Deep Learning Through Online Delivery of Technological Courses:
A quest for teaching excellence
Dr Frank Sherkat [HREF1], Senior
Lecturer, Department of Food Science [HREF2], RMIT University
[HREF3] PO Box 2476V, Melbourne,
3001. frank.sherkat@rmit.edu.au
Abstract
RMIT University adopted an online course development and delivery policy in
1997. This paper discusses the experience of staff engaged in the development
of flexible environments within a Science and Technology based program at
the University from the early days of the policy implementation . It also
analyses the learning outcomes of the students engaged in online courses.
Course statistics are reported and the results of course evaluation as well
as the technical and educational issues encountered during preparation and
implementation are discussed.
Introduction
From the early 90s most Australian Universities became interested in Computer
Assisted Learning (Laurillard 1988 and 1993) and the internet's capability
as a powerful medium for delivering flexible course materials for both onshore
and offshore students . The government provided support and encouragement
for this endeavour via funding bodies such as NTDG, CAUT and CUTSD.
From those early days, we became interested in developing electronic learning
tools (Biggs and Telfer, 1993) for our students in the Food Science and Technology
program, with a resulting project in developing a CD ROM on "Thermal Processing".
This was a particularly complex course of high significance to the food industry,
and with which students historically had a lot of trouble. The design and
development of this CD ROM was funded through RMIT University's 'Learn T'
fund. The CD ROM took two years to develop and the resulting learning tool
was implemented in the program with a dramatic improvement in students’ performance
and deep learning of Thermal Processing concepts, principles and application
(Sherkat et al. 1997 [HREF4],
Sherkat & Halmos, 1998 [HREF5]).
Concurrently, RMIT University was also putting emphasis on online developments
via the implementation of an Information Technology Alignment Project (ITAP)
to provide hardware and software infrastructure, and expertise to support
the web presence for all its programs at three different levels A, B and C
(McGovern et al., 1997 [HREF6)].
A Distributed Learning System (DLS) was created and a number of different
platforms were evaluated, with a final decision in favour of CourseInfo, through
the "Blackboard" system.
By 1998, the Faculty of Applied Science became the flag bearer of the University
for these initiatives through establishment of a ‘Flexible Delivery Leadership
Group’ made up of early adopters from each Department. These individuals
were alternatively referred to as either Learning Technology Mentors (LTMs)
or Flexible Delivery Leaders (FDLs). The author, encouraged by his
experiences of development and delivery of the Thermal Processing CD ROM
course during the mid-90s, became a member of this FDLG committee and also
accepted the challenge of converting his courses into a format suitable for
online delivery via the DLS. The role of the FDL within their own department
required providing encouragement, training and support to other staff members
who often had had little or no computer based teaching or Internet experience.
Barriers to online course development
Staff in our Department showed a passionate resistance to online course development
from the early days. This stemmed form a range of reasons including a lack
of computer proficiency, mistrust of institution motives, lack of expertise
in multimedia, time constraints, and doubts about the efficiency of online
courses and their positive impact on students' learning. The challenge of
overcoming these negative attitudes was onerous and very time consuming.
It could not be solved by direct intervention from academic management alone,
as they mostly had similar reservations concerning the pedagogic significance
of the new approach.
Like every academic department, the department housed some ‘dinosaurs’
who were loathe to part with their well-aged, perfected handouts and transparencies,
even though these same individuals had had no trouble embracing white board
and marker in lieu of blackboard and chalk not so long ago! The teething
problems with CourseInfo did not help the situation either, as every time
a demonstration of the software or of courses developed through that medium
was organized it seemed to encounter so many problems that only the staunch
believers of this system could hang on to it. This left a bad impression with
those who otherwise might have been converted into enthusiasts.
Further issues arose due to the external recipient systems being inadequate
or incompatible with the delivered online materials. As an example, a focus
group of students that were conducting formative evaluation of the development
materials (Laurillard, 1994) had a lot of difficulty with remote access to
the course. These difficuties were mostly due to incompatible hardware configurations,
slow modems or instability of the software.
