Effective Online Course Design

So pleased to be teaching this timely course.

https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/effective-online-course-design-online

University of Oxford Bio

My bio for University of Oxford

Algonquin BoG Nominee Bio

Kathlyn Bradshaw, EdD in Educational Technology

Professor, School of Business 

Her area of specialization is in business communications. In addition, she teaches online for Oxford University. For over two years Kathlyn chaired the General Education Committee and served on the Essential Employability Skills Committee. Kathlyn’s current research interests include educational technology, open educational resources, cultural historical activity theory, and course design. She has presented at educational conferences in the U.S. and Canada, and has published articles related both to teaching at Algonquin as well as her own research.

Algonquin Voting System

Academic Bio

Dr. Kathlyn Bradshaw (English professor, Algonquin College School of Business) designs, develops, implements, and evaluates face-to-face, blended, and fully online courses. In addition, she teaches Effective Online Tutoring for Oxford University. Her doctorate in Educational Research technology specialization (University of Calgary) involved research into open educational resources (OER), specifically cultural historical activity theory and massive open online course (MOOC) design.

Dr. Bradshaw’s academic publication and presentation accomplishments include

2017   Conceptualizing Formal and Informal Learning in MOOCs as Activity Systems (co-authors Gale Parchoma and Jennifer Lock), Quarterly Review of Distance Learning V18(3) http://www.infoagepub.com/qrde-issue.html?i=p5a8eb8bd309df

2017   Conceptualizing Formal and Informal Learning in MOOCs as Activity Systems, University of Athabasca CIDER Session, https://landing.athabascau.ca/groups/profile/289790/canadian-initiative-for-distance-education-research-cider/tab/359765/sessions

2017   MOOC Pedagogy and Design, Cohere Conference http://cohere.ca/conference-2017/2017-conference-program/

2017   Emerging Pedagogies and Designs for Online Learning, World Conference on Online Learning http://onlinelearning2017.ca/en/speakers-content/bradshaw-kathlyn/

2017   Accounting for Taste: Learning by Doing in the College Classroom, College Quarterly, http://collegequarterly.ca/2017-vol20-num02-spring/accounting-for-taste-learning-by-doing-in-the-college-classroom.html

2017               Boundary Crossing and MOOC Design, Doctor of Education Thesis http://theses.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/3555?mode=full

2015  Crossing Boundaries between Formal and Informal E-learning, Conference on Higher Education, Virginia Tech, http://www.cider.vt.edu/conference/proceedings/2015ConferenceProceedings.pdf

2014   The Frankenstein Bicentennial Project Workshop, Arizona State University

2013   MOOCs and Colleges, AECT Conference, Anaheim California, October 2013

2013  Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference, University of Central Florida, https://www.hetl.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/HETL_Conference_Schedule.pdf

2011  Virtual Learning in a 3D World, CALL Conference, Algonquin College

2010  Virtual Learning in a College Course, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference, March 2011 Second Life, file:///C:/Users/Kathlyn/Downloads/2-2-PB.pdf

Dr. Bradshaw has research interests and application in the use, integration, and evaluation of OER and MOOC, as well as research, design, development, and evaluation of programs and courses (including face-to-face, fully online, and blended). Her professional communications teaching expertise includes working with faculty, staff and senior administrators on specialized departmental projects. 

Boundary Crossing and MOOC Design, Doctor of Education Thesis

Academic Article Published

Conceptualizing Formal and Informal Learning in MOOCs as Activity Systems (co-authors Gale Parchoma and Jennifer Lock), Quarterly Review of Distance Learning V18(3) 
Full Article

