Now if you Google that term, how many sites in the top 50 will you find just offering a clear and balanced treatment of what it is, what the recent trends are with it, and what seems to be driving the trends? The answer is none. The closest you’ll find is an article from something called the Encyclopedia of Earth which talks about the environmental economics of local energy subsidies. Everything else is either journal articles or blog posts making an argument about local subsidies. Replying to someone. Building rapport with their audience. Making a specific point about a specific policy. Embedded in specific conversations, specific contexts.

Based on the foregoing theoretical underpinnings, we consider that the social cognitive theory is applicable to the BELS learning context. Accordingly, three factors: learners’ cognitive beliefs (self-efficacy and performance expectations), technological environment (system functionality and content feature), and social environment (interaction and learning climate) are identified and elucidated as the primary dimensions of student learning satisfactions with BELS

The unexpected consequence of this information ecosystem transformation and social restructuring was a Cambrian explosion of bubble realities– communities that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities, and frameworks of facts —  all at war with each other. The uniformity with which we as a society perceive reality began to decrease. Today, there is no institution with the legitimacy capable of bridging these gaps and restoring our capacity for achieving consensus, and neither are there credible technological means with which to create and preserve harmony within a pluralist dissensus. 

If you are working in further education, skills training, vocational education, workplace learning, lifelong learning or adult education, these free online courses are designed to help you understand the benefits of blended learning and how to make more effective use of technology to support your learners.

We have pulled together some resources to help you plan the "flow" of your activities as they alternate between online and face-to-face sessions. This is arguably the most difficult aspect of designing hybrid/blended courses. We are happy to sit down with you and walk through the material below or feel free to peruse these resources on your own and let us know if you have any questions.

The Blended Learning Toolkit – created by Blended Learning Fellowship participants – helps instructors new to blended learning develop the necessary skills to create a successful and engaging blended course. The key to this success is planning and good design.  The resources below are organized around the four phases of course creation: design, develop, deliver, and evaluate. They have been created to help those new to the idea of blended learning become oriented to ideas and concepts related to blended learning and to guide them to helpful programming.

New analysis by the Climate Impact Lab brings more bad news for American skiers already experiencing disappointing conditions at their favorite resorts. Within the next 20 years, the number of days at or below freezing in some of the most popular ski towns in the US will decline by weeks or even a month. If global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the same pace that they did in the first decade of this century, ski resorts could see half as many sub-freezing days compared to historical averages by late century.

Across the CONUS as a whole, total snowfall largely declined between 1930 and 2007, according to a 2009 study cited by the Environmental Protection Agency. That study examined long-term snowfall-station data, finding that snowfall totals dropped by more than half in the Northwest, and also declined sharply in the Southwest.

Research advances in learning and teaching over the past few decades provide a way to meet these challenges. These advances have established expertise in university teaching: a set of skills and knowledge that consistently achieve better learning outcomes than the traditional and still predominant teaching methods practiced by most faculty. Widespread recognition and adoption of these expert practices will profoundly change the nature of university teaching and have a large beneficial impact on higher education.

Explaining requires you to organize and elaborate on the ideas that you are trying to convey to your audience. Depending on your audience, you will have to provide more details and, thereby, engage in deeper processing of the information. On the other hand, if you are asked to simply retrieve ideas from a text, you may be less likely to engage in elaborate structuring or re-organization of the material – at least not to the same extent as preparing an explanation to someone else.

The "doer effect" is an association between the number of online interactive practice activities students' do and their learning outcomes that is not only statistically reliable but has much higher positive effects than other learning resources, such as watching videos or reading text.

Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, the point is made that these approaches ignore both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century that consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process.

The results show that few studies offer learners control over the realization of the blend. Social interaction is generally stimulated through introductory face-to-face meetings, while personalization and monitoring of students’ learning progress is commonly organized through online instructional activities. Finally, little attention is paid to instructional activities that foster an affective learning climate.

In prior work, we found that different student choices oflearning methods (e.g., doing interactive activities, reading onlinetext, or watching online lecture videos) are associated withlearning outcomes [7]. More usage in general is associated withhigher outcomes, but especially for doing activities which has anestimated 6x greater impact on total quiz and final examperformance than reading or video watching.

The present research analyzes the application of learning gamification principles in online, open-book, multiple-choice tests in order to motivate students to engage in repeated retrieval-based learning activities. The results reveal a strong positive correlation between the number of successful retrieval attempts in these tests that cover content from the course textbook, and long-term knowledge retention as demonstrated in a live, final, closed-book, cumulative exam consisting of multiple-choice, labeling, definitions, and open-ended questions covering the content of both textbook readings and lectures.

Quinney et al. (2008 Quinney, A., Hutchings, M. and Scammell, J. 2008. Student and staff experiences of using a virtual community, Wessex Bay, to support interprofessional learning: messages for collaborative practice. Social Work Education, 27(6): 658–664. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]), writing about the development of a virtual town called Wessex Bay, describe how a blended learning approach allowed collaboration to take place between dispersed communities of practitioners, cross-disciplinary student groups, and tutors using bulletin boards, discussion forums and face-to-face interactions. Using evolving case studies they were able to collaboratively develop the skills of problem-solving and case analysis within an authentic community of practice. West (2008 West, J. 2008. Authentic voices: utilising audio and video within an online virtual community. Social Work Education: The International Journal, 27(6): 665–670. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar])

A course design that optimises student engagement and moves away from a purely didactic approach should also encourage learning that has enquiry at its heart. Examples include encouraging interdisciplinary student groups to seek solutions to problem-based case studies. Savin-Baden (2000 Savin-Baden, M. 2000. Problem-based Learning in Higher Education: Untold Stories, Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]) argues the processes of ‘learning by doing’ in these situations can provide learners with opportunities to gain experiences of collaborative working.