It became imperative that the required technological developments kept
pace with staff development and, more importantly, that enough time was allocated
for staff to come to terms with the reality and necessity of online course
development as well as the needs for course re-design to address proper instructional
design and evaluation. A most important development was the need for every
staff member to identify in their annual work plan, the course(s) they were
‘refurbishing’ for an online presence. It also became evident that involvement
in this type of online activity could improve a staff member's promotion
chances.
It took 3-4 years, however, for the staff in our department to arrive at
the understanding that an online presence of a course not only did not necessitate
the abolishment of face-to-face teaching, but also improved it (Lawlor, 2000),
and that it was a useful course management tool that facilitated communication
between staff and students as well as amongst students themselves. Another
argument in favour of online courses was the inherent suitability of the
medium for delivery of interactive simulations that are very important for
technology related programs and almost impossible to deliver in a classroom,
or even in a laboratory.
We have come a long way since 1997, when we had just one course with a
basic online presence. Compared to that modest start, and despite the uncertainty
and consequent resistance of the staff, over 35% of our courses have an online
presence in 2002, and the list is growing. One contributory factor
to this increase was the initiative, in 2001, of employing a part time multimedia
person and positioning him in a very close proximity to staff offices. The
ease of access to this source of skill, coupled with his particularly supportive
and friendly attitude, has resulted in staff almost competing with each other
for online course development.
Elements of online course development for
delivery through the DLS
To demonstrate the effectiveness of online courses on students’ deep learning
and learning outcomes, I would like to examine the impact of one of my online
courses, namely, "Dairy Science & Technology".
The Blackboard platform for online course development and delivery has
a number of elements as demonstrated in Figure 1. CourseInfo includes active
buttons for: Announcements, Course Information, Staff Information, Course
Documents, Assignments, Communication, External Links and Student Tools.
Access is password protected and only students enrolled in a course can
access it online, whether from within RMIT or remotely. The announcement button
is used almost on a daily basis as an effective medium to give instructions
to students about the course, including new developments or changes to the
weekly activity.
.
Fig. 1. Components of a Blackboard Course in RMIT DLS Site. |
The educational design of the course needed
to be adapted for online delivery through the DLS (Cooper, 1999). This involved:
(1) Providing course information including weekly activity plans,
link to course guide, "graduate attributes" and forms for the
course evaluation.
(2) "Chunking" of the material into topics and sub topics and creation
of a folder and sub folder for each. Each sub topic contained a clear, assessable
learning outcome, a number of documents containing descriptive materials
and links to more supporting materials (Gay et al. 1991). The full
set of lecture notes were also made available from the RMIT Bookshop. A number
of interactive simulations of process lines or the mode of operation of a
piece of equipment were also developed and loaded on the relevant sub-folder.
(3) Under the assignment button students could find the title of
their research assignments for the semester, instructions on expected standards,
guides for referencing and internet URL referencing, submission format and
due dates.
(4) Discussion forums for students to communicate with their lecturer
as well as amongst themselves. This particular feature proved to be a very
powerful medium for peer group learning and self-help amongst the student
cohort.
(5) External Links were also powerful in enabling students
to access the important and relevant government bodies or industry web sites
to complement their learning and to be conscious of the bigger picture relevant
to their studies.
|
In the early days of development, the students needed to be trained and
encouraged to use the DLS (Lim, 2000). There were a number of students who
were uncomfortable with this change, and they could not see the value of
being able to access the course remotely, before or after the scheduled lectures,
when for one reason or another they might miss a lecture. Nowadays,
it comes so naturally to students to check the DLS for the latest announcements
or course materials.
It is possible to collect statistics on a number of students' activities,
such as the times when they access the course, areas from within the course
most commonly used, or even information on an individual learner's access
to the online activities. This is made possible through the control panel
as shown in Figure 2. The ‘Control Panel’ is only visible to the lecturer
through which the contents may be loaded or updated.
Fig. 2. The Course Statistics Button from within the Control Panel
Collecting statistics on students' online activities is a simple matter
of clicking on the "Course Statistics" button on the control panel and entering
the parameters the statistics are needed for, e.g. the period of time, individual
or a group of students or the whole class (Figures 3 & 4).
Fig. 3. Overall Course Statistics
Fig. 4. Statistics on usage date, day & time.
