Background
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has been funding the development of ALN courses and programs since 1993. There are now thousands of ALN courses being taught in the United States and abroad. However, there is little published work on two areas that are among the most critical to the widespread adoption of ALN - these areas are learning effectiveness and faculty satisfaction. Briefly, these issues can be summarized in two questions: How well do people actually learn in ALN settings? Do faculty like teaching ALN courses as much as traditional courses? A number of institutions now have been working in the ALN area for up to six years, and faculty and staff from these institutions have accumulated a body of knowledge to address these critical questions. It now is important that these individuals report their results and that experts in the ALN field critically examine these findings.
The need for a critical study of learning effectiveness and faculty satisfaction is made even more critical by the rapid growth of investment in ALN programs. Federal and state governments, foundations, and the private sector are creating new institutions and programs that seek to take advantage of ALN methodologies and technologies. Taxpayers and other investors will soon require specific information on the impact of ALN programs and on the effectiveness and efficiency of different ALN approaches to online teaching and learning.
While the annual ALN conference has sessions that deal with these important issues, the size of the conference (500-600 attendees) and the short time for each presentation prevent a critical, in-depth discussion of these issues. To motivate such a discussion, we are organizing two workshops for faculty and staff who have substantial experience in offering ALN courses and programs. The Sloan ALN grantees are the most experienced in this field, and will form the nucleus of the individuals invited to these workshops. The workshops will be held over a two-and-one-half day period, with equal time devoted to each topic. This event would feature case study presentations on the relevant topics, with ample time for critical discussion and feedback. The workshops could advance the field of ALN in number of ways:
Topics
Learning Effectiveness
The media-rich environment of ALNs offer an abundance of pedagogical approaches to faculty and staff who create courses and programs. However, there is little good information on which teaching methods and technologies are the most effective in helping students learn. Among the issues that need to be explored are:
Case studies that address these and other questions should begin to uncover a set of best practices for designing and deploying ALN courses and programs. With critical discussion by the workshop attendees, important themes for creating effective learning experiences in ALN environments will be identified. Burks Oakley organized the sessions involving learning effectiveness.
Faculty Satisfaction
The primary target group of the faculty satisfaction session is mainstream faculty. There is ample evidence that early adopters are enthusiastic about ALN and eager to push the envelope further. Does any of that translate to mainstream faculty? What are the obstacles in getting mainstream faculty to adopt ALN? Roxanne Hiltz, for example, presented some evidence from "second round" NJIT faculty at the 1998 ALN conference - to wit, these faculty complain more and are less satisfied with the results. Assuming that generalizes to other campuses, are there strategies that can minimize these complaints? If so, is this about training, faculty expectations, rethinking teaching, or something else? Are there other things that can be done to hasten adoption by mainstream faculty? For example, should one push for adoption throughout an entire curriculum or focus on those most likely to adopt within their specific course? Should support be provided by academic professional help only, or should those faculty who have already adopted ALN be used to provide some of the support - a non-traditional role for the early adopter faculty? If not in a support capacity, can early adopters nonetheless be fruitfully used in an exemplar capacity? The presentations on faculty attitudes examined these and related questions, focusing both on results in existing Sloan programs and the various strategies that have been pursued to tackle the broad adoption issue. Lanny Arvan will organized the sessions on faculty satisfaction
There were two presentations devoted to faculty satisfaction in high-enrollment courses where ALN has been used to attain some efficiency in instruction. Both Edwin Kashy of Michigan State University and Lanny Arvan of UIUC have argued that ALN can improve instruction in high-enrollment courses while simultaneously making these courses more cost-effective. But what of the faculty teaching these courses? Are they burning out? Do these instructors really have evidence that learning is enhanced? Can the teaching efforts of the pioneers be sustained by other instructors and will these later adopters be willing participants in the enterprise? Presentations by Kashy and Arvan addressed these and related questions.