Garrison and Vaughan (2008 Garrison, D. R. and Vaughan, N. D. 2008. Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines, 1st edn, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  [Google Scholar]) state that effective blended learning requires educators to incorporate the following three key elements into the learning design process:•thoughtfully integrating face-to-face and online learning;•fundamentally rethinking the course design to optimise student engagement;•restructuring and replacing traditional class contact hours. (Garrison and Vaughan, 2008 Garrison, D. R. and Vaughan, N. D. 2008. Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines, 1st edn, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  [Google Scholar], p. 5)

Work at CEIMH suggests that web-based technologies can help to overcome some of these practical difficulties and bring learners from different disciplines together (Skorga, 2002 Skorga, P. 2002. Interdisciplinary and distance education in the Delta: the Delta Health Education Partnership. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 16(2): 149–157. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]; Juntunen and Heikkinen, 2004 Juntunen, A. and Heikkinen, E. 2004. Lessons from interprofessional e-learning: piloting a care of the elderly module. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 18(3): 269–278. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]). Using the asynchronous collaborative properties these technologies present within a blended learning design has enabled us to help educators create new virtual spaces for meaningful interdisciplinary learning to take place (Miers et al., 2007 Miers, M., Clarke, B., Pollard, C., Rickaby, C., Thomas, J. and Turtle, A. 2007. Online interprofessional learning: the student experience. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 21(5): 529–542. [Crossref], [PubMed], , [Google Scholar]; Reynolds, 2007 Reynolds, J. 2007. Discourses of inter-professionalism. British Journal of Social Work, 37(3): 441–457.  [Google Scholar]; Quinney et al., 2008 Quinney, A., Hutchings, M. and Scammell, J. 2008. Student and staff experiences of using a virtual community, Wessex Bay, to support interprofessional learning: messages for collaborative practice. Social Work Education, 27(6): 658–664. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]).

This paper seeks to address this dearth in the literature by outlining how the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (CEIMH) created a set of resources to guide educators through the processes of creating interdisciplinary enquiry-based blended learning designs (EBBL). The context and rationale for the development of a Blended Learning Design Planner and associated Resource Pack, and Design Icons are outlined.

In social work education, blended learning, a mixture of face-to-face and online interactions enabling collaborative and interactive learning, has been increasingly used as a curriculum strategy and provides the basic ingredients required to facilitate interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities (Cooner and Hickman, 2008 Cooner, T. S. and Hickman, G. 2008. Child protection teaching: students' experiences of a blended learning design. Social Work Education, 27(6): 647–657. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]; Quinney et al., 2008 Quinney, A., Hutchings, M. and Scammell, J. 2008. Student and staff experiences of using a virtual community, Wessex Bay, to support interprofessional learning: messages for collaborative practice. Social Work Education, 27(6): 658–664. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]; West, 2008 West, J. 2008. Authentic voices: utilising audio and video within an online virtual community. Social Work Education: The International Journal, 27(6): 665–670. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]; Pack, 2010 Pack, M. 2010. Allies in learning: critical-reflective practice on-line with allied mental health practitioners. Social Work Education, 29(1): 67–79. [Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]; Cooner, 2010 Cooner, T. S. (2010) ‘Creating opportunities for students in large cohorts to reflect in and on practice: lessons learnt from a formative evaluation of students’ experiences of a technology-enhanced blended learning design’, British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 271–286 [Google Scholar]).

First, since the quality of videos (found to be a top technical challenge) directly/indirectly impacts flipped learning, instructors should pay more attention to the quality of instructional videos (e.g., not too long and keep them interesting) while designing the flipped classroom. There is a need for studies that explore strategies and technologies to produce high quality videos when one has less technical ability and time. Second, it would be better if instructors could provide more interaction/communication tools (these are apparently not commonly used at present) to help students to obtain feedback/help when they are doing tasks/homework outside the class.

Similar to the students, some teachers reported that this model might require more time (14%) and workload (7%). Pre-recording video lectures and preparing other flipped model materials is time consuming for teachers. Designing appropriate accompanying quiz questions and other out-of-class activities requires further time commitment (Howitt & Pegrum, 2015). The actual time needed to prepare flipped course materials can be nearly six times more than traditional course preparation (Wanner & Palmer, 2015).

From the students' perspective, the flipped model requires more time (11%) and work (10%) compared to a traditionally structured course (see Table 2). One possible reason for this is the nature of this model, which prompts students to preview the learning materials for better in-class participation (Hung, 2015). On this point, a study by Smith (2013) found that students generally considered studying lectures outside the classroom to be an extra time burden. According to (Chen et al., 2014), another possible reason is that some of the students acquired passive learning habits from the traditional classroom, where learning requires less time and work.

The most commonly reported problem is students' limited preparation before class time (13%). If a student does not take time to study at home, s/he may not perform well in the classroom activities, and this may diminish the advantages of the flipped classroom (Sayeski, Hamilton-Jones, & Oh, 2015). Hwang, Lai, and Wang (2015) also stated that engaging students in self-learning at home is one of the key factors of seamless flipped learning. Moreover, since students may not be accustomed to this model, they might lose their bearings (i.e., they won't know what to do) in the flipped model. In order to avoid this situation, they need clear guidelines (10%) regarding how they should use their pre-class time and course materials.

We found a number of reported challenges and divided them into five inductive categories (pedagogical, students' and teachers' perspectives, technical & technological, and other). The majority of flipped classroom challenges are related to out-of-class activities, such as inadequate student preparation prior to class and the students' need for guidance at home.

Collaborative learning broadly “is a situation in which learners interact in a collaborative way” (Dillenbourg, 1999, p. 8). Collaborative learning leads to deeper learning and shared understanding (Kreijns, Kirschner, & Jochems, 2003), and it provides opportunities for students to develop social skills (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). Flipped classrooms incorporate collaborative learning. Students are responsible for their own learning; they participate in small-group activities; they learn in an active mode; and the teacher maintains a facilitator role.

According to Nederveld and Berge (2015), several opportunities for peer-assisted learning exist in flipped classrooms, in both class activities (e.g., collaboratively solving problems, cooperating to complete projects) and out-of-class activities by means of technology (e.g., discussion boards, social network sites).

Active learning can be simply defined as “any instructional method that engages students in the learning process” (Prince, 2004, p. 223). Active learning requires that students engage in meaningful learning activities (Sohrabi & Iraj, 2016) and that they be accountable for their own learning (Blaschke, 2012). In flipped classrooms, students experience active learning (Lai & Hwang, 2016) and have opportunities to perform higher order thinking activities (Roehl, Reddy, & Shannon, 2013). As Davies, Dean, and Ball (2013) stated, in flipped classrooms students are transformed from passive listeners into active learners.

For example, in the flipped model student learning achievement and satisfaction may be enhanced (Missildine, Fountain, Summers, & Gosselin, 2013); students may be more satisfied with the flipped method; and it can be more economical than traditional instruction (O'Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). However, challenges can include more required time to redesign the course as a flipped classroom (Schlairet, Green, & Benton, 2014), low self-regulated behaviors by some students (Sun, Wu, & Lee, 2017), and the resulting failure of some students to properly schedule their time to comprehend the out-of-class learning content (Lai & Hwang, 2016).

