Massive Online Open Administrations! From The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Study after study has shown that the people at the top—the deans and vice-presidents and other Grand Poobahs of bureaucratic reproduction—have grown far faster than faculty in the past couple of decades. And their salaries are far higher, over all, than those of professors. As a study from the conservative Goldwater Institute pointed out:
Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research, or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student grew by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.
So if we could find a way to put administration online, to create Massive Online Open Administrations or MOOAs, we could really cut some fat and reap some serious rewards.
And this:
It’s possible that administrators won’t immediately see how revolutionary MOOAs would be, but faculty and students must help them understand that MOOAs would be good for all of us. Really. The first colleges to start MOOAs can sell their superior administrators to institutions with more B Team administrators. B-Team-admin sorts will be let go. All the colleges can reap the benefit of cut administrative salaries and share the costs of MOOAs, thereby allowing them to cut tuition. So it is that MOOAs will make higher ed more democratic and accessible to all.
Administrators of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your salaries.
According to a recent article in The Chronicle, a state senator in California has sponsored a bill that would establish “a statewide platform through which students who have trouble getting into certain low-level, high-demand classes could take approved online courses offered by providers outside the state’s higher-education system.”
In other words, students at California’s public colleges who are unable to enroll in regular classes due to overcrowding will instead be steered into MOOCs, or massive open online courses.
I was taking a break from reading to watch my favorite television show when I saw the following commercial. It made me think about online education and how we need to teach our students to verify their sources.
Here is a new toy that may or may not be the next big thing. This toy and others similar to it will change the nature of Higher Education in ten or fifteen years.
Children who play with such toys will expect their school work to be presented in the same manner. We have something similar to this in Higher Education. It is called Hybrid or Blended courses. These courses are presented both in person (the traditional mode) and online.
Another way this could go is that more and more classes will implement the Flip Classroom where lectures are online and the students show up for in person tutoring on the points they do not understand.
After my last post a friend in a private email asked me "How do (we) doctors deal with patients?" and asked me to expand upon my analogy.
I thought back to the last time I visited the doctor. Doctors are highly trained and specialize in a specific field. This is very similar to our college faculty. We all have studied for a long time and have specialized in one field. In my case I specialize in the Dismal Sciences better known as Economics.
Before you walk into the examination room you see a receptionist and in an online class you enter your user ID and Password to walk into a course management system.
The Doctor comes in and examines you. He/she may ask you how you are feeling followed by placing a stethoscope to hear your heart beat and breathing. In an online class we do that by having an introductory 'Self Introduction' discussion posting. Here we find out "Why are they taking our class? What are their goals in taking our class?"
Next the doctor gives you a prescription for better health. We do that in an online environment by providing our students a syllabus.
Sometime the Doctor gives you general advice such as "cut down on your salt intake" or "quit smoking". In an online class we tell the student "Log in on a regular basis", "read the textbook", and "do not procrastinate".
Next time you visit a Doctor for a follow up they monitor the changes in your blood pressure. We can do this by assessing students on a regular basis and observe their progress.
The doctor warns you if your blood pressure or cholesterol has gone up. They recommend exercising more. We can warn students that they are falling behind and need to exercise their mind more.
The goal of any doctor is to see as many patient as possible. Look at the charts of each patient. Record their observations about the patient. Wash their hand and leave the room saying "Here is a prescription and you can get dressed now." before moving on to the next patient.
The other similarity between an online instructor and a Doctor is their popularity is based on their bedside manners.
I will post about bedside manners in another posting.
The following are from a very long (3hours) seminar from the Chancellor Office on CCConfer. It started with the following: Presenter (someone from Chancellor office) "Not less rigorous Not more Rigorous but the same level of Rigor!"
There was a long list of ways for Instructor Contact. This is a must. The number one factor is that it is "Regular".
Last Friday at Rio Hondo I recommended that there is a need for a Distance Education Committee. There was a question should this be an Ad Hoc or a regular committee?
Someone from ACCJC presented the following:
The distinction between Distance Ed and Correspondence course is whether or not the course is self-paced or not!
Correspondence Education is self-paced
So what will ACCJC will look for when they visit us?