Format
The format of the workshops was a series of case study presentations by faculty and staff from Sloan-supported institutions that have extensive experience in teaching ALN courses and programs. Each case study presentation received a formal response from a discussant chosen from among the workshop participants. Following the workshops, the discussants gave a copy of their written comments to the presenters to assist in the revision process. Revised papers, along with discussant comments, were published in a special issue of the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks.
In each session, presenters were allowed approximately fifty minutes to present their case study, followed by up to ten minutes for a response from the discussant. At the end of each workshop, the moderators proposed a series of best practices drawn from all the cases.
Day 1 (August 16):
| Continental breakfast |
| Welcome and Introductions Burks Oakley University of Illinois |
| Introduction to Learning Effectiveness Workshop Frank Mayadas Alfred P. Sloan Foundation |
| Student Satisfaction and Perceived
Learning with Online Courses -
Principles and Examples from the SUNY Learning Network Word version Eric Fredericksen, Karen Swan, William Pelz, Alexandra Pickett, and Peter Shea State University of New York Discussant: Cheryl Bullock, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Break |
| Online Education to Develop Complex
Reasoning Skills in Organic Chemistry Patricia Shapley University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Discussant: Saundra Theis, University of Illinois at Chicago |
| Educational Performance of ALN via
Content Analysis Reuven Aviv Open University of Israel Discussant: Claudine SchWeber, University of Maryland - University College |
| Lunch Krannert Center for the Performing Arts |
| Working Professionals as Part-time
Online Learners Greg Hislop Drexel University Discussant: Linda Smith, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Options: Using Technology to Remove
Learning Barriers Joe Holland University of Wisconsin - Stout Discussant: Anthony Picciano, Hunter College |
| Break |
| Measuring
the Importance of Collaborative Learning
for the Effectiveness of ALN:
A Multi-Measure, Multi-Method Approach Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff New Jersey Institute of Technology Discussant: Annette Valenta, University of Illinois at Chicago |
| Reception and Dinner Beckman Institute |
Day 2 (August 17):
| Continental breakfast |
| Integrating ALN Into a Home Study
Distance Education Program: NVCC Case Studies Merrily Stover and John Sener Northern Virginia Community College Discussant: Linda Thompson, Northwest Technical College |
| Summary of Learning Effectiveness Workshop Burks Oakley |
| Break |
| Introduction to Faculty Satisfaction Workshop Frank Mayadas Alfred P. Sloan Foundation |
| Faculty Satisfaction in ALNs: a Dependent
or Independent Variable? Joel Hartman and Charles Dzubian University of Central Florida Discussant: Ray Schroeder, University of Illinois at Springfield |
| Instructor Satisfaction Issues
in University of California
Extension's Online Writing Curriculum Mary Beth Almeda and Kathleen Rose University of California Extension Discussant: Jim Levin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Lunch Grainger Library |
| Instructor Attitudes within the
SCALE Efficiency Projects Lanny Arvan and Dianne Musumeci University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Discussant: J. Olin Campbell, Vanderbilt University |
| ALN Teaching as Routine Faculty
Workload Greg Hislop and Michael Atwood Drexel University Discussant: Scott Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Break |
| Implementing a large On-Campus ALN:
Faculty Perspective Edwin Kashy and Michael Thoennessen Michigan State University Discussant: John Bourne, Vanderbilt University |
| Reception and Dinner Champaign Country Club |
Day 3 (August 18):
| Continental breakfast |
| Factors Influencing Faculty Satisfaction
with Asynchronous
Teaching and Learning in the SUNY Learning Network Word version Eric Fredericksen, William Pelz, Alexandra Pickett, Karen Swan, and Peter Shea State University of New York Dicussant: Richard Crang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Introducing the Penn State World
Campus through Courses In
Turfgrass Management and Geographic Information Systems Al Turgeon, Dave DiBiase, and Gary Miller Pennsylvania State University Discussant: Richard Lytle, Oregon University System |
| Break |
| Summary of Faculty Satisfaction Workshop Lanny Arvan |
| Use of Workshop Papers and Presentations by the ALN Center John Bourne, Vanderbilt University |
| Wrap-up Frank Mayadas |
| Lunch Illini Union |
| Adjourn |