A key finding from our data is that successful students interact with the online components of a flipped class in a timely manner as compared with students in a standard-format class. That is, the students in the flipped course prepare for class work and avoid the “cramming” style of study for summative assessments, complete the online work more accurately, and perform better on the summative assessments. An important question surrounding this improvement is the role of the flipped-course environment in these improvements. We think that two aspects of the flipped class lead to this improvement: the increase in active student exercises in the classroom coupled to online course content. There is no doubt that active-learning classrooms improve student outcomes, and it has been argued that, for a flipped course, it is active learning that drives improved student outcomes (Jensen et al., 2015; Stockwell et al., 2015). In our case, we believe that the active flipped classroom leads to a student’s expectation that attending class will require preparation. Additionally, the active classroom, with point-generating activities included in the class sessions, intrinsically encourages students to attend and participate in the activities. Because the flipped classroom offers a clear and reinforcing online experience in the form of recorded “lectures” aligned with online homework, students are encouraged to prepare before class and well before an exam deadline.

Our findings demonstrate that there are substantial, positive differences in how students approach a flipped course as compared with a standard-format course. The flipped course encourages students to become more engaged with course material, persist in their learning through more timely and accurate preparation, and, ultimately, perform better. Specifically, this enhanced interaction induces better student preparation for class meetings in the flipped learning environment. More cycles of timely preparation in a flipped class likely improve in-class interactions, which position students to be more accurate in answering online homework problems. This increased accuracy extends to exams, for which grades improve substantially, particularly for lower-GPA students and female students.

Overall, students did not feel that they learned more in the flipped-course version compared with the standard course (despite having better exam scores); however, flipped-format students did rank their course version better overall than did students in the standard-course version (Supplemental Figure S1A).

The flipped-course format relied heavily on online material presented outside of class, including prerecorded lecture videos. Although there was a broad variation in students’ access of these videos, there was a significant correlation between average exam score and video access, r(235) = 0.22, p < 0.001 (Figure 5A). Students in the flipped-format course with higher exam scores viewed online lecture material more consistently than students with lower exam scores.

First, use of the same online material differed substantially between the standard course and the flipped course. Students in the flipped class attempted online homework questions more often, F(1, 445) = 38.41, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.08 (Figure 2A). This difference was not evident for homework completed by the end of the semester (Supplemental Material Table S2). Second, although all students were most likely to attempt homework problems during the week of an exam (p values < 0.001) regardless of class mode, students in the flipped class worked through the online homework more steadily, that is, across the span of weeks, than did students in the standard class.

Similar to results from other interventions involving a more active and engaged classroom experience (Freeman et al., 2014), when compared with the standard-course format for student cohorts in the flipped-course format we found significant improvements in exam scores for each of the three exams (p < 0.01).

In this paper, we examine what college science students do differently or more intensely in preparing for the more active, flipped-course environment that can be directly linked to better exam performance. The flipped structure prompts students to review material earlier and more often than in the standard note-taking, lecture-based course. For example, the structure of the flipped environment may provide students impetus for less crammed, more uniform interaction with the course material throughout the semester. Long-standing cognitive psychology research highlights the benefits of spacing out learning activities over time in contrast to blocked learning, for example, short-term cramming in the lead-up to an exam (Bahrick et al., 1993; Son, 2004). In addition, the weekly preclass assignment, which is necessary to participate in a flipped environment, may provide needed structure to engage with course content more deliberately (Baepler et al., 2014). If so, this increased student persistence in a more timely and accurate manner could account for performance gains in the flipped environment (Preszler et al., 2007; Estrada et al., 2011; Graham et al., 2013).

The flipped college science course provides the majority of standard lecture material online as assigned preclass homework, and thus allows for in-class instruction that is more active and engaging for students (Day and Foley, 2006). An active-learning environment provides benefits that are well-known in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012; Graham et al., 2013; Freeman et al., 2014), including improved test performance for all students (Haak et al., 2011). For example, a recent meta-analysis of the effect of online instruction blended with in-class instruction suggests that the flipped-class format improves student outcomes by ∼13% in STEM classes (Bernard et al., 2014)

king. It can be hypothesized, for instance, that the student condition curiosity and the learning environment condition team teaching have a positive relationship with the development of interdisciplinary thinking. In addition, phased with gradual advancement appears to be a desirable condition of the learning process that is positively related with the learning outcome interdisciplinary thinking and so on. Importantly, a proper balance between knowledge and skills development, repeated exposure, and scaffolding appears to be required to enable interdisciplinary thinking (Ivanitskaya et al. 2002; Manathunga et al. 2006; Woods

Graybill et al. 2006; Newell 1992). The third category, pedagogy, includes three conditions: pedagogy aimed at achieving interdisciplinarity, pedagogy aimed at achieving active learning, and pedagogy aimed at achieving collaboration. These conditions seem to point to the necessity of learning tasks that actively engage students in applying knowledge rather than memorizing facts, in collaboration with peers in other disciplines to encourage an appreciation of ambiguity (Manathunga et al. 2006). In addition, such learning tasks need to provide students with the opportunity to gain experience of inquiry activities typical of interdisciplinarity, for instance, the negotiation of common gro

e inside or outside courses on interdisciplinary. In particular, an overarching framework that links and sequences curricular content seems to be essential to provide both context and a roadmap for learning (Newell 1992). The second category, teacher, contains five conditions: intellectual community focused on interdiscipli nary, expertise of teachers on interdisciplinarity, consensus on interdisciplinarity, team development, and team teaching. These conditions refer to the importance of teacher teams and their professional development in interdisciplinarity as a means of facilitating the necessary understanding and integration of each others' disciplines and of realizing a safe environment in which to mentor students on their journey towards interdisciplinarity (Gilkey and Earp 2006;

y, and interdisciplinarity. Acquisition of these types of knowledge appears to be required for enabling students to step beyond the disciplinary theories and methods in order to make connections between disciplines, to identify disciplinary contradictions, and to consider opportunities for integration at a meta-level (Boix Mansilla and Duraising 2007). In particular, explicit attention to the students' exposure to disciplines and meta coordination seems to be important to avoid their feeling overwhelmed and losing the curricular thread (Eisen e