Now San Diego has a way of getting students ready for this:
The ACCJC presenter stressed Data collection but left it vague and there was grumbling in the chat room. However, I like the freedom ACCJC is giving the schools to explore and discover what is important for them by themselves.
What is Growth and what is being measured?
Later at the end there were some examples from various colleges on the type of data that is being collected.
College of the Canyon
San Diego Community College
The most interesting presentation was from Mt. San Jacinto College. The presenter shared this document and their school seems to be far ahead of everyone else. Both the presenter from MSJC, San Diego and Ohlone college stressed the idea of Collaboration.
The traditional classroom experience is one of a 'Sage on a Stage' lecturing
and the disciples soaking up the knowledge of the guru in front of the class.
The best disciples later repeat this by mimicking the style of their favorite
guru and thereby becoming a new "Sage on a Stage"! The suffering continues till a
new technology comes along and disrupts the whole cycle.
At first these sages try to copy their old methodology into this new
environment and find themselves trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
Next the hard headed gurus complain about the students not following
instructions. The softer gurus complain of the new technology and how the
failure of the students is the failure of the new disruptive technology. Yet
others look at their lack of training in understanding the use of this new
technology. Theyare all correct and wrong to some
extent.
The students are not following instructions but there is a reason for that (what it is I do not know).
The students are failing at a higher rate because they are trying to receive
the square peg from a round hole. It is necessary to have some technical skills
and training in the use of the new technology, however, there is also a need to
think about how we use this new technology.
In an online classroom, we the faculty must put aside the techniques of a Guru or a
Sage and take up the principles of medical profession. An online faculty should
organize their class and build an environment that fosters a knowledgeable
student to stand on his/her own feet. This online faculty like any physician
should always try to listen to and respond quickly to get rid of his patient.
This means have a simple straight forward set up for a course, and when a
student stumbles respond or contact them before their educational health
deteriorates further.
This technique requires any online class to be planned out well in advance
of going live. The online faculty should think of all the obstacles the student
will face before the course goes live. If an unforeseen problem pops up and a
student comes in for help. The online instructor should have a response in a
SHORT TIME for this student.
Remember that the goal of any online instructor is NOT to have disciples in
the hopes of creating another Sage/Guru but to create curious citizens that can
think for themselves distinguishing between logically sound and incorrect
information on the World Wide Web.
I believe that we the faculty need to become a digital disciple and experience this whole new thing called online education before we can again become a guru who speaks "digital".
I was playing around with the Homework Management System by the publisher of my textbook and looked and discovered a great tool. The system is called Connect by McGraw/Hill. I chose this system because of their pricing and the fact they give students access to an electronic copy of the textbook. Also this system allows students to draw various graphs such as supply and demand.
You can view the FAQ page from my syllabus to get more information.
Anyhow, I noticed the following tool being rolled out and was impressed by it.
They track how much time students spend on the system and generate a report that is being tested now.
This report is in BETA
I liked the way they break down how much time students have spent on the system and tries to predict the chances of them failing. In this class of 42 there were 7 students at risk and 6 students that are borderline. Four out of Seven at risk students had already dropped this class and one out of six borderline students had dropped the class.
In order to test the system I clicked send a message to these student and only one student has responded to me. He asked me to drop him from the class. Unfortunately, I could not drop him since the drop deadline has passed.
Blackboard has something similar to this but not as easy to use. They call it the Early Warning System.
Early Warning System can be found under Evaluation under Control Panel
After clicking on the Early Warning System you will encounter a blank screen asking you to create rules.
The choices are very limited
I am currently using the Last Access Rule and email students who have failed to access the course for more than one week.
I hope McGraw/Hill keeps and improve this essential tool and Blackboard improves their Early Warning System.
Many students believe that online classes are easier than in person classes. We (the faculty) need to change this perception. One way to do this is to share our syllabi for our online classes in an easy to find location. This way any student can review the syllabus before signing up for the class. Under the current set up the students can not view the course syllabus till they sign up for the class and are enrolled in blackboard. The syllabus is locked up behind the blackboard walls. Some faculty have their syllabi on their own websites but very few students search for these...
