The purpose of this study was to examine effective design practices for online courses in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at a large four-year public university in southeastern United States. Our research questions addressed the influence of online design practices on students’ perception of learning and learning satisfaction. An online survey was completed by 537 students from 15 online STEM courses in spring 2016. The survey results indicated that effective online STEM courses integrated active learning activities, interactive engagement strategies, and robust assessments. In particular, assessment design significantly impacted students’ self-perceived learning and learning satisfaction for students of all populations. The findings inform instructors and instructional designers on how to design effective, inclusive, and engaging online STEM curriculum. Online STEM instructors are strongly encouraged to utilize the Universal Design for Learning principles in course design, which benefit all students including students with disabilities.
There are substantial quantitative research and anecdotal reports on blended learning and blended learning courses. However, few research studies focus on what happens at the classroom level. This research study aims to consider the highly contextual environment of effective blended learning courses by identifying the strategies instructors use to unify the face-to-face and online components of their courses to support student success. Using a case study model, interviews were conducted with three community college instructors who were identified as exemplary teachers of blended learning courses in their institutions. The research questions explored in this article are: (R1) What are exemplary community college teachers’ perceived obstacles to student success in blended courses? and (R2) What solutions or strategies do exemplary community college teachers employ to overcome perceived obstacles to student success in blended courses? The interviews were analyzed by the researchers to identify descriptive themes and sub-themes related to student success. It was found that “comfort” emerged as a mediating factor for student success, with “organization,” “communication,” and “support” acting as supporting themes. These findings will be reported as pedagogical strategies and scalable best practices for the design of blended courses that promote student success.
As we move further into the twenty-first century, businesses continue to seek employees with global experience and intercultural competence, but the reality is that many students are unable to gain this experience through study abroad programs for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is value in using web conferencing technology to provide students with access to international learning activities or ways to internationalize the curriculum for students who are unable to travel abroad. This formative case evaluation is the first in a series of iterative studies aimed at developing a viable, sustainable, technology-based solution through design-based research. The Online Learning • There continues to be a need for exploration of alternative solutions for travel abroad. What this paper adds:• The study sets up a design-based process to develop a model that may provide students access to live study abroad activities in the field without requiring travel.• The paper evaluates a unique interactive design for delivering instruction via web conference technology that has possible benefits as an alternative to study abroad constraints.• Qualitative results reveal high levels of student and instructor satisfaction with the web conferencing-based model along with indications of learning effectiveness for online participants. Impact and implications for practice:• This paper describes an effective alternative that could be implemented by institutions of higher learning as a sustainable solution for internationalizing the curriculum. • Through this model, communication, web conferencing, and other technologies provide the capacity to create interactive international experiences at a much more economical value.• The results of this case study indicate that while the immersive experience of traditional study abroad programs cannot be replicated, there is value in providing international activities using web conferencing technology, which also has its own set of benefits for students unable to travel.• The findings also include a list of recommendations for improvement that may be implemented and re-evaluated in a series of iterative designbased studies aimed at improving and refining the model. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article
Florida (UCF), where he has been a full-time faculty member since 1993. His educational research interests focus on classroom instructional technologies and the digitization of STEM assessments. He is Principal Investigator of the NSF Workshop on Digitally-Mediated Team Learning and the organizer of faculty development workshops on Assessment Digitization Innovation and also on Virtualized Active Learning. He has completed over 275 technical and educational publications, 47 funded projects as PI/Co-I, and 22 Ph.D. graduates. He serves as the founding Director of the Evaluation and Proficiency Center (EPC), is an iSTEM Fellow, and the Digital Learning Faculty Fellow at UCF.
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