We hope you can join us to talk about any issues and successes you are experiencing this semester!  If you would like to attend, but cannot, please contact Erin Czerwinski (eczerwinski@cmu.edu).

Join the call by dialing (559)546-1200 and using the code 125-753-470 followed by the # key
To join the webinar, go to http://cmusv.adobeconnect.com/apfaculty/ at the start time, and enter as guest.

The event is titled “Rebooting Higher Education: Leveraging Innovations in Online Education to Improve Cost Effectiveness and Increase Quality,” and will bring together participants including California Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sebastian Thrun of Udacity, Burck Smith of StraighterLine and features an introduction by Salman Kahn of Kahn Academy.

This event will be live broadcast on 20mm.org.

Ms. Thille’s hope is that the participants will address a number of important issues regarding the use of technology for effective changes in higher education:

“Rather than using information technology to mimic or scale typical classroom teaching methods, I hope the participants will begin to discuss how to use emerging technologies to effectively re-engineer the teaching and learning process as a whole.  We have the opportunity to address large-scale societal issues in higher education while simultaneously making progress in our fundamental understanding of human learning.

 

Another issue we need to address is balancing institutional competition and collaboration.  Many higher education pundits believe that the competitive nature of American higher education is a key reason that many American research universities are the best in the world. However, pursuing innovation in teaching and in education research are areas in which, I believe, we can make progress more rapidly through a better balance between competition and large-scale collaboration.”

More information about the event can be found here.

Other upcoming events:

• January 10 speaking at The HigherEd Tech Summit in Las Vegas: http://higheredtechsummit.com/2605-2/
• January 16 Keynote at Teaching with Technology Conference at Towson University
• January 23 speaking at the University of Illinois Trustees Retreat
• January 25 speaking at American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Annual Meeting in Atlanta http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annualmeeting/AM13/index.cfm

We will present an update of the OLI Anatomy & Physiology course currently in development, discuss the use of these OLI materials in the classroom, and share overall experiences teaching A&P content in general. The outcomes of this webinar are to promote community involvement and sharing of ideas, as well as gain insights that we can incorporate into the developing course in order to better support the faculty using it and their students’ learning of the content.

We hope you can join us!

We will offer this webinar twice in December:

• Friday, December 7, 2:30 pm ET
• Wednesday, December 19, 2:30 pm ET

Join the call by dialing (559)546-1200 and using the code 125-753-470 followed by the # key
To join the webinar, go to http://cmusv.adobeconnect.com/apfaculty/ at the start time, and enter as guest.

Schlafly describes how she and her colleague, Yong Lee, helped professor Parina Patel create more consistency between lab sections and more integration between the lecture and lab portions of her statistics course. They attended an OLI Platform+ workshop and created new course content using our platform, to be used during the lab sections.

Professor Parina Patel

At Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Parina Patel teaches two courses on statistics for international relations, one for undergraduates and one for graduate students. Both classes are structured with a weekly lecture and a smaller lab session led by a teaching assistant. Frustrated by inconsistencies across lab sections and a disconnect between lab and lecture sessions, Parina turned to OLI as a way to ensure that her students were all on the same footing.

Oded Meyer (longtime contributor to OLI at Carnegie Mellon, now Associate Professor of the Practice of Statistics and Scholar in Residence at CNDLS) was able to advise her on the pedagogical process of developing content for OLI. The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), where I work, offered technical support for the project.

The Process

Parina, my colleague Yong Lee from CNDLS, and I traveled to Pittsburgh in July to take part in the Platform+ developers’ workshop at CMU. The OLI team helped us create content in Google Docs, convert it to XML, troubleshoot everything, and refine the content.

Developing appropriate learning outcomes, structuring the presentation of the content, and creating targeted feedback for learning activities proved to be time-consuming, but ultimately paid off. On the technical side, the learning curve was a bit steep, but Yong and I eventually settled into a workflow. We successfully made our ambitious deadline of publishing materials in time for Parina’s first class meeting at the end of August.

Ryan Walter

Professor Oded Meyer

In the Classroom

We were able to integrate OLI into the first lab session of Parina’s course, and are also using OLI for all of the problem sets throughout the semester. During the lab session, students worked independently through the OLI materials that Parina had designed, and the teaching assistants (as well as Yong and I) were available to answer questions as needed. This seemed to be an ideal format. As Oded explains, “No machine in the world will ever be able to substitute for an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. The advantage of OLI is that it works in conjunction with the teacher.”