We need to create a central location on the Virtual College webpage where all the course syllabi are collected and easy to access by anyone before signing up for the online class.
Another advantage of such a set up is to give access to various bureaucrats an access point to look at what is being covered in various virtual classrooms.
Finally, this can be a way for faculty to learn from one another by looking at each others syllabi.
I got this idea from looking at the College of the Canyons website. Here is the list of their online and Hybrid classes for Fall 2012 with their syllabi. Here is their main page for what they call Instructor's Orientation Letters.
During the last couple of weeks I have been teaching the various Market Structures in Econ 102 Microeconomics. Also I have been searching and reading various business strategies out there. Another item of interest to me is the higher education world. So it should not be a surprise that I was dreaming about "Barriers to Entry" and Higher Education last night.
Higher Education competes in a Monopolistic Competitive market structure. A pure competitive market will sell a homogenous product and will only compete based on price alone and nothing else. In a monopolistic competitive market the item being sold is differentiated, based on location, perceived quality differences, and quality of customer (student) service. This is why firms in these types of Markets do not compete on price alone.
One of the characteristics that help economists to identify the various market structure is the existence of Barriers to Entry. In higher education the Barriers to Entry include class size, time, location, Accreditation and the reputation/qualification of the faculty. However, most of these barriers can be overcome by new competitors for example a new competitor can lure star faculty away from their current college. The Accreditation barrier can be overcome by meeting certain standards and jumping through the various bureaucratic hoops. The only barrier remaining was location, and instructional infrastructure (Libraries, classroom seats).
Now with the advent of online education new competitors have found they are not restricted by geography and they can invent ways to cram as many students into virtual classrooms. Thereby the explosion of Massive Open Online Courses more popularly known as MOOC.
Some of these new entrants ave gone into partnership with existing well known competitors such as Harvard, Stanford, and other well known Universities to overcome the reputation and faculty qualification barrier. They also have overcame the infrastructure and location barrier by providing virtual classrooms and Libraries.
I could see the removal of the listed barriers, but I could not figure out how they plan to generate revenues. Last night in my dream I found the source of that revenue. It is testing, examination, assessment! Here is a testing company that is generating revenues from this model and using the existing infrastructure to generate revenue from the dreams and ambitions of our students.
Last Tuesday, I heard many complaints about training for online classes. The Virtual College and our new classified technology trainer provide fine training on the latest technology. Also there were complaints about various features in blackboard not working. (I have to admit that I enjoyed this portion of complaints.)
Thinking about how we can train faculty in the use of all this new technology, I realized that the problem is not a "How to make the technology work?" but one of "How to present/teach in an impersonal online environment?"
Learning how the technology works is an important aspect, however I would argue that learning how to present the material and assessing students in an online environment is different and the more important question. We as teachers tend to ignore this question. Because of our experience of teaching in person we assume that we know how to do it in an online environment. When we fail, we want to blame the technology.
We teach in the manner that we learned. Most of the faculty (including myself) were presented the material via lectures and assigned readings. We would read the assigned reading and asked the teacher for clarification. Next came testing with the teacher or his/her TA proctoring us.
We now try to replicate this process in an online environment and we put all of our faith and blame in the latest technological update. I am sorry but the problem is NOT with the technology. Many colleagues believe that I am some sort of expert in technology. Bad news I am not an expert but an observant rule breaker that did not like how my teachers tried to put me in a box. During my schooling the most enjoyment I got was from breaking the rules. I can sit for hours in the computer lab and observe how students interact with the technology and how they try to game the system as I tried to do some 15 years ago. As an example I have noticed that students do not use a traditional computer and/or PC anymore. They are using their phones and mobile devices and some are even taking quizzes on the road. I have seen an email from a student to another online instructor saying "I am sorry I did not finish my exam but I dropped my phone in the car." In my class I have seen students taking a midterm exam for an online class as I lectured. They believe in multitasking which does not work!! This student with his cell phone was listening to me babble about Marginal Productivity and taking a midterm in his online class due in 20 minutes, insisting that he is listening to me. I smiled and wished him good luck. At 12:00 (noon) he slammed his phone on the desk complaining "that sucks!" He was timed out! He blamed his phone and blackboard, NOT his lack of planning and procrastination.