Impact on students' deep learning
Several elements contributed to the achievement of the deep learning outcomes
for this course compared to the outcomes of previous years. The online course
is an excellent medium to teach technological mechanisms as it lends itself
to more impact full imagery and interactive simulations. We were conscious
of the fact that students did not like reading lengthy texts on the computer
screen (Austen, 2000; Lawlor, 2000), so the textual content was kept to a
minimum, and visuals and simulations (Figure 5) were employed to convey the
message more effectively. .
Figure 5. An example of online simulation through the DLS
Like most technology based courses, there are practical classes held in
the laboratory and pilot plant. The required manual for this component is
available online, but hard copies could also be purchased through the book
shop. These hands-on situations help students put their theoretical knowledge
into practice, thus forming hypotheses and achieving deep learning. Another
feature of the course was 3 multiple choice tests during the semester as
a component of progressive assessment. These test were beneficial in maintaining
students' focus on the course. The results of the tests, and other assessment
components such as assignment marks and marks on industry visits and practical
reports, were loaded up to the DLS site as soon as the marking was done.
Thus students could evaluate their own progress throughout the semester.
Learning outcomes
The aggregate marks for the year are usually the best way of evaluating the
achieved learning outcomes. Students' marks over the last 5 years are shown
in table 5. The impact of the online course that became live since the middle
of the first semester in the year 2000 has become even more obvious in 2002.
Table 1. Student performance in the course over the last 4 years expressed
in % of the cohort.
| Attributes \ Years |
1998
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
| High Distinction (> 80%) |
9.75
|
4.00 |
11.76
|
5.66
|
19.04
|
| Distinction (70-79%) |
14.63
|
16.00
|
29.41
|
22.64
|
33.33
|
| Credit (60-69%) |
21.95 |
14.00
|
25.49
|
30.18 |
19.04
|
| Pass (50-59%) |
41.46
|
54.00
|
25.49
|
22.64
|
16.66
|
| Fail (<50%) |
12.19
|
12.00
|
7.84
|
18.86
|
11.90
|
These results reveal that the impact of the new course design including
its online availability has positively and significantly improved students'
performance. This is an indication of their deep learning in the course.
Student feedback
Formal student feedback is usually collected during the final session of each
semester. Generally the majority accepted the DLS quite enthusiastically.
However, there were a few less positive comments as well. One such feedback
was from a student with a slight physical handicap that caused some restriction
to keyboard use. Two students objected to the fact that they had to
print a lot of pages through their personal printers, often with low print
quality, or had to queue up at the library or IT lab to be able to print
somewhat better quality documents. One student complained about the slowness
of his modem that caused him to spend a long time behind his computer. Most
students, however, were very pleased with the fact that they could view their
progress through the course, and found it helpful to adopt strategies
to "catch up" before the next assessment period.
Conclusion
My involvement with online development and delivery in the last few years
has been a challenging journey. There are a lot of new skills to be learned,
especially by staff who teach in non-IT programs. It takes a long time to
become confident enough and proficient with online course development, and
most staff members are already short of this precious commodity. The
fact will remain that there will always be academics who will participate
in these activities wholeheartedly, and on their own time, while others may
find any excuse to delay or avoid any involvement in such developments.
However, once a course is live online, it becomes a very powerful student
learning management tool, where one can put announcements, provide feedback,
send group or individual emails, and create discussion forums for the whole
class or teams of students, and participate in discussions underway. Students,
in general, appreciate the increased flexibility and feedback they receive,
and their results in "Dairy Science & Technology" indicated that
deeper learning had occurred in comparison to previous cohorts who had not
particpated in the online aspects. Most academics that take their teaching
seriously, believe in Boyer's (1990) models of scholarship and are prepared
to open their teaching to peer review in the same way as their scientific
research papers are peer reviewed.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to acknowledge the Assett Research
Group [HREF7] of the Faculty of Appied Science, RMIT University for funding
the project that made this study and presentation possible.
References
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Hypertext References
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Copyright
Frank Sherkat, © 2002. The author assigns to Southern Cross University
and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence
to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided
that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced.
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printed form with the conference papers and for the document to be published
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