support their decisions

Increased efficiency Overall, requires less of my time per student, however; My involvement must be more consistent and strategic

Ongoing revision…

Experimenting with group work

Hit or miss, but typically: Lower quality products

Intragroup evaluations Works better in some classes than others

Introducing synchronous assignments

Chat discussions Again, good for some classes than others

Considering grade contracts

Varying assignments for different grades

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