This leads to me another pattern I have observed. Students wait till the last minute before attempting an assignment. Again they use their mobile devices to write using 'i' instead of 'I" for the first person pronoun. If they are not kept on a tight regular schedule, they tend to forget that they are registered in your course as other more fun technology pulls them away.
Here are some best practices that I have learned through trial and error.
The most important aspect of an online class is the Syllabus and Quiz on the Syllabus.
It is important to spell out every thing
I have ran two classes side by side. In one class I gave them a quiz on the syllabus and in the other I did not. The class with a syllabus quiz did much better at the end of the semester. There was a high correlation between their score on the syllabus quiz and their final grade in the class.
Set up the course with many short assignments.
Do NOT rely on a few major assignments, such as major midterms.
Do Not let any one assignment be worth more than 10% of their grade. This encourages cheating. (remember there are no proctors)!!!
It is easier for students to hire someone to take major exams and/or major assignments than hiring someone to log into the course on a regular basis to complete various little assignments.
With a large number of assignments, it is easier to spot cheating. As the instructor you can tell there is cheating if you observe their writing style, use of vocabulary change and/or a consistently low scoring student out of no where gets a perfect score.
Also low risk assignments lowers the stress level for those students who are overachievers and/or stress cases.
If they screw up on any little assignment they are more willing to let it go then a big assignment. Cutting down on emails with excuses!!!
Set up a weekly schedule so they associate a day of the week with your class.
My assignments are due on Mondays or Tuesdays. I send them weekly reminder that Monday or Tuesday is coming up! They know what that means as they have gotten into the habit of running to a computer before the deadline to complete an assignment that they had more than two weeks to complete in 45 minutes.
I do not like weekend since the virtual college is not open during the weekend.
Do not make video lectures longer than 6 minutes.
If you decide to create video lectures, they will NOT watch nor listen to it past the 3 minutes mark.
They will watch or listen to it for Six minutes if there is a quiz and/or discussion associated with it. (The down side of technology is instant gratification and shorter attention span of students)
Upload your video to YouTube because Google works on the various mobile technologies that students love to use. (I hope Google comes out with an LMS see my previous posts. 123 )
An ideas that I will test next semester is to put some sort of warning on my syllabus reminding them it is not safe to take quizzes on their mobile device. Encouraging them to get to complete their assignment on a computer.
Here is an article that made me wonder if we are going to be TAs again? Reading discussion boards, and grading papers for big name Profs at big name schools? You think that could not happen in California? How would you like to be a TA for some Professor at U.C. Berkley. (see Video below)
Two Boston-area community colleges
will offer an adapted version of a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology online course in computer science with funding from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bunker Hill and MassBay community colleges will list the
course -- Introduction to Computer Science and Programming --
beginning early next year, officials from the colleges said
today. The course will combine materials from MIT and Harvard
University’s EdX online teaching venture with classroom
sessions, they said in a statement.
American Council on Education, an association for higher education
presidents, raised the possibility that such courses could count toward a
degree when it said it would review several to determine whether they
ought to be eligible for transfer credit.
I have been studying and thinking about how to improve our online program and to meet the expectations of the ACCJC during their next visit to our school. During my research I found a presentation and posted it on this blog. As I watched the video I noticed that someone from the College of Canyons was a presenter. I decided to go to their website and found myself more intrigued by the concept of Accelerated Learning.
