am learningproject rome2011

http://ww

w.nki.no

Drop-out and Support Services: Analysis of depressing factors

2nd Firb – Am learning seminarAm-learning inferences to develop online distance learning - Contribution for reflection

Torstein Rekkedal

Professor, Norwegian School of Information Technology,

Director R & D, NKI Distance Education, Norway

NKI Online Distance Education

One of Europe’s largest providers of online distance education

More than 120 000 enrolments in online courses since 1987

Broad range of subjects from secondary to bachelor level

About 100 programmes and 400 courses online

About 12 000 active online students in about 40 countries

About 70 % women

Individual start and progress schedules/individual follow-up

Thousands of potential learning partners

Global student catalogue with 1200 profiles

Open intake of qualified students/always room for more students

Student support – what is it?

Teaching and guidiance – facilitation of learning through learning materials

Tutoring/two-way communication through media based non-contiguous communication

Face-to-face instruction Counselling, guidance and follow-up of students – ”non-

academic” support

Student support services: ”…those parts of a distance or electronic learning system, which are additional to the provision of course content.”

Thorpe, 2001

Teaching and learning philosophies – theories of distance education

Independence and autonomy (Michael G. Moore)

”transactional distance” (dialogue and structure)

”learner autonomy” Industrialization of teaching and learning (Otto Peters)

”specialization and division of labour” Gudied didactic conversation – teaching-learning conversation

(Börje Holmberg)

”empathy” and ”supporting organisation” ”Continuity of concern for students” (David Sewart) ”The new paradigm – educational transaction and control” (D.

A. Garrison)

New practice with new technology – ”transaction and control” ”social constructivistic learning”

Drop out and completion

Tinto, V. (1975). Model for drop out from college


Kember, D. (1995). Model for drop out from distance education


Batjelsmit, G. W. (1988). Model for drop out from distance education

Student support in e-learning

Student support services: ”…those part of a distance or electronic learning system, which are additional to the provision of course content.”

Student support applies both to counselling and advice on all aspects of distance study as well as to teaching and guidance within the specific course.

Assumption: Adult distance students are busy people for whom online learning is an activity that has to be accomodated with other responsibilities in family, work and society

Support should not imply added on work but rather lessen the “burden” of study

Student support at NKI

Turn-around time Following up students and introduction to study techniques The personal tutor-counselor Universal accessibility and synthetic speech Supporting management solutions

Computer systems for progression planning and assignment submission Student presentations (closed, restricted to programme, open, global) Student partnerships

Cooperative learning and flexibility Colleague guidance between tutors

Student support services in e-learning (EU Project) ”The Learning Room” – support for vocational rehabilitation

students

Personalizing teaching in a large-scale system

Aspects included in the experiment:






students

Individual adaption of learning materials

Learning materials Universal adaptation and acessibility Speech synthesis of all web materials Easy language Built-in tutor Individual choice of routes through materials Individual choice of exercises and tests Voluntary submissions Visualization and media integration

No real individualization of the pre-produced learning message

The FIRB AM-Learning project represents an interesting innovation






students


NKI introduced the individual planning system in 2004

assignments that are completed

assignments that are delayed according to the plan

assignments that are planned


NKI students have individual progress plans

Copyright: Atle Løkken


The student presentation of my colleague, Aleksander Dye


NKI has 1600 global student presentationshttp://www.nki.no/pp/

www.youtube.com/MortenFP#p/a/u/0/gyQ1u977iwk

http://www.youtube.com/MortenFP#p/a/u/0/gyQ1u977iwk






students


Six Dimensions of Freedom

It is a challenge to combine individual flexibility and cooperation


NKI’s Philosophy on Online Learning:

We facilitate individual freedom within a learning community in which online students serve as mutual resources without being dependent on each other.

We build on adult education principles and seek to foster benefits from both individual freedom and cooperation in online learning communities.

