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Overview:
To teach well in the online environment, instructors need to explore new pedagogical options and craft learning activities that fit the medium. Instructional strategies that have evolved in classrooms and lecture halls typically have minimal success in online instruction.
Come explore a new perspective for online strategies and the evolving role of the instructor. We will review creative learning experience designs that reflect sound instructional principles and technological innovations.
What You Will Learn
Through a detailed review of online/blended learning environments, you will examine:
- The evolving role of instructors
- How to establish effective communication and interaction in the absence of face-to-face instruction
- How to motivate students to learn
- Pedagogical techniques that differ from traditional face-to-face techniques
- How to create ideal learning experiences
- Assessment techniques for measuring student achievement and learning
- How higher order student learning outcomes can be assessed
We will create a wiki that will be a living reference for everything you've learned and created with your peers.
A Unique Format for Learning
This hands-on conference will model "learning circles", a unique strategy that focuses on dialogue and an open exchange of ideas to develop new practices and action plans on-site. The learning circle approach helps enhance your experience and stimulate creativity and innovation.
We will include time to address your topics as they come up, lots of group work and consultation and most importantly, we will focus on transferable knowledge. You will create an action plan to take what you learn back to campus to train your faculty.
Who Should Attend
Instructional designers, academic learning professionals, and individuals who are responsible for implementing and supporting the use of technology in teaching and learning online and in blended environments will benefit from this event's sharing of proven approaches, models, and tools for teaching.
What People are Saying
"By far, the highest quality presentations I have experienced in some time. Timely, intriguing, and valuable information vital for today's college administrators." – Bob Miller, Dean, Academic Support, Pasadena City College
"The 'Learning Circle' approach turns a typical talk-oriented workshop into a community learning experience. I can't wait to begin incorporating some of the wealth of things I learned here." – Joseph Hughes, Professor of Classics, Missouri State University
"The workshop changed my attitude towards online instruction completely and opened up for me new areas of engagement with tools and methodologies that will result in a richer experience for me and my students." – Magdalena Berry, Instructor, Missouri State University
"I was happily surprised at the depth of exploration tying quality instruction to blended and online format." – Paula Martin, Assistant Director, Academic Affairs, Kenai Peninsula College -University of Alaska Anchorage
What to Bring
You are required to bring a laptop computer with wireless capability and a headset/microphone.
Additional Learning Opportunities
Optional Pre-Conference Workshop:
Designing Courses for the Needs of Diverse Learners
In this workshop, you will assess teaching presence and development of community, evaluate teaching and learning experiences, and brainstorm revisions that will help improve teaching presence and the sense of community in your blended/online courses. You will answer a series of questions that results in a detailed report to guide workshop activities and future blended/online course revisions and enhancements.
Optional Post-Conference Workshop:
Evaluating e-Learning
This workshop will help you establish evaluation as a key strategy throughout the design, development, and implementation of e-learning in higher education. You will be given access to an electronic performance support system (EPSS) designed to provide the tools needed to evaluate e-learning.
Program Agenda:
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
| 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. |
| Registration and Continental Breakfast for Pre-Conference Attendees |
| 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. |
Optional Pre-Conference Workshop:
Designing Courses for the Needs of Diverse Learners |
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Often, the combination of effective instructional design techniques, proper course organization, the facilitation of productive discourse, and direct instruction will positively influence blended and online learning and learner satisfaction. Evidence suggests that creating a sense of community in a blended/online course can reduce isolation and burnout that is often associated with attrition in classroom or distance learning.