The following is a screenshot from their website:
College of the Canyons offers a variety of courses in accelerated, or short-term, learning formats. Our GO! classes are 5-week, online courses. PACE classes are typically 8-week hybrid classes that meet both Saturdays (on campus) and online. PAL courses are offered in pairs: two 8-week Math or two 8-week
English classes offered back-to-back in one semester with the same
instructor and same classmates. Please click on the links above to
learn more about each program
Quickly, I realized that their PACE program is a variation on a little experiment that economics department is conducting now. The economics department offers two eight weeks classes back to back in one semester. The idea was to help students to complete both Econ 101 and Econ 102 in one semester. During the first eight weeks of the semester Econ 101 is presented and during the second eight week of the semester Econ 102 is presented. Unlike regular 16 weeks classes which meet three hours a week, these classes meet for 6 hours a week. These classes are 100% on the ground or face to face. (NOTE: This idea was inspired by my discussions with Dr. Wetsman)
The College of Canyon has taken this concept of Accelerated Learning and has added an online component. At our school we call these classes Hybrid classes. They are basically leveraging the online technology to shorten the classes. Students in this program will take 8 weeks courses, same as our students can in Economics at our school, without having to sit in 6 hours of lecture per week. The other three hours per week is completed online. The students complete homework and complete classwork which can assess SLOs, freeing up the remaining time for lectures and/or discussions. This allows students to complete more units in the same amount of time.
Also instead of only one Department doing this they have scheduled a series of classes which lead to a degree. This is an important point! Why? Currently, students who have signed up for the first 8 weeks Econ 101 class may or may not sign up for Econ 102 during the second eight weeks. There are many reasons for students not signing up for Econ 102. It could be that they do not meet the Prerequisite (Math 70) for Econ 102 or it could be they have realized that Economics does not suit them and wish to study another subject. However, if only one department (econ) is offering these classes, they will have a void in their scheduled during the second eight weeks.
In my opinion, this program will benefit our students.
Here is an idea that I may test out in class. I plan to place my laptop in front of the class and log into Google +.
Next I plan to start a Hangout (See picture below)
I will name the Hangout by the date and topic of the class.
I will enable Hangout On Air function which will stream the class live onto my Youtube channel.
Step 3 I will copy the embed code from Google + into Blackboard
Allowing students to watch on Blackboard.
I tested out this idea in my classroom with nobody there. The following video was the result. The sound was not good. The cause of poor sound could be due to 1) my microphone on the computer, 2) Poor wifi network at school 3) poor performance by Google plus.
This post was updated on August 10 with the video of my experiment.
Here is a story on why Facebook has lost its luster on Wall Street. One reporter in the story confesses the following: "..yeah. I mean, I go on the computer every once in a while.." and this is one of the reasons why facebook is not making money.
As I listened to this I remembered a story that I heard from one of our faculty. The story was as follow, student emails her (the faculty) telling her how she (the student) broke her cellphone after dropping her cellphone as she was taking the exam on her cellphone. (Did you notice that I repeated the word Cellphone?) We the educators have not figured out online education completely and now it is going mobile?
I received an interesting email from one of my online students that made me think about the medium of online education. We as faculty are all experts in our respective disciplines. Most of us mastered our discipline in a traditional face to face classroom. And most of us try to replicate how we learned in those classrooms. However, very few of us have taken an online class and our thought process is very different from those of our students in an online class. What they view as acceptable way of learning. Their views may or may not be mistaken, however half of reality is perception and the medium of communication creates perceptions.
Ease of use creates the false perception that "this material must be accurate" explaining the popularity and acceptance of the content in Wikipedia.
What we the faculty were trained in a traditional classroom to consider as cheating is not considered cheating by students in an online class.
The following is a portion of the email that got me thinking:
Hi,
Mr. Javanmard, I took the Quiz, and found this question, I
probably spent half an hour trying to answer
it, and I gave up and just chose an answer, I was curious so I also
posted it on Yahoo Answers, I recently received an answer and the people
told me the answer is none of the above, can you explain to me the
correct answer, because everyone I contacted couldn't
answer it
Please notice:
First the student considers half an hour as a very long time. In the world of instant gratification of online half an hour is an eternity.
Second, the student did not see anything wrong with posting the question on Yahoo answers. This point made me suspicious and I spoke to some students and found out that most test questions can be found on popular search engines. So a student sits down at a computer. Enters the question into a search engine and answers the question. Another way is for a group of students to take turns taking quizzes and sharing the correct answers with others in person or over Social Media sites. The second method does not work in my classes because I do not release the correct answers till the day after the due date.
