LMS content and communication

An quick extract from something I’m currently working on about LMS features that support content and LMS features that support communication. The following chart shows the evolution of these features over time in one particular LMS and indicates the dominance of content related features.

The following chart demonstrates the break down of distance student hits on these features.

This dominance of content features would appear to be a problem as it is contrary to research showing that effective learning occurs when students learn with computers rather than from computers (Oliver, 2005). Others have suggested that the learning process is transitioning from cognitive theories based on the individual to theories that stress the importance of the social nature of learning (Dawson, 2006) .

References.

Dawson, S. (2006). Online forum discussion interactions as an indicator of student community. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(4), 495-510.

Oliver, R. (2005). Using blended learning approaches to enhance teaching and learning outcomes in higher education. Paper presented at the International Association of University Presidents’ Teaching Showcase, Joondalup, WA.

LMS. Education’s swiss army knife

I find it interesting the way that Universities think about their learning management systems (LMS) which are often the primary channel of interaction with their students who coincidentally are the primary source of income for said universities. Take my opinions with a grain of salt as I am probably tainted by my prior experience which was 17 years in the IT service delivery industry where we delivered a tangible product or service that was relatively easy to quantify and therefore easier to rate our effectiveness. Not so with teaching and learning which is a process that is difficult to measure and has a great deal more variables and complexity than IT service delivery.

Learning Styles

People have different learning styles, different motivations, varying preferred learning environments and vastly different backgrounds and experiences. Then Universities attempt to provide a cookie cutter approach by providing an online learning environment in which the student must learn what they are there to learn within the confines of a single tool. Add to this that every course is different in the way that it can/is/should be delivered online will vary greatly depending on the course’s context. By this I mean Physics 101 will apply a different approach to the pedagogical construction of the course than will Rail Signaling 101. I’m not saying what Universities are doing is wrong by selecting single LMS products, there are valid reasons for it, but I do believe they are probably over simplifying what is an incredibly complex process by restricting the environment in which occurs to a single product with a single underlying paradigm that is one of knowledge dissemination. The problem is further complicated by the fact that that university courses have much more of a commercialized nature than has historically been the case and I suspect that this will only get worse as universities will be pushed further by financial restrictions.

Its the paradigm of dissemination that has links to the Indicators project that forms part of my masters. The indicators takes the three categories of interaction (learner-learner, learner-content, learner-instructor) and looks at (online only) user behavior within the LMS against the seven principles of effective under graduate education. Through the Indicators project we hope to provide contextual evidence that the LMS does provide effective content interaction but doesn’t necessarily facilitate well the higher levels of learning such as can be found in the Blooms taxonomy.

The learner-content is the one interaction where the LMS appears to perform very well however the knowledge gained by content interaction can be quite low level and arguably forgotten the soonest. Perhaps this is due to the limitations whereby the content or theoretical knowledge can’t be applied to a particular context or situation as it is learned and therefore can’t be internalized as efficiency as a real situation may allow. Nona has done some work in the area of situated congnition that is worth revisiting and perhaps looking more closely to Snowden’s work, particularly pattern matching, could be worthwhile.

Incorrect quote removed. (Sorry. It was getting late)

There is some research that indicates it may even be more effective than traditional methods like face to face (Ladyshewsky 2004)

So assuming that the LMS is good at the learner-content interaction but is not as good at the learner-learner and learner-instructor interactions, how can we improve the balance? I suspect the answers are in the nature of the social set of interactions and what is learned from other people. My current thinking is that it relates to experience. Working with someone with vast experience on a particular task is, for me, my favorite way of learning which begs the question how can we embed this sort of rich exposure to experience within the confines of the LMS? I’ve no idea at this stage but we are hoping our investigations in to the LMS usage will provide insights into how the students are using the existing resources and then inform a direction we can take to assist with the social aspects that appear to be lacking in the LMS.

Siemens, G. (2004). “Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start learning.” retrieved 20 February from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/lms.htm.

Ladyshewsky, R. K. (2004). “Online learning versus face to face learning: What is the difference?” Teaching and Learning Forum 2004. Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved 20 February from http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2004/ladyshewsky.html

LMS Inidcators Project

Just a quick informal and incomplete post to represent my thoughts before embarking on the literature review to do with the indicators project. In order to use some sort of automatic system to give an indication of the quality of an online course I thought I have a look at what components of an online course can be measured. I’ve started with a rough list; learner, instructor, content, interactions and assessment. Some possible metrics for theses components include:

Learner

• Count. The number of total learners in a course.
• Demographic information. Age, Gender, Mode, english second language etc, campus.

Instructor

• Count. The number of instructors in a course.

Content

• Document statistics. Number and size of embedded documents.
• Course profile. Is it present and current.
• Discussion Board. Does the course have a forum that is available to students.
• Course wide announcements.
• Groups.
• email.

Learner – Learner interactions

• Discussion board postings between students.
• emails.

Learner – Instructor interactions

• Instructor discussion board postings.
• Instructor emails.
• Instructor announcements.

Learner – Content interactions

• Counts of hits on contents items as well as hit timestamps and grouping of the collection based on demographics, content type etc.
• Time on site.
• Data comparisons based on results, demographics etc.

Instructor – Content interactions

• Quantity of instructor updates to content.
• Comparison of content to previous offerings to gauge currency.

Some miscellaneous musings.

• The indicator will be just that; indicators. A purely objective summary of a course can’t truly measure a course’s effectiveness without qualitative evaluations of the course’s specific context. An example is a course based on memorizing a large amount of information will show a vastly different pattern of learner behavior than a course that requires group work and social interaction.
• The indicators project will have to be constructed with agility in mind considering a change of LMS is immanent.
• Further to the first point about context. My unsubstantiated opinion at the moment is that the greater the number of interactions per student (generally) the better their result.
• The grouping of the student cohort will be important. For example I can foresee the AIC cohort demonstrating different patterns of behavior to an oncampus or flex cohort.
• What about BIU? I wonder if they have already done some of the demographic and result work?