The evaluation based on the principles of Biggs' theory (2003) showed that all publications reviewed were explorative. The research field is still in the phase of attempting to deepen the understanding of the nature of interdisciplinary higher education. This formative stage of development can be attributed to the perceived lack of specific educational models and empirical research in this field (e.g., Woods 2007). Accordingly, strong empirical studies addressing the research questions of this review study were lacki

inking among its students. Realizing desired learning outcomes demands consistent and well-designed learning environments within a coherent and learner-centered curriculum (Ten Dam et al. 2004). For this reason, curriculum and course developers need a comprehensive understanding of the typical conditions that underpin the development of interdisciplinary thinking (Stefani 2009). This necessitates, for example, gaining insight into the extent to which students need to be equipped with knowledge of different disciplines as well as didactic

Students have problems of working across disciplines, working in different disciplines, and synthesizing different disciplines. This poses difficulties for the development of interdisciplinary thinking in interdisciplinary higher education. These student problems may be caused by disciplinary differences in epistemologies, discourses, and ways of teaching (Bradbeer 1999). In addition, curricula that aim to develop interdisciplinary thinking on a broad scale are likely to experience more difficulties than curricula that aim to develop interdisciplinary thinking on a narrow scale. This is by virtue of the fact that, in contrast to narrow interdisciplinary thinking, broad interdisciplinary thinking requires the integration of disciplines acro

Unlike multidisciplinarity, which is additive, interdisciplinarity is integrative: Knowledge of different disciplines is contrasted and changed by integration (Klein 1990). This integration or synthesis of knowledge is seen as the defining characteristic of interdisciplinarity. As a consequence, the ability to synthesize or integrate is considered as a beneficial learning outcome of interdisciplinary higher education. In that case, the learning outcome is called interdisciplinary understanding or interdisciplinary thinking. Boix Mansilla et al. (2000, p. 219) proposed the following definition of interdisciplinary understanding, "The capacity to integrate knowledge and modes of thinking in two or more disciplines or established areas of expertise to produce a cognitive advancement—such as explaining a phenomenon, solving a problem, or creating a product—in ways that would have been impossible or unlikely through single disciplinary means." This definition builds on a performance view of understanding, meaning that individuals understand a concept when they are able to apply it—or think with it—accurately and flexibly in

Interdisciplinary can help to address today's complex issues since it is believed that a cross disciplinaiy approach facilitates a comprehensive understanding (Newell 2007). This belief has led to an increased interest in interdisciplinary higher education over the years (Newell 2009). In comparison with traditional higher education, which focuses on domain-specific knowledge and general skills development, this kind of higher education also aims to develop boundary crossing skills. Boundary-crossing skills are, for instance, the ability to change perspectives, to synthesize knowledge of diffe

Importantly, a proper balance between knowledge and skills development, repeated exposure, and scaffolding appears to be required to enable interdisciplinary thinking (Ivanitskaya et al. 2002; Manathunga et al. 2006; Woods

The academic benefit, evidence, and competitive advantages are clear; only the will and commitment remains. Blended learning can begin the necessary process of redefining higher education institutions as being learning centered and facilitating a higher learning experience.

There are a variety of possible explanations for these outcomes. In essence, though, we assert that it begins by questioning the dominance of the lecture in favor of more active and meaningful learning activities and tasks.

There is evidence that blended learning has the potential to be more effective and efficient when compared to a traditional classroom model Heterick & Twigg, 2003, Twigg, 2003. The evidence is that students achieve as well, or better, on exams and are satisfied with the approach.

The emphasis must shift from assimilating information to constructing meaning and confirming understanding in a community of inquiry. This process is about discourse that challenges accepted beliefs, which is rarely accomplished by students in isolation. At the same time, to be a critical thinker is to take control of one's thought processes and gain a metacognitive understanding of these processes (i.e., learn to learn). A blended learning context can provide the independence and increased control essential to developing critical thinking. Along with the increased control that a blended learning context encourages is a scaffolded acceptance of responsibility for constructing meaning and understanding.

The real test of blended learning is the effective integration of the two main components (face-to-face and Internet technology) such that we are not just adding on to the existing dominant approach or method. This holds true whether it be a face-to-face or a fully Internet-based learning experience. A blended learning design represents a significant departure from either of these approaches. It represents a fundamental reconceptualization and reorganization of the teaching and learning dynamic, starting with various specific contextual needs and contingencies (e.g., discipline, developmental level, and resources).

Blended learning is both simple and complex. At its simplest, blended learning is the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences. There is considerable intuitive appeal to the concept of integrating the strengths of synchronous (face-to-face) and asynchronous (text-based Internet) learning activities. At the same time, there is considerable complexity in its implementation with the challenge of virtually limitless design possibilities and applicability to so many contexts.

Team Teaching an Interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar on Magic, Religion, and the Origins of Science: A ‘Pieces-to-Picture’ Approach

(1)If you were responsible for teaching this course, what parts of it would you keep without making any changes?(2)Thus far, which lectures and/or class activities have you found most engaging and instructive?(3)What would you change about the course if you were responsible for teaching it?(4)Which lectures and/or class activities have been the least engaging and instructive?

Achieving the intellectual integration and coherence that interdisciplinarity demands is difficult, as a balance on the scale of interdependence between the instructorsand their fields must be attained(Shapiro &Dempsey,2008)

here are major limitations to interdisciplinary approaches. One is thatinterdisciplinary work, by its very definition, touches only the surface of any given discipline. Previous scholars have also documented this consequence, emphasizing the tradeoff between breadth and depth of mastery of knowledge in interdisciplinary classes (Caviglia &Hatley,2004).

Thirdly, interdisciplinary work must yield more knowledge than that produced by any constituent discipline. For example, the tension between economics and sociology (i.e. the tension between individual choice and social determinism) adds a richer resonance to the study of the individual within a larger social matrix

Firstly, interdisciplinary work consists of two or more distinct disciplines brought to bear upon a single subject matter. Therefore, studying magic from sociological, economic, and anthropological frameworks fits the first criterion. Secondly, interdisciplinary work encourages a synthesis of the various approaches involved; it produces a coherent, integrated body of knowledge. Even though our coursebegan as a multidisciplinary endeavor—that is, three separate disciplines remaining unintegrated—it evolved into a more coherent approach

previous authors have advocated presenting the courseas an entirely new interdisciplinary field which contains elements from each of the distinct theoretical lenses used (Krometis, Clark, Gonzalez,& Leslie, 2011)

Interdisciplinary flipped learning for engineering classrooms in higher education: Students’ motivational regulation and design achievement

Bishop and Verleger 3 suggested the following two key learning theories to design a flipped engineering classroom that supports student‐centered classroom activities: peer‐assisted collaborative learning and problem‐based learning. First, in‐class activities must be designed to support students’ engagement through a peer‐assisted learning approach. While being involved in peer‐assisted collaborative learning with matched companions, each peer takes responsibility for conveying knowledge and skills to the other peer. As Biswas et al. 4 noted, the resulting sense of responsibility motivates participating peers to consider effective strategies to communicate the given classroom activities to others, set aside time to reflect upon their own learning progress, and find alternative ways of collaborating with peers based on different learning styles and individual differences.