University of Athabasca CIDER Session

View Recording

Cohere Conference 2017

MOOC Pedagogy and Design, Cohere Conference 

Conference Program

World Conference on Online Learning

Emerging Pedagogies and Designs for Online Learning

Schedule/Speakers

CHIZINE Reading

Chi Series Reading

Such a great event and group.
The Frankenstein Murders Reading

Accounting for Taste: Learning by Doing in the College Classroom

Kathlyn Bradshaw and Robert Harvey

Abstract

This article presents Edelson and Reiser’s (2006) strategies as a framework for analyzing an instance of authentic practice in a managerial accounting course. Specifically, this article presents an analysis of a managerial accounting project design created to provide learning-by-doing via authentic practice. Students need more than to learn about a profession, such as accounting; they need to learn how to be a professional practitioner. The project design examined offers accounting students the opportunity for authentic learning practiced within a college classroom context: a small-scale manufacturing simulation which offers a real-world authentic learning experience to students.

Key words: learning-by-doing, authentic practice, managerial accounting, simulation

Full Article

The brand new Dr. Kathlyn Elizabeth Bradshaw.

Crossing Boundaries between Formal and Informal E-learning, Conference on Higher Education, Virginia Tech.

CIDER Conference Proceedings 2015

Conversation: Crossing Boundaries Between Formal and Informal E-learning (pp. 316-319)
Kathlyn Bradshaw, Algonquin College School of Business

Abstract: With the advent of Web 2.0, the internet became an environment where even those with limited technical knowledge could share information, ideas, and more. Learning opportunities via the internet range from formal credentialed courses offered by ivy-league universities, to informal how-to videos posted by individuals. This conversation session provides participants an opportunity to consider tensions between formal and informal e-learning within higher education teaching and learning. The conversation will begin with foundational information designed to offer an interpretation of tensions in e-learning. Participants will then explore formal and informal e-learning within their own disciplines, programs, and courses.

What Future for Education?

This is the title of a Coursera MOOC just started this week. So far it has been a busy week of orientation. As always in this sort of course, the diverse international cohort is more than fascinating.
Learning online and course facilitation is a huge interest of mine (see for instance this interview from last year).

The first week's videos - of the course professor (Clare) interviewing Professor Fiona Rodger - set the tone for the course as a whole. In addition, their comments related to formal (or traditional) and informal e-learning hits on a favourite topic of mine.

This week's readings took me back to a highly interactive website covering a host of learning related topics (behaviourism, Bloom's taxonomy, Piaget, and more), as well as an article that almost seems to extend from (or perhaps lead into?) the interview mentioned above.

Technology itself is always a challenge in online courses - for instance taking part and/or coordinating a Hangout is needed this week. While it was easy enough to view the Hangout recorded by the TAs, I have yet to manage to connect with others in this course and create something new.

Overall, this course is highly meta: thinking about learning while engaged in learning.

The MOOC Diaries

Fanshawe College MOOC - Applied Sustainability Module 1

9am EST
The introductory video was short and informative, as was the corresponding written version. The written version also guided me to add a pin to a ZeeMap, but I have yet to figure out how that system works so will opt out of adding my location for now. The introduction also mentioned a link to module one, but I cannot seem to find it. I will try again later today.

What I did accomplish is a plan for my “Platinum Project”. The MOOC has four levels of completion: green, silver, gold and platinum. Currently, I am aiming at the platinum level (but will be happy with gold or silver). One of the options for the Platinum Project is to review an “eco” video game. I am going to propose Amerizone (by Microids)  - although designed with many other objectives in mind, I suspect environmental issues will arise in the game. I will post my idea and see what kind of feedback I get.

7:30pm
Module 1 is now available. There are three short videos (created by the makers of the MOOC) to watch, a few articles to read, and some artefacts (interactive online activities) such as an online tool for measuring you “water footprint”.  I was completely not systematic and tended to do whatever appealed to me. The – likely unsurprising result is that I only managed 50% on the quiz. For Module 2, I will follow the directions.