Overall, the OLI labs seemed to be a success in terms of Parina’s goals. Students liked being able to work at different paces, and Parina appreciated knowing that all of the lab sections had covered the same content.

Since deploying the initial OLI content earlier this semester, we administered a survey to students and facilitated several focus groups in the lab sessions. Students reported that they appreciated the flexibility of OLI, especially the ability to work at one’s own pace, but they also reported that they liked having the T.A. available to answer questions. They seemed to reinforce Oded’s research findings that the hybrid model—combining face-to-face instruction with OLI materials—is the most effective.

What’s Next

For the spring semester, we plan to make small adjustments to the existing lab content and problem sets, and to begin working on additional modules to be deployed next fall.

Learning Dashboard

We also aim to integrate the Learning Dashboard into the course materials. Parina hopes to use the Learning Dashboard data to refine her lecture content in order to target misconceptions and further strengthen the connection between lab and lecture sessions. We’re excited to continue working on the project, and we hope to have more updates to share soon.

You can read more about Parina’s project, and you can view video clips of Oded talking about OLI.

Ms. Thille will participate in a panel discussion, The Edu-Tech Tsunami: Scaling from 100 to 100,000, alongside Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera, and Zongkai Yang, president of Central China Normal University.

From the agenda:

There has been immense recent interest around the transformational potential of online learning. The promise: quality education for everyone, everywhere, affordably. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) offered by Stanford, MIT, and other major universities have had enrollments of 100,000 or more students with 10,000 or more completing the courses. Both for-profit and non-profit start-ups have emerged and are forging rapidly ahead, for example, Coursera from Stanford, Udacity from Stanford, EdX from MIT-Harvard, and Khan Academy.

Is this excitement just another hype bubble or is technology finally ready to transform education, just as it has transformed and disrupted numerous other aspects of our life? There is considerable optimism that, this time, it is for real. Factors include ubiquitous affordable devices and connectivity, a generation of digital natives, novel pedagogic insights that take advantage of technology for personalized and improved learning outcomes, technology enabling scale to reach students everywhere more affordably, rising costs of education, and associated social and economic pressures. As Thomas Friedman from The New York Times recently put it, “Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary.”

We invite you to this panel to hear directly from the people who are leading this transformation as a highlight of this year’s tenth Asia Faculty Summit. The panel will be chaired by Anoop Gupta, distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research.

See the slides and listen to the audio of the presentation.

• The CC-OLI Overview session is intended for institutional leaders and faculty support staff seeking to understand the approach and participation opportunities.
• The CC-OLI Course Introductions are intended for faculty members who are considering piloting the courses.

CC-OLI Overview

This 30-minute information session will explain how OLI courses are designed and share evidence of how the courses are improving student success. We will also discuss the specific opportunities for involvement in the current research project.

SCHEDULE

• Thursday January 10, 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

CC-OLI Course Introductions

These 30-minute sessions will help faculty members understand the OLI course design approach, the learning outcomes and content areas covered by the course, the steps for evaluating the course more deeply, and participation opportunities.

SCHEDULE

Wednesday August 8

Anatomy and Physiology 1:00 ET/10:00 PT

Biology 2:00 ET/11:00 PT

Psychology 3:00 ET/12:00 PT

Statistics 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Thursday August 16

Anatomy and Physiology 2:00 ET/11:00 PT

Biology 3:00 ET/12:00 PT

Psychology 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Statistics 5:00 ET/2:00 PT

Please note, we will hold additional sessions to support faculty members who are willing to pilot the courses in the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 academic terms. We will guide and support you through the pilot process, and connect you with a community of peers who are also using the CC-OLI course materials.

RSVP

Please confirm your attendance.

Join a Session

To join a session, go to http://cmusv.adobeconnect.com/ccoli-info/ at the start time, and enter as a guest.

We are looking for community college faculty teaching Statistics, Anatomy & Physiology, Biology and Psychology to participate in this exciting research. In addition to receiving access to some state-of-the-art online courses, participating faculty will receive a small stipend. Please join if you are ready to be part of the largest research project in hybrid course effectiveness done to date!

Join Our Research Study >

Read More About the Study [PDF]

Previous studies (done at Carnegie Mellon and one much larger external evaluation by Ithaka S+R in particular) have examined outcomes for students in the OLI Statistics course. Those studies found that students using the OLI Statistics course perform as well as students in traditional classrooms with no online component. However, we do not know how the statistics course or any other courses fare in a community college setting. Nor do we know whether student outcomes are better when students and faculty are using OLI courses as intended. For example, we would expect OLI course materials to provide fewer advantages in classrooms where students rarely use those materials and/or when the faculty themselves are not familiar with the OLI system as opposed to classrooms where faculty and students use OLI course materials regularly.