Previous studies showed that students participating in flipped classrooms were better prepared when working on subsequent in‐class activities 27. Studies also reported positive outcomes in students’ engagement and satisfaction 7, 25. Tune et al. 37 found that students who participated in a flipped classroom showed higher achievement than students in a traditional classroom.

Consider the find-ings of Lord (1997), who conducted one of the first studies examiningthe impact of student-centered, constructive approaches in the introduc-tory biology classroom. Lord found that students who learned via col-laborative activities exhibited significantly greater gains in their ability tointerpret data and apply scientific concepts to novel situations. This find-ing is echoed by other studies in which students exhibited greater gains intheir ability to solve problems and design experiments when learning withina student-centered biology classroom (Burrowes 2003; Cortright, Collins,and DiCarlo 2005; Giuliodori, Lujan, and DiCarlo 2006; Wilke and Straits2001).

A variety of studies(both in flipped classrooms and traditional classrooms) indicate that lecturewebcasts are a highly effective method for delivering course content, and insome cases, are more effective than face-to-face lectures for enhancing stu-dent learning (McKinney, Dyck, and Luber 2009; Parslow 2009; Shaw andMolnar 2011).

The recognition of learning gains associ-ated with the implementation of more active learning strategies—as wellas the reluctance of many STEM faculty to adopt such strategies—has ledseveral education advisory bodies, including the National Science Foun-dation (NSF 1996), the National Research Council (NRC 2003), and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS 2009), to is-sue calls for significant reform in undergraduate science and mathemat-ics education.

studies within the science classroom resound-ingly demonstrate that the most effective strategies for teaching students tothink and act like scientists (to generate hypotheses, to design sound ex-periments, to analyze and interpret data) involve their active engagementin collaborative, inquiry-based learning activities, rather than their passiveengagement in traditional lectures, where the scientific method is merelydiscussed or modeled (Handelsman, Miller, and Pfund 2007)

What does it meanto think and act like a literary critic or a biologist? And how can we cre-ate these situations in class? Teaching the “attitudes, values, and disposi-tions” of a discipline or profession (Shulman 2005, 55) is not somethingthat can be accomplished through traditional “transfer of information” lec-tures alone. Numerous studies from multiple disciplines now indicate thatdeep disciplinary learning takes place when students are challenged withlearning activities that actively engage them in the habits of mind that drivetheir discipline.

During class time academics function more as a learning coach than as a teacher, using F2F class time for both individual inquiry and collaborative activities that clarify concepts and contextualise knowledge through application, analyse, planning and producing solutions (Anderson, Krathwohl, & Airasian, 2001). The results of the scoping review suggest instructors need to redesign their curriculum so that the pre-class activities are integrated better into their F2F classes with active learning pedagogies so students understand the model and are motivated to prepare for class; how these resources are integrated into the overall approach is what matters (Tucker, 2012).

In addition, the flipped classroom fosters student ownership of learning through the completion of preparatory work and being more interactive during actual class time. Proponents of flipped class suggest that this pedagogical approach is advantageous for a number of reasons; it allows students to learn at their own pace and that they may have flexibility of when they engage with electronic resources, it frees up actual class time for robust discussion and associated problem solving activities related to the aforementioned resources, and that these discussions could be initiated by the students, not the staff member.

Fourthly, students understand that they are expected to apply their acquired knowledge in classroom activities so that they are more motivated to learn prior to attending classes (Baepler, Walker, & Driessen, 2014). Students tackle real world problems requiring active participation and collaborative learning in the classroom (Crouch & Mazur, 2001). Collaborative learning means all “team members tackle the problems together in a coordinated effort” (Ng, 2008, p. 726), and it is regarded as a successful strategy for building rapport among team members and maximizing learning (Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Johnson, Johnson, & Stanne, 2000). Moreover, peer interaction is positively related to academic achievement and college satisfaction (Astin, 1984, 1993).

Thirdly, the flipped classroom provides multiple opportunities for students to interact with digital materials and with peers in class, so that they learn actively, rather than passively as in a teacher-centered approach. Frequent interactions with faculty members have increased student learning satisfaction (Astin, 1984).

Indeed, pre-recorded lecture videos are particularly useful for slower students because they can watch the online videos multiple times until they have mastered the subject content (Mok, 2014). Students were much better prepared in class (McCallum, Schultz, Sellke, & Spartz, 2015) when they were given video lectures rather than textbook readings (De Grazia, Falconer, Nicodemus, & Medlin, 2012).

Instead of relying on textbook materials, educators select and evaluate learning materials with reference to students' prior knowledge and learning outcomes so that students are able to learn more effectively, in their own space, and at their own pace, than in traditional classes (Chen, Wang, Kinshuk, & Chen, 2014). When designing and facilitating online and class activities, educators embrace the value of assessment for learning, that is to say, assessments are embedded in the learning process to provide formative feedback to students and educators (Biggs, 1996; Black, Harrison, & Lee, 2003; Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2004) rather than being assessments of learning, that is to say, summative assessments.

The rationale of flipped classroom is to facilitate students in becoming self-regulated learners. Self-regulation entails an active monitoring and regulation of various learning processes that involve setting learning goals, aligning learning approaches and resources, and actively responding to feedback to improve final outcomes

This study examines publically available guides, documents, and books that espouse best or effective practices in blended course design to determine commonalities among such practices. A qualitative meta-analysis reveals common principles regarding the design process, pedagogical strategies, classroom and online technology utilization, assessment strategies, and course implementation and student readiness

Others have called for faculty to render explicit in the classroom the typically hidden ways of thinking and doing by disciplinary experts–not simply to model expertise but to shift students from recipients of others’ meaning-making to agents of their own meaning-making

In this FLT article, I am introducing a new pedagogy I call the Pedagogy of Retrieval. This is the pedagogy I use to try to interrupt the automatic use of lower potential learning strategies in my flipped classrooms at The University of Texas at Austin, and it is built on the collective body of research and efforts of my colleagues mentioned above.