This made wonder is this the fault of the technology or is this the fault of educators who advocate Cooperative Learning? These students are extremely cooperative. They take turn sacrificing their score on small quizzes to help the team. This is exact behavior that is encouraged in cooperative cultures of Asia and the U.S. Army Infantry (the team above one self).
I was listening to Marketplace Money on NPR today and heard the following story.
The concept of a certificate in Critical Thinking caught my attention.
Employers are hungry for better ways to measure a job applicant's
skills. At the same time, individuals are looking for cheaper ways to
get an edge in the workforce. Enter alternative credentials, which offer new ways to certify what people know.
...StraighterLine, a start-up in Baltimore that offers low-cost online
courses. Students get credit at partner universities. And starting this
fall, they'll be able bolster those credits with something new: A
critical thinking score.
If the player does not work or you need the transcript click here.
During the spring semester, I watched a student constantly staring at his phone during the lecture. He was paying attention but kept staring at that damn phone. Extremely annoyed after class I asked him "WHY?"
I was surprised by him showing me his phone and what he was looking at.
He was using the Kindle App on his iPhone. What was he reading? The textbook which he bought for $9.99
I was embarrassed and felt old all at the same time. I quickly realized that I am getting old. My vision has been declining since my forty second birthday. Also I realized that the PC is out and Mobile is the new technology. I had read this in financial papers but here it was confronting me. I was jealous of that 19 years old kid.He had great eyesight and he was up with the latest technology.
Fast forward to today....
I got an email from Techsmith they produce Camtasia, Snag it and Jing which I use for my online classes.
They are coming out with their new and improved Camtasia 8 (I am too cheap to update I am still on version 4 or 5). After watching their video pitch I started watching some of the other videos on their Youtube Channel.
I found an old idea but with a twist. The old idea was a "Flipped Classroom". Instead of the teacher being "a sage on the stage" have him/her be a helping hand or a tutor to the students. The idea is have students get the lecture material at home at their own pace using (my old fashioned version) computers, CD, DVD,... or (the new mobile version) using iPod and/or i Phones.
So what will they do in the classroom? You ask!!
In class they participate in classroom problem solving exercises where they attempt to apply what they learned from reading and the lecture on their little handheld devices.
This idea of flipping the classroom goes way back to the days of CDs and DVDs see the video below. (this video makes me nostalgic for the days of CDs)......
Here is the twist, The following is a video showing how one teacher uses iPods to accomplish the same task. No more CDs and DVDs!!
Here is another one with more little iPods. It must be nice to have 20/20 vision!
In case you are wondering, I am doing this whole thing on my little iPod Touch! I want to be young!!
Oh before you get excited there is only one problem a very big problem!!!!
No most of our students have iPods and some have iPads. The BIG Problem with this method is as follow:
Many of the students do not read the textbook. Will they watch these videos? I gave up on the Flipped classroom method when I realized this fact.
Only if there was a way to track them.. Where I could be sure that they have watched the lecture and are not just winging it.
Want to see my attempt at a Flipped classroom?
For the past few years, I have been taking attendance in my online class and dropping students who do not take the attendance survey. I tried to promote this idea in person but it fell on deaf ears. As usual I was ahead of the times. Now it seems there are some students who sign up for online classes without any intention to participate for the purpose of collecting Financial Aid.
For any faculty interested in my method here it is again feel free to use it. If you improve on my idea please share it in the comment field.
First you will need an attendance button on your blackboard site.
To create a button go to the upper left hand side of the screen in blackboard and click on the + sign
Click on Create Content Area
Name the area as Attendance
In this area place two simple surveys for students to take as attendance.
The survey will ask a very simple question It is important to keep the survey short and to the point so students will participate without stressing.
Use the grade book to see who has and who has not participated in the survey. If a student participates in the attendance survey they will have a check mark in the grade book. I suggest to take attendance twice in case students miss the first attendance quiz. In my class I drop students who have missed both attendance quizzes for week one and week two.
Another method to discover who is and who is not participating in the class is to use the performance dashboard.
Under control panel click on Evaluation
Under Evaluation click on Performance Dashboard
You can view which student has
logged in and which student has not. Also you can view how many days
since any student has accessed the course.