In our evaluation study, we aim to capture lots of information about the use of OLI courses (not just statistics) by asking faculty and students about their experiences with the course materials and using learning analytics within the courses to verify that use. We expect that this data will provide us with much more information about how the use of OLI course materials is associated with student outcomes. The data will also offer insights that can help OLI support more effective use of their materials among faculty and students.

OLI materials have the potential to enhance what the faculty can offer to students through thoughtfully-designed online activities, virtual labs and simulations that provide students with constant feedback about what they know and need to know. The OLI “learning dashboard” also provides access to student participation and performance data so that faculty can quickly assess the topics and problems with which students are having the most trouble. To learn more about what makes OLI courses unique, see Our Process.

“The most important single result of our study: It calls into question the position of the skeptic who says, ‘I don’t want to try this because it will hurt my students,’ ” says one of the study’s architects, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Read the article, Tapping Technology to Keep Lid on Tuition, on Page A6 of the Thursday, July 19, 2012 edition of The Wall Street Journal or visit WSJ Online here.

Activity design for online learning is a complicated task, and too often the user experience element is neglected.  As an example, last year content expert, who had previously used crossword puzzles to help drill vocabulary in the classroom, wanted to translate this into an OLI activity.  As I sat going through a number of activity types with the course development team, this one leapt out as problematic from an interface perspective.  

Although it is certainly possible to create web-based crossword interfaces, they can be terribly clumsy if done wrong, and require a certain amount of careful planning to do right.  In our case, the goal was not to entertain with a challenging puzzle, but to promote learning.  Engagement is important, but not the primary function of an OLI learning activity.  The interface would present obstacles to the actual goal of learning, as students would have to master the interface to the activity before being able to engage the content it held.  This assessment of the user experience implications lead the team to pursue other activities that would assist in the vocabulary acquisition, avoiding potentially cumbersome interfaces.

Recognizing the cognitive impact of an interface is important. At OLI, our goal is not only to keep course developers in contact with the user experience team, but also to build the course developers’ awareness of design concerns so that they can anticipate potential challenges.

Further information on integrating UX into the development process can be found in our Open Education 2011 presentation which can be viewed on our youtube channel.

Many of the OLI’s current projects involve working to successfully usher more students through community college in less time. But the successful deployment of the online modules at Bryn Mawr suggests that the technology may be good for more than simply getting students to the finish line as efficiently as possible.

Read more

Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate and professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Improvement in post secondary education will require converting teaching from a solo sport to a community based research activity.”

Herb Simon

We believe this is a powerful statement, which comes to us from Nobel Laureate and Carnegie Mellon professor Herb Simon. We’d like to take a moment to explain more deeply how we internalize this observation.

In OLI we are engaged in converting the process of course development and teaching into a community based research activity. One example is the ongoing community based research and development in the OLI statistics course.

The original OLI statistics course was developed by a team composed of statistics faculty from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, learning researchers and designers, software engineers, and human computer interaction experts from Carnegie Mellon. The course has been through multiple iterations based on the student data we have collected and feedback from faculty at multiple institutions who have been using and evaluating the course in support of their teaching.

In 2010, we engaged faculty from community colleges around the country to adapt the course to better fit the needs of community college students. The CC-OLI development team, launched in January 2010, conducted a thorough review of the OLI Statistics course, reviewed the data collected from the 10 institutions that piloted the original course in fall 2009 and identified several major focus areas: Add more and better practice activities in sections of the course where community college students typically struggle (added about 33% more activities). Restructure of major parts of the course in which topics covered by community college curricula are often different than those included in the OLI Statistics course. Add support for statistical software tools and technologies commonly used at community colleges.

The course continues to be used, evaluated and continuously improved with the involvement of faculty from colleges and universities across the country.

Introduction Webinar

“Introduction” focuses on basic OLI use; how to set up your class, administer checkpoints, and use the gradebook.  We’ll focus on the technical side of getting started, with a primary focus on first-time OLI users.  Feel free to bring any questions you have.