Thus, the integration of multiple modalities can be beneficial for learning and this practice is conflated with the learning styles neuromyth. In other words, this particular neuromyth presents a challenge to the education field because it seems to be supporting effective instructional practice, but for the wrong reasons. To dispel this particular myth might inadvertently discourage diversity in instructional approaches if it is not paired with explicit discussion of the distinctions between learning styles theory and multimodal instruction.

Believe it or not, the people you interact with have as much of an impact on your education and mental well-being as the worksheets you diligently tackle, the essays you write, and the textbook chapters you’re assigned to absorb. So how do we create opportunities outside of traditional tools? Where can students collaborate and learn from a variety of different professionals?

Inside Digital Learning asked four authors of books about online education for their expert advice on how instructors and their institutions can excel in virtual course instruction. The authors agreed that the online classroom is different enough from the traditional one that faculty members and adjuncts need to create courses for digital delivery that are substantially different from those they teach on campus. And they said teaching online requires an even keener focus on student engagement than the face-to-face model does.

Predicting successful completion using studentdelay indicators in undergraduate self-pacedonline courses

This edited book represents a sliver, albeit a substantial one, of the scholarship on the science of learning and its application in educational settings. Most of the work described in this book is based on theory and research in cognitive psychology. Although much, but not all, of what is presented is focused on learning in college and university settings, teachers of all academic levels may find the recommendations made by chapter authors of service.

This is, in essence, how all algorithms work. It’s how filter bubbles are made. A little bit of computer code tracks what you find engaging—what sorts of videos do you watch most often, and for the longest periods of time?—then sends you more of that kind of stuff. Viewed a certain way, YouTube Kids is offering programming that’s very specifically tailored to what children want to see. Kids are actually selecting it themselves, right down to the second they lose interest and choose to tap on something else. The YouTube app, in other words, is a giant reflection of what kids want. In this way, it opens a special kind of window into a child’s psyche.

VALUE rubrics provide needed tools to assess students’ own authentic work, produced across students’ diverse learning pathways, fields of study and institutions, to determine whether and how well students are meeting graduation level achievement in learning outcomes that both employers and faculty consider essential.

n this article, we outline the basic features of the strategy that Cracolice and Roth (1996) refer to: the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), which is also known as the Keller Plan. PSI is a non-traditional method of teaching that thousands of instructors have used at colleges and universities since the 1960s. Although PSI is an effective and empirically validated method of instruction, many traditional and distance educators are unfamiliar with the system, mainly because dissemination of the method occurred during the 1970s, before an entire generation of instructors assumed their positions, and before distance learning came into prominence.

It used rich media and a mix of traditional and emerging asynchronous computer-mediated communication tools to determine what forms of interaction learners in a self-paced online course value most and what impact they perceive interaction to have on their overall learning experience. This study demonstrated that depending on the specific circumstance, not all forms of interaction may be either equally valued by learners or effective.

The central objectiveof this pilot was to examinehow adaptation ofthe new MIT edX 6.002x (Electronics and Circuits) MOOC-contentin a flipped model of teaching mightimprove student learning in a credit-bearing college course. Multiple objectives for this pilot included: (1) improve thedepartment’s typicalpassage rate of 59%for this course; (2)improve students’ retention rate; (3) shorten students’ time-to-degree; (4) improve the quality of the content of the course; and (5) reducethe prerequisite contribution for successful passageof subsequent courses.

The performance of students in a remedial college mathematics course was examined as a function of class format (self-paced or lecture), achievement goal orientation and mathematics anxiety.

Although the classes were taught differently, the final course grades were not different. This is contrary to earlier research (Canelos & Ozbeki, 1983; Eniaiyeju, 1983) which found an advantage for self-paced instruction. Previous researchers did not look specifically at remedial mathematics classes and this may be one reason for the difference in results. Another possible reason may be that the self-paced class in this study lacked one aspect often found in self-paced instruction: a mastery-oriented method. While these self-paced students had the opportunity to take the test several times and count the highest grade, there was no requirement that they achieve a certain level of achievement before advancing to the next level as the mastery method requires. Buskist, Cush, & DeGrandpre (1991) found the mastery criterion to be an important variable in the success of self-paced instruction.

Teachers can continually remind students to narrow their focus to a step by step, systematic process, to persist and to acknowledge and reinforce persistence. When, for a variety of reasons, students do not use this mastery orientation, teachers can help students see how they lower their own achievement.

The University of Michigan Teach-Out Series offers an opportunity for learners around the world to come together with our campus community in conversation on topics of widespread interest.

Thisstudyexaminesthecomponentsofaself-pacedonlinecoursespecificallydesignedtoincorporateweb-basedpedagogytocreateanengaginganddynamiclearningenvironment.Itcomparesstudentperformanceinaself-pacedonlinecourse,aconventionalonlinecourseandatraditionalin-classcourseandrevealsthepotentialforstudentstothriveinawidevarietyofonlinecourseformats

A course design question for self-paced courses includes whether or not technological measures should be used in course design to force students to follow the sequence intended by the course author. This study examined learner behavior to understand whether the sequence of student assignment submissions in a self-paced distance course is related to successful completion of the course.

Clark’s work with developmental math is part of a bigger transformation going on at Oregon State. A three-year, $515,000 initiative funded by an Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) grant is enabling educators to overhaul eight high-enrollment general education courses classrooms with adaptive and interactive learning systems.

If it can be established that student self motivation has a direct effect on remediation, it stands to reason that by finding a way to increase a student’s self motivation, the remediation process can be improved to increase the likelihood of success for a student who requires the use of remedial courses in the specialized classroom setting. Attempting to understand the factors that create a learning environment of poor motivation is an arduous task, but attempting to improve those factors that increase motivation is imperative.

Not-yetness emerged as a response to a dominant discourse of technology in education—including technologies of openness—that has been characterised by rhetoric of control, efficiency, and enhancement. Not-yetness invites a rethinking of online learning and digital education in terms of risk, uncertainty, and messiness and brings our attention to the variability of open education contexts and learners. Using examples of a ‘federated wiki’ and ‘agents beyond the course’, the article shows how higher education pedagogies can and should engage with boundary-crossings between openness and closure, and demonstrates the value of the perspectives that such engagements bring to the fore.

“Education on all levels has to move from packaging to probing, from the mere convey-ing of data to the experimental discovering of new dimensions of experience. The search will have to be for patterns of experience and discovery of principles of organization which have universal application, not for facts. ... It is the orientation of the society that matters, and our whole world, in shifting from the old mechanical forms to the new electronic feed-back forms, has already shifted from data packaging to probing of patterns.” (McLu-han, 1966, 38)

This paper highlights four themes arising out of research that is underway within an international framework of collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo.

