Designing the “Perfect” Course Best Practices for Distance Education Designing the “Perfect” Course Michael Simonson, Ph.D. Program Professor Instructional Technology and Distance Education Fischler School of Education Field of Dreams.avi

Teacher as ?

Teacher (Nursing Educator?) as Skeuomorph Skeumorph

http://www.nova.edu/~simsmich/

What do we know?

Definition of Distance Education Institution-based formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems/media are used to connect learners, resources and instructors. 6

Coldeway's Quadrants ST SP DT SP ST DP DT DP 2

Teaching Face to Face Instruction Distance Delivered Instruction 2

Staggering Growth of DE

Best Practices Logical and Intuitive Organization Multimedia Use to Present Content High Quality Production Standards Content-Rich Design Meaningful, Quick and Meaningful Interaction Self Pacing Apparent Continuous Evaluation and Revision

Best Practices: Instruction Content Readings Viewings Listenings Interaction Chats Discussions Teamwork Email VOIP Telephone Live Presentations Assessment Exams Presentaitons Writing Journals Blogs

Rules of Thumb For a typical 3-credit course 90 -130 hours of student involvement 10 – 25 students/instructor Clear organization ~ 45 topics, 15 modules, and 3 units Build Communities >5 <10 Grade often and everything <1 instructor posting to 4 student postings

The perfect Course

The Standard? 3 Credit, Carnegie Unit Course = 3 x 750 minutes of class time = 2250 minutes or ~45, 50-minutes classes

Equivalency Theory of Distance Education “Learners, distant and local, should be provide equivalent learning experiences in order for them to achieve similar learning outcomes” 10

Learning Experiences Anything that happens to or with a student that promotes learning, including what is observed, felt, heard, or done.

Chunking of Information Pre-Chunking Post- Chunking

Equivalency Units (vs. Carnegie Units) Modules (3-5/Unit) Topics (3-5/Module, each with a Learning Outcome)

3 x 5 x 5 Approach 3 Units/3Credit Course 5 Modules/Unit 5 Concepts/Module & 1 Objective/Concept

1 Semester Credit = 1 Unit = 5 Modules = 15 Concepts

Trigger Videos A motion media production (most often a video) that presents a dilemma without resolving it, with the intent that this video will lead to a discussion among the group for which it is intended. The dilemma may be of any type – ethical, professional, moral, financial, social, organizational. Mike Simonson,

Exemplary Course WebCT Pages Examples EDD 8123 WebCT Exemplary Course WebCT Pages

Types of Trigger Videos Instructional – Introduction Instructional – Problems Professional Organizational Situations – Vignettes Case Studies