Schedule:

Thursday May 24, 1:00 ET/10:00 PT

Friday May 25, 12 noon ET/9:00 PT

Wednesday June 20, 2:00 ET/11:00 PT

Tuesday July 17, 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Effective Use Webinar

“Effective Use” will focus on specific techniques for effectively utilizing the information about student performance that OLI gives you. The information can help you tailor your classroom activities to meet your students’ needs.  In this webinar we’ll focus mostly on how to use and understand the Learning Dashboard, and we’ll touch briefly on different kinds of active learning exercises that you can use to address your students’ needs. We’ll also invite you to share your experiences with each other, or to ask questions.

Schedule:

Tuesday May 29, 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Thursday June 21, 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Wednesday July 18, 1:00 ET/10:00 PT

Join a Webinar

To join a webinar, go to http://cmusv.adobeconnect.com/webinars/ at the start time, and enter as a guest.

Open for business

We at OLI would like to welcome you to our newly redesigned website.  We have taken great care to update and improve all of the information on this site and will continue to work aggressively on updating the site to keep you better informed about OLI and to provide essential information in an easy to use way.

We would enjoy hearing your feedback on the new site and take any suggestions you may have. Visit our website feedback form to tell us how we’re doing!

At the same time, we invite you to interact with us at various social media sites.  We are now on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube!

Prior to the event in DC, Cohon was one of ten university presidents invited to the White House to meet with President Obama to discuss OLI, and how it can help reduce costs and improve productivity of U.S. higher education.
Read more and watch a video of the presentation.

Improving productivity in higher education is essential to strengthening the nation and positioning it to remain competitive in a global marketplace. Without sufficiently increasing student access, enrollment, and attainment in our higher education institutions, the United States risks being surpassed by other nations, becoming less competitive, and failing to tap the full potential of its citizenry. Changing the Production Function in Higher Education is a valuable tool for U.S. college and university leaders to effect and lead a new era of progress and innovation on their campuses.

Read the entire article

This report provides a strategy for improving STEM education during the first two years of college that we believe is responsive to both the challenges and the opportunities that this crucial stage in the STEM education pathway presents.

The report will be released at a public briefing that will take place in the auditorium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Washington DC (closest metro stop: Metro Center).

The timing of this event is subject to change. To attend the event in person, we ask that you register here, and we’ll email registrants with the final details. The event may be video webcast as well.

Treating Higher Ed’s ‘Cost Disease’ With Supersize Online Courses

Oh my God, she’s trying to replace me with a computer.

That’s what some professors think when they hear Candace Thille pitch the online education experiment she directs, the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University…

Read the full profile

In the month of January we will offer a couple of different webinars to help you make the most of OLI in your class, and each will be offered several times.  We hope that you can join us for one or both of them; each will last one hour.

I: Introduction

The Introduction webinar focuses on basic OLI use; how to set up your class, administer checkpoints, and use the gradebook. We’ll focus on the technical side of getting started, with a primary focus on first-time OLI users. Feel free to bring any questions you have.

II: Effective Use

The Effective Use webinar focuses on specific techniques for effective use of the student performance information offered in OLI, which can help you tailor your classroom activities to meet your students’ needs.  In this webinar we’ll focus mostly on how to use and understand the Learning Dashboard, and we’ll touch briefly on different kinds of active learning exercises that you can use to address your students’ needs.  We’ll also invite you to share your experiences with each other, or to ask questions.  In February we’ll have a follow-on webinar focusing more on classroom techniques.

Schedule

To join a webinar, just go to http://cmusv.adobeconnect.com/webinars/ at one of the times listed below, and enter as a guest. If you think you’ll join, it would be great if you could RSVP by responding to this email and indicating which time you plan to join.

Introduction

• Wed Jan 18, 4:00 EST/ 1:00 PST
• Tuesday Jan. 24, 4:00 EST/1:00 PST
• Monday Jan. 30, 2:00 EST/11:00 PST

Effective Use

• Friday Jan 13: 1:00 EST/ 10:00 PST
• Thurs Jan 19, 4:00 EST/ 1:00 PST
• Wed Jan 25, 4:00 EST/1:00 PST
• Tues Jan 31, 2:00 EST/11:00 PST

The Open Education Conference has been described as the annual reunion of the open education family. Each year the conference serves as the world’s premiere venue for research and development related to open education, while simultaneously creating the most friendly and energetic atmosphere you’ll find at any academic conference.

Among the many great keynotes and talks, OLI presented on three different topics. Below, find the videos of those talks along with slides.

• A Case Study in OER within the LMS
  Presentation video | Presentation slides
• Integrating User Experience and Instructional Design
  Presentation video | Presentation slides
• Openness and Learning Analytics
  Presentation video | Presentation slides