A conversation featuring two leaders of the Hypothes.is annotation project: Jeremy Dean, Director of Education, and Jon Udel, Director, Integration.

Neatline is a geotemporal exhibit-builder that allows you to create beautiful, complex maps, image annotations, and narrative sequences from Omeka collections of archives and artifacts, and to connect your maps and narratives with timelines that are more-than-usually sensitive to ambiguity and nuance.

Starbird is publishing her paper as a sort of warning. The information networks we’ve built are almost perfectly designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities to rumor.

ePortfolios enable social pedagogies, providing an intermediate space between public and private. ePortfoliosareparticularlywell-suitedforsociallearninginteractionsbecausetheycanbesituatedasintermediatespaces,somewherebetweenentirelyprivateandtotallypublic.GuidedbyfacultystudentsrehearsewhatitmeanstoconnectwithanaudienceandconsiderwhattheirePortfoliolooksliketoothers.InventingwaysinwhichePortfolioscanserveassitesforcommunication,collaboration,andexchangeisasignificanttaskfortheePortfoliofieldasawhole.

Again, here we can understand this group as people who have failed at the real world and have checked out of it and into the fantasy worlds of internet forums and videos games. These are men without jobs, without prospects, and by extension (so they declaimed) without girlfriends. Their only recourse, the only place they feel effective, is the safe, perfectly cultivated worlds of the games they enter. By consequence of their defeat, the distant, abstract concept of women in the flesh makes them feel humiliated and rejected. Yet, in the one space they feel they can escape the realities of this, the world of the video game, here (to them, it seems) women want to assert their presence and power.

challenge that calls for undergraduate liberal education today to prepare students to solve unscripted problems—these are problems where the “right answer” is still unknown and where any answer may be actively contested (LEAP Challenge: Education for a World of Unstructured Problems).

Given the fundamentally different mechanics of Internet distribution, those Facebook numbers make a lot more sense: the extremes inspire passion which drives engagement; “broadly acceptable” doesn’t go anywhere. This has profound implications for products and politics. First and foremost, it is fundamentally misguided to simply view “digital” as another channel that you layer on top of traditional marketing/campaign tactics like TV advertisements. In fact, products and politicians designed for the TV age — that is, meant to be palatable to the greatest number of people — are at a fundamental disadvantage on platforms like Facebook. The products and politicians that win inspire passion, stirring up a level of engagement that breaks through on a scale that far exceeds an ad buy. To put it another way, above I mentioned “paid” media and “earned” media; what matters on the Internet is “inspired” media.

Given this necessity, assessment management systems will most likely be a part of campus life from now on. But don't call them "ePortfolios." They are assessment management systems, or what a friend said really should be called "accreditation management systems," and most likely they are not designed to support the learning values traditionally associated with portfolios.

Rather than think of these two instantiations of the portfolio idea as a duality, however, let's separate out "ePortfolios" by their purpose and function: learning portfolios, advising portfolios (or student development portfolios), student showcase portfolios, assessment management systems, and other varieties of portfolios such as patient portfolios used in specialized situations. "ePortfolio" is the de-facto umbrella term but should not be confused with any one of the varieties of ePortfolio uses.

The STIRS framework consists of four components designed to fit together as part of an integrative bachelor’s degree. The four components are Evidence—What It Is and How It Is Used: Defining and using evidence across the disciplines Research Methods: Obtaining and ensuring the quality of evidence Evidence-Based Problem Solving: Using evidence to define and solve problems Evidence-Based Decision Making: Using evidence to define options and make decisions.

Misinformation and fake news triggers hot cognition— it bypasses your focus on accuracy and goes directly to your feelings,” says Joseph Kahne, a professor of education at UC Riverside who studies engagement with media and politics online. “If the misinformation confirms their prior policy position, they are far more likely to say its accurate.”

The electronic Personal Development Plan (ePDP) is a tool for helping students engage in a process that facilitates greater understanding of who they are and enables them to set meaningful goals

In the spreadsheet below, you can see (and download) the latest data describing TrumpWorld. Each row represents a connection between a person and an organization (e.g., The Trump Organization Inc. and Donald J. Trump), a person and another person (e.g., Donald J. Trump and Linda McMahon), or two organizations (e.g., Bedford Hills Corp. and Seven Springs LLC).Now we are asking the public to use our data to find connections we may have missed, and to give us context we don’t currently understand. We hope you will help us — and the public — learn more about TrumpWorld and how this unprecedented array of businesses might affect public policy.

In this environment, personalization has taken root, allowing us to target, segment, augment, and compartmentalize the world wide web into smaller much more marketable, and safer bubbles. We have even given the average citizens knobs and levers to pull and twist to further speed up and dial in the process, where they only see, hear, and engage in what they want, and what makes them feel safe. Exactly the version of the web and the world we want to see will be sold to us in real-time, bit by bit, transaction by transaction--it was fun while it lasted.

We need to create learner-centered learning environments to help our students develop agency. That means we are helping them engage with what interests them and apply it in their life. We need to help our students build learning networks. These begin in the classroom with social pedagogies and build outward beyond the course and campus to connect locally and globally. We need to help our students develop the ability to integrate their own education, to connect their disparate learning experiences and apply it in their daily lives. This is all the more important in the context of the new majority of students who are non-traditional and learn both from formal institutions and from many informal sources online. We cannot rely on the traditional four-year college experience to promote integration and, frankly, we can’t do it for our students—integration is something students must do for themselves.  Instead we can provide the conditions. Finally, we need to be adaptive—keeping up with new learning data and applying it to improve our learning environments, whether the new innovation is automated adaptive learning modules for basic knowledge or eportfolios for evidence of integrative and applied learning.

In terms of promotion the problem is the people trying to explain it [the eportfolio] have probably never used it so in a way they have no clue what they are talking about, basically. To put it frankly – after listening to them you would be like, Okay so you as an outsider who never even used it is telling us we should do this because it is the best thing since sliced bread but you have never used it – you can’t find someone who did use it – you don’t have enough information to tell us how to use it – and now you’re telling us use it and we’ll grade you on it – this kind of makes it hard for students to accept or appreciate it.

What emerges from his work is a fascinating picture of what is effectively a rightwing propaganda machine built from more than 300 fake news sites and containing something like 1.3m hyperlink connections. Albright also mapped the hidden online trackers hosted by these sites. This is similar to the tracking ecosystem behind most commercial websites. But in the rightwing case, these trackers are coming away with information not about consumption preferences but about the possible political or ideological predilections of site visitors.