Cooperative learning is based on voluntary participation in a learning community


Cooperative learning:

What do students prefer?

Results from 2011 evaluation study:

Individual flexibility is absolutely most important

Individual flexibility is more important than co-operation

Both aspects are of equal importance

Possibilities for co-operation is more important than individual flexibility

Possibilities for co-operation is absolutely most important






students

Student Support in the NKI Online Distance Education System


Prospective phase – information/guidance


Start-up phase


Learning phase


Graduation and after graduation

Survey

Needs for and satisfaction with support services

Results: Prospective phase Direct personal contact with advisors important

Registration/start-up phase Technical support services important, but little used Introduction to study techniques important and should be improved

Learning phase Most important quality of feedback/quick turn-around time

Survey - Statistics

Survey - Statistics

Relationship between “Usefulness/Importance” of the support elements and“Satisfaction” with the support elements.

Conclusions from the EU Student support in E-learning project

The students find all support services provided to be important, and they are generally satisfied

Recommendations:Priory should be given to:

Close follow up and support during the start-up phase concerning how to get started and how to make personal progression plans.

Introduction to efficient techniques for online learning, specifically for students with little experience from independent learning.

Follow-up and guidance of tutors who do not satisfy requirements concerning turn- around time and quality of comments/feedback to students.

Developing course forums to function better for students who want more interaction with fellow students, without requiring too much participation for students who prefer more individual studies.






students

Research study on measures to support disadvantaged learners - 1

Vocational rehabilitation clients

Special needs

Previous experiences with distance and online learning with little success

Class room and blended learning solutions not suitable


Individual distance learning in the ‘learning room’: Online study as regular individual online student at NKI

Individual choice of courses and study programmes Access to equipment, hardware and software Technical support Personal work space for study Personal support, follow-up and adaptation Support in making study and progression schedules Adaptation for clients with special needs, reading/writing disabilities, number

disabilities, visual handicaps etc. Guidance from local supervisor Possibilities for cooperation Social support from fellow students Possibilities for study relevant practice Structure of life/compulsory attendancy according to agreement


Study status October 2010 for regular students and vocational rehabilitation students started 2006-2009 in the four programmes, Accounting, Salary and Personnel work, Office worker and Caretaker.

Results – views of students, case handlers and local counselors


The research was important because the increased use of the solution and in guiding the work of further development and transfer to other target groups, such as prison inmates.

The interviews demonstrated a consistent satisfaction with the solution among (experienced) casehandlers, local counsellors and rehabilitation students.

The general experiences indicated student success and satisfaction.

The statistical results demonstrated that online learning with adequate local support functions even better than expectations for competence development for vocational rehabilitation clients.

The rehabilitation clients who receives adequate support achieve better than the population of regular online learners at NKI.

Conclusions:

The Am learning project and student support

To me it is quite clear that the am-learning project complements research on drop-out, completion and student support by focusing on another important aspect of learning – message perception, adaptation and understanding. It seems clear that the research of the am-learning project of measuring verbal skills and search for effective it based solutions to support the individual on decoding and understanding of messages is a great supplement to previous distance and online learning research. From our own research there are many indications that reading and text coding is one of the most important aspects of online learning regardless of subject and level Support in text understanding is crucial for many disadvantaged learners – relevant research indicates also that measures to support disadvantaged learners also benefit the average student. However – as authentic academic learning also involves hard mental work is always a question whether reducing cognitive struggle in decoding and understanding concepts increases learning efficiency.

If the project is able to demonstrate that the am-project solutions really increase learning efficiency by automatically adapting messages according to individual needs, it would represent an important step forward in individualized learning support for distance learners.

Thank you!

NKI Internet College: http://www.nki.no/

Powerpoint Presentation: http://home.nettskolen.nki.no/torstein/attachments/article/3/am-learningprojectRome2011.ppt

Torstein Rekkedal home page: http://home.nettskolen.nki.no/torstein/

http://www.nki.no/

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