Action Research: One Moment Please

Chronos and kairos are classical Greek concepts perhaps more often associated with rhetoric. Chronos (after the Greek god of time) likely is the more familiar of the two terms, as it arises to this day in terms such as chronological and chronometer. Chronos thus is concerned with ongoing time, and measuring time. Kairos is a slightly more elusive concept. “Kairos, the qualitative aspect of time, is defined as the right moment, the opportune or due measure”(Artemeva, 2008, p.157).

During a lecture on these notions, I recall Carleton University assistant professor Natasha Artemeva used a unique metaphor to help illustrate the concept of kairos: the moment when the tip of an arrow meets the intersection of threads in the weave of a fabric. As I read Hadfield and Carson, these classical concepts came to mind, particularly in relation to the term moment and its significance in action research in each of the articles.

Simply stated, Hadfield’s concern is with an action research typology he sees as placing him in the role of second-order researcher (2012, p.575). His elegant solution is “to consider technical practical and emancipatory not as separate forms of action research but as ‘moments’ that could occur within any given programme” (p. 576).

As Hinchey point out, “teachers do this kind of analytical thinking all the time” (Hinchey p. 5). What action research does is take this tendency of teacher and make it a more intentional and structured entity “to formalizing the process” (p.5). In this way “the action research process focuses the participant’s attention to one area for an extended period of time” (p.5). Through extrapolation, I might suppose that what Hinchey is suggesting is that the teaching moment thus gets more than a moment’s attention.

 

Carson (2001) documents the workings of his “collaborative action research group” (p.168) in four action research moments.  Specifically, “the four moments in action research described…are examples of new insight into the meaning of developing a peace practice in the everyday life world of [their] work.” (p. 173-174). By focusing on moment, Carson’s group was afforded the opportunity to “reflect on the relationships between these different moments…to support the development of more critically aware practitioners”(Hadfield, 2012 p.576). Action research seemed a viable approach as “traditional educational research cannot tell any individual teacher what exactly will work best in a particular classroom at a particular moment” (Hinchey p.2). Carson’s group very much needed a research approach that would allow examination of moments.

What I thus draw from Hinchey, Hadfield and Carson is a notion that action research is not simply concerned with chronos, but with kairos.  “Action and reflection have made this possible”(Carson, 2001, p. 173-174). Action research involving reflection upon key moments makes this possible.

References

Artemeva, N. (2008). A time to speak, a time to act: A rhetorical genre analysis of a novice engineer’s calculated risk taking. Artemeva, N. & Freedman, A. (eds.) Rhetorical Genre Studies and Beyond. Winnepeg, Manitoba: Inkshed. Retreived from: http://http-server.carleton.ca/~nartemev/Artemeva%20&%20Freedman%20Rhetorical%20Genre%20Studies%20and%20beyond.pdf

Carson, T. (1990). What kind of knowing is critical action research? Theory into Practice, 29(3), 167-193.

Hadfield, R. (2012). Becoming critical again: Reconnecting critical social theory with the practice of action research. Educational Action Research 20(4), 571–585.




Hinchey, P. (2008). Action research Primer. New York: Peter Lang.

THE MOOC DIARIES

One big question surrounding MOOCs is whether they are simply a trend, and so soon to die out, or a serious online education game changer. It does not seem that long ago that MOOC was just a funny sound. The Horizon Report (Johnson et al, 2013) admits the topic of MOOCs – arguably a worldwide phenomenon now "was hardly a thought bubble during the discussions for the NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition" (p.11).  

Last year, I signed up for a Game Theory MOOC course through Coursera, but barely even lurked. The quality of the course was fine, as was the modularized content. The topic itself was of general interest to me, but not enough to do more than lurk briefly in the first module and then never return. I did remain somewhat connect to the highly helpful and informative e-mail updates on the course that continued to arrive regularly.

This spring, I am registered in Fanshawe College’s Applied Sustainability MOOC. This MOOC interests me on a number of levels, and so I intend to participate as fully as possible – starting with today’s (before the course has even officially started) introductory post.

Flipping School

Coursera

http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html