Experimental research shows that, to achieve success in disseminating propaganda, the variety of sources matters:• Multiple sources are more persuasive than a single source, especially if those sources contain different arguments that point to the same conclusion.• Receiving the same or similar message from multiple sources is more persuasive.

Today’s American fascist youth is neither the strapping Aryan jock-patriot nor the skinheaded, jackbooted punk: The fascist millennial is a pasty nerd watching shitty meme videos on YouTube, listening to EDM, and harassing black women on Twitter. Self-styled “nerds” are the core youth vanguard of crypto-populist fascist movements. And they are the ones most likely to seize the opportunities presented by the Trump presidency.

For nearly three decades, the religion of technology and GDP and the crude 19th-century calculus of self-interest have dominated politics and intellectual life. Today, the society of entrepreneurial individuals competing in the rational market reveals unplumbed depths of misery and despair; it spawns a nihilistic rebellion against order itself.

These lamentations for simpler times – that all we lack is the right sort of spine-stiffening democratic leader, or rational culture, or cultural unity, or patriotic spirit – ignore the fragmented nature of our politics. Social and technological developments are not liberal or conservative, democratic or authoritarian; they are as prone to enshrine LGBT rights as to reinstate torture and disseminate fake news. Nor does the longing for the good old days adequately respond to the massive crisis of legitimacy facing democratic institutions today.

When it comes to news sources, the stories tweeted by Trump (and the staffers who sometimes manage his Twitter account) suggest that he is unfazed by news of questionable accuracy, likely to rely on hyper-partisan news, and apt to promote mainstream news only when it validates his opinions. While politicians from both sides of the aisle use their Twitter accounts to share content that furthers their agendas, Trump’s reliance on sources and stories of questionable accuracy stands out both in frequency and in engagement.

What happens when the industry destroyed is professional politics, the institutions leveled are the same few that prop up liberal democracy, and the values the internet disseminates are racism, nationalism, and demagoguery?

For the past 11 years, an eternity in internet time, Reddit has touted itself—repeatedly, and loudly—as the place to have “authentic conversations” online. For a variety of reasons, that sentiment has always rang hollow. Now, Reddit, in its goal to be a laissez-faire haven of (relatively) free expression, has been overrun by nationalist trolls. Its staff of volunteer moderators is losing hope in the site’s future.

s. When ePortfolios are focused on process rather than product alone (i.e., how students have made sense of ideas over time), they can become a tool for identifying and supporting metacognition, allowing students to look into their prior, current, and post-educational experiences and “to talk across them, to connect them, totrace the contradictions among them, and to create a contingent sense of them” (Yancey, 2009,

ly, research on the relationship of performance, self-efficacy, and metacognition has shown that undergraduate students with mastery goals (i.e., goals to master a particular subject), rather than simply performance goals (i.e., goals to simply perform well on a test), will have a higher GPA; the students with these mastery goals also tend to have higher metacognitive awareness (

Luther and Barnes (2015) stated that one purpose of the ePortfolio for their students is to “reflect upon developmental growth and skill application” (p. 27). It is clear here that the researchers aim to encourage students to demonstrate their metacognitive abilities in their ePortfolios; evidence of this is referred to as “reflective statements” in their assessment rubric (Luther & Barnes, 2015, p. 33). Later, they stated that educators should “teach and model the use of a feedback and refl

This study explores the possibility of gaining a more holistic view of student learning, especially metacognition, through ePortfolio analysis and shows that ePortfolios can be discussed and assessed across programs and units of the universi

students and faculty need a domain of their own, an online space they control to curate and present their work in ways that are consistent with the values and commitments of their research

we can’t leave something as important as teaching and learning on the web to institutions—no less the archiving and preservation of those resources. That has to be managed by faculty and students themselves as part of a broader sense of awareness of owning and managing their digital education.

Staggered Versus All-At-Once Content Release in Massive Open Online Courses: Evaluating a Natural Experiment

When initiating e-portfolio projects, campuses often begin by deciding on a specific technology to support e-portfolios. Common criteria for such technologies include cost and ease of use, but as recent research demonstrates, another criterion is equally important: the ways the technology is programmatically formative. Although e-portfolios are not themselves about technology, any technology—be it the common tool, the open source software, the homegrown system, the commercially available e-portfolio tool, or the Web 2.0 social network—is a “structured system” (Johnson 2009) and will permit or support certain kinds of activities and preclude others. Penn State University’s research on electronic portfolios provides an excellent example of how this works. The Penn State team initially hoped for a single e-portfolio “enterprise solution,” but increasingly found a disconnect between their interest in institutional program assessment and their equally important commitment to fostering student dialogue and participation.

In other words, the Penn State original plan for e-portfolios consisted of finding an enterprise system solution that would support learning for all students while at the same time providing an administrative ‘back door’ through which an aggregation of rich assessment data related to learning could be harvested. Such a hypothetical system to satisfy all these needs is untenable (Johnson 2009)

(1) program-specific learning outcome templates for MovableType, which supports student e-portfolio activity and dialogue; (2) backtrack to e-portfolios from student resume samples, which supports internal student reflection on artifacts seen in multiple contexts (course, program, and employment) that can prompt new engagement and learning; and (3) an assessment management system, which provides faculty the opportunity to identify and tag key learning artifacts. In this more differentiated approach, the selection of technologies is more than rhetorical.

Because students create the e-portfolios under investigation, researchers can turn to them for insight into the effects of creating an e-portfolio, including the role e-portfolios play in teacher education candidates’ understanding of assessment (e.g. at the University of Nebraska–Omaha [Topp and Goeman]), or the reasons for the connections among artifacts (e.g. by Clemson psychology students [Stephens 2009]). Put simply, students’ explanations, whether through reflective commentary or interviews, provide a window into the e-portfolio experience.

“have already proven that they have the knowledge to answer specific questions by passing their classes, but it is just as important for them to demonstrate that they can make connections among those things they have learned. This is where I believe the value of the e-portfolio lies” (Weaver 2005)

The FSU career e-portfolio, like several e-portfolio models, isn’t limited to academic courses. Rather, it provides space for learning to occur in three areas: (1) curricular situations, which are largely course-based; (2) cocurricular situations, which are often linked to the curriculum (e.g., service learning opportunities, internships, peer tutoring, and leadership experiences); and (3) extracurricular situations (e.g., jobs, sports activities, etc.). The matrix structure FSU uses to foster this multicontextual thinking—what FSU calls a Skills Matrix—resembles the general education matrix created at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).