In this workshop, you will assess teaching presence and development of community, evaluate teaching and learning experiences, and brainstorm revisions that will help improve teaching presence and the sense of community in your blended/online courses. You will answer a series of questions that results in a detailed report to guide workshop activities and future blended/online course revisions and enhancements. Topics addressed include:
- Comparing adult learners vs. the net generation
- Evaluating your blended/online course
- Revising and improving your blended/online course
- Improving instructional organization
- Facilitating discourse and interaction
- Integrating direct instruction
- Creating a class community
- Improving learning
Instructor: Norm Vaughan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Teaching & Learning, Mount Royal University
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| 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. |
| Lunch for Pre-Conference Workshop Attendees (included in pre-conference workshopregistration) |
| 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. |
| Registration for Main Conference |
| 1:00 – 1:30 p.m. |
| Welcome & Opening Remarks |
| 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. |
| Building Trust to Support Blended/Online Course–Learning Circles |
In this session, we will talk about the risks that keep online students from participating in a course and outline strategies instructors use to get students to begin to know each other. You will also engage in exercises to help you learn more about instructors and other participants. The faculty will model one or more exercises that can be used online or in a face-to-face session to help encourage a willingness to share ideas. Learning circles will be set up as a structure for working over the next few days, and will be used as an example of a structure that works well in blended and online courses. |
| 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. |
| Clarifying and Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in Blended/Online Courses |
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When planning an online or blended course, you must consider expected learning outcomes. This session will explore best practices in developing learning objectives and competencies while presenting an opportunity to practice what you are learning. You will engage in hands-on exercises focused on the alignment of the following factors in online/blended courses:
- learning goals/objectives
- content
- instructional design
- learner tasks
- instructor roles
- technology roles
- assessment
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| 3:45 – 4:45 p.m. |
| Roles of a Successful Blended/Online Instructor |
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This session will discuss issues that exist or emerge in developing and delivering a blended/online course, and that affect the success and effectiveness of online instructors. You will share your real-life experiences and knowledge and hear practical suggestions and recommendations for addressing common course design issues and management strategies that work.
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| 4:45 – 5:15 p.m. |
| Learning Circles |
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Learning circles is an approach to learning that leads individuals through a cycle of activities that includes reading relevant facts, hearing specific information, talking about the issues, applying new knowledge in some way, and then teaching the topic to others. In this session, you will work with your colleagues and an instructor on an online course design that will model learning circles. As part of the discussion, groups will share their experiences with other program participants.
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| 5:15 – 6:30 p.m. |
| Networking Reception (included in registration) |
Thursday, December 10, 2009
| 8:30 – 9:00 a.m. |
| Continental Breakfast (included in registration) |
| 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. |
| Student Learning Styles and Motivation |
This session will focus on generational perspectives in learning environments, concentrating on motivation, use of technology, reactions to technology-enhanced education, and learning outcomes as they relate to success in online and blended learning environments. We will also explore the effect of incorporating the reactive behavior patterns of students into learning environments for improving teaching and learning, motivating students, and enabling faculty to adapt teaching styles to learner needs. |
| 10:00 – 10:30 a.m. |
| Faculty and whole group discussion about learning styles and motivation |
| 10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. |
| Tour of Tools for Blended/Online Learning |
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Recent changes in educational technologies have increased access and changed the character of interaction, but information literacy has not kept pace. This session will focus on what educators most need to know about the features of the changing educational technology landscape. |
| 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. |
| Lunch (included in registration) |
| 1:15 – 2:30 p.m. |
| Learning Circles–Effective Communication with Technology |
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You will set up a group activity using one of the many Web 2.0 tools and invite your peers in the learning circle to participate. This will give you immediate practice in using one of these tools in your online teaching context. You will also participate briefly in activities set up by your peers. |
| 2:45 – 3:45 p.m. |
| Student Engagement and Web 2.0: What's the Connection? |
The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has demonstrated that engagement, persistence, grades, and student satisfaction go hand in hand. This session will explore how Web 2.0 tools can be used to increase the level of student engagement in blended and online courses. You will work through a series of case studies in order to identify which strategies and tools are appropriate for your own contexts. |
| 3:45 – 4:15 p.m. |
| Facilitated Discussion |
You will discuss student engagement and the use of Web 2.0 tools to engage students. You will also reflect on the tools you experimented with and describe your experiences. |
| 4:15 – 5:00 p.m. |
| Learning Circles |
This discussion will focus on the use of technology and student engagement. These discussions will be in small groups to facilitate the collective sharing of ideas among participants. A program faculty member will help moderate the group discussion. |
Friday, December 11, 2009
| 8:00 – 8:30 a.m. |
| Continental Breakfast (included in registration) |
| 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. |
| Ensuring the Achievement of Learning Objectives |
This session will focus on achieving learning objectives in the distributed learning environment with respect to overall success rates, withdrawal, student and faculty satisfaction, interactive success patterns, and student perception of teaching effectiveness. We will also cover strategies for building a culture of the scholarship of teaching and learning by relating these concepts to the emerging emphasis on information fluency in higher education. |
| 9:30 – 10:00 a.m. |
| Learning Circle–Experimentation with Teaching Tools and Knowledge Building |
| 10:15 – 11:45 a.m. |
| Assessment of Student Learning |
In this session, you will develop creative assessment practices, such as the use of case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that move away from the traditional use of tests and quizzes. We will also discuss the design and use of rubrics as a technique for assessing projects and collaborative activities. Following this session, we'll have a group discussion with instructors. |
| 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. |
| Learning Circle and Reporting on Assessment & Critical Questions and Discussion |
| 12:45 – 1:45 p.m. |
| Lunch for Post-Conference Workshop Attendees |
| 1:45 – 4:45 p.m. |
| Optional Post Conference Workshop: Evaluating e-Learning |
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This workshop will help you establish evaluation as a key strategy throughout the design, development, and implementation of e-learning in higher education. You will be given access to an electronic performance support system (EPSS) designed to provide the tools needed to evaluate e-learning.
You will learn to develop, implement, and report specific plans, strategies, and tools for the six phases of evaluating interactive online learning including:
- Review
- Needs assessment
- Formative evaluation
- Effectiveness evaluation
- Impact evaluation
- Maintenance evaluation
Instructor: Thomas C. Reeves, Professor of Instructional Technology, University of Georgia
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Instructors:
 Conference Chair: Margaret Riel, Senior Researcher at SRI, International, and Visiting Professor, Pepperdine University Online Master in Educational Technology
Margaret's interest in online teaching and learning arises from decades of research and development in communication technology and education. She teaches action research to mid-career students from educational, organizational, and corporate contexts. She has developed and researched models of network learning, particularly cross-classroom collaboration designs. Her Learning Circle model is currently used by many different organizations to facilitate online learning. She also helped create the initial design for Passport to Knowledge's electronic field trip. Her recent research is on social capital, and her past work is available in her online office http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/mriel/office/.
 Charles Dziuban, Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness (RITE), University of Central Florida
Chuck directs the impact evaluation of UCF's distributed learning initiative, examining student and faculty outcomes and gauging the effect of online courses on the university. He also directs the university's information fluency initiative and supports the scholarship of teaching and learning. In 2000, Chuck was named UCF's first ever Pegasus Professor for extraordinary research, teaching, and service. He has co-authored or edited numerous books and chapters on blended and online learning, including Handbook of Blended Learning Environments, Educating the Net Generation, and Blended Learning: Research Perspectives. Chuck has received the Sloan Consortium award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Learning by an Individual. He has also been appointed to the National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Policy Council.
 Thomas C. Reeves, Professor of instructional Technology, The University of Georgia
Tom teaches program evaluation, multimedia design, and research courses. He has developed and evaluated numerous interactive multimedia programs for both education and training. Tom is a past president of the Association for the Development of Computer-based Instructional Systems (ADCIS) and a former Fulbright Lecturer. In 1995, he was selected as one of the top 100 people in multimedia by Multimedia Producer magazine. He also served as the editor of the Journal of Interactive Learning Research. He was the first person to receive the AACE Fellowship Award from the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. He is the co-author of Interactive Learning Systems Evaluation.
 Norm Vaughan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Teaching & Learning, Mount Royal University
An educator and researcher with interests in blended learning and faculty development, Norm's teaching background includes graduate and undergraduate courses in educational technology, K-12 education, technical training, and English as a Second Language. He recently co-authored the book Blended Learning in Higher Education and has published a series of articles on blended learning and faculty development. Norm is currently the research director for the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education and he is on the editorial boards for the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, Learning Communities Journal, and the Journal on Centres for Teaching & Learning.
Location Information
| Date and Location: |
December 9-11, 2009 :: Scottsdale, AZ |
| Hotel: |
Room Rate: |
Room Block Dates: |
Rate Available Until: |
Hotel Valley Ho, 6850 E. Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
To reserve your room, please call 480-248-2000. Please indicate that you are with the Academic Impressions group to receive the group rate. |
The rate is $109 for single or double occupancy, plus applicable tax.
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A room block has been reserved for the nights of December 6-10, 2009.
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Make your reservations prior to November 18, 2009. There are a limited number of rooms available at the conference rate. Please make your reservations early. |
| Additional Information: |
The Hotel Valley Ho, located in Old Town Scottsdale, was built in 1956 and thanks to a renovation in 2005, remains every bit as chic now as it did then. This retro-style mid-century landmark has playful rooms & suites, great restaurants, and is just a stroll away from renowned art galleries and popular Scottsdale artwalks. The Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport is approximately 9 miles from the hotel.
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Registration Information:
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Questions
Call us at 720.488.6800 to help determine if this event is right for you.
Registration
For instant registration, register online or call 720.488.6800. Register Three, Send the Fourth Free!
Your registration fee includes: full access to all conference sessions and materials, access to the networking reception on Wednesday, breakfast and lunch on Thursday, and breakfast on Friday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.
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Register Online:
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