Online Course Criticism Blog

2008 Sloan ALN Poster Session

2008-11-05T11:18:00.003-05:00

George Bradford and I presented a poster session at the 2008 Sloan ALN Conference entitled Social Bookmarking Lessons Learned: Harnessing the Power of Networked Bibliographic Resources for Web 2.0 Learning.

Included below are supporting resources for this session.

Audio summary of session [mp3 file; time=11 minutes]

Handouts [zip file; size=147 kb]

Contents of Handouts Packet:
Comparison Chart of Two Social Bookmarking Sites
Creating Social Bookmarking Assignments
Sample Student Instructions for Using Diigo
Sample Bibliography Assignment Rubric

BrevardCC Hybrid Course Workshops

2007-09-29T10:46:00.001-04:00

I presented a workshop at Brevard Community College (CFCC) on 9/27-28/2007 to "kick-off" BCC's faculty development course on hybrid course design.
Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session. Hybrid Course Materials [zip file; size=147 kb]

Contents of Packet:
PowerPoint presentation
Hybrid course environment/course experience guidelines
Generational cohorts sheet
Long-Dziuban Reactive Behavior Types instrument
Small group discussion guide

CFCC Workshop: Designing Effective Online Course Environments

2007-01-11T14:58:00.000-05:00

I presented a workshop at Central Florida Community College (CFCC) on 1/8/2007 titled, "Designing Effective Online Course Environments."

Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session. Since we discussed concept maps during the workshop, below the link to the zip file is a link to some materials I've created on concept mapping.

Online Course Environment Materials [zip file; size=47 kb]

Concept Mapping

Contents of Packet:

Session Agenda
PowerPoint presentation (including linked files)
Online Course Environment handout
Best practices handout
Peer review worksheet

FDLC Webinar: Pedagogy of Teaching Online Courses

2006-10-12T12:23:00.000-04:00

I'm presenting some of the ideas from the Online Course Quality Review and the Online Course Criticism Model at a webinar sponsored by the Florida Distance Learning Consortium on October 12, 2006.

PowerPoint Presentation [pdf file; size=1.7MB]

P-ADL Seminar: Online Course Quality

2006-10-12T12:11:00.000-04:00

I presented some of the ideas from the Online Course Quality Review and the Online Course Criticism Model at the P-ADL seminar How Do You Know It When You See It? Wrestling with Quality in Online Courses on March 23, 2006.

I'm including a PowerPoint from the session here.

PowerPoint Presentation [ppt file; size=56kb]

CFCC Presentation: "Does My Course Get an 'A'?"

2006-02-16T00:07:00.000-05:00

I'm preparing to make a presentation at Central Florida Community College (CFCC) tomorrow titled, Does My Course Get An A? (Recognizing Quality in Online Courses).

Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session plus some extras that I didn't copy for the session (some are lengthy).

Online Quality Session Materials [zip file; size=421 kb]

Contents of Packet:
Session agenda
PowerPoint presentation (including linked files)
List of selected standards (10 sets, 400+ standards)
Online Course Quality Review form
Details on foundational constructs underlying OCQR (lengthy)
Draft article: "What Is Online Course Quality?"

Online Course Quality Review

2006-02-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

As the first step toward a "draft" pattern language for online courses, I recently compiled over 400 "standards" from ten different documents, using the interpretive perspectives from the Online Course Criticism Model as filters. To this I've been adding my own thoughts and the themes from the first online course criticism. More about that later.

One of the outgrowths of this exercise has been an intermediate point between the robustness of online course criticism and the sparseness of most standards "checklist" tools. It is called the Online Course Quality Review (OCQR). You can think of it as a "narrative report card" if that means anything to you (with typical course reviews being analogous to traditional report cards). It is connoisseur-based (like the online course criticisms), but it contains a finite number of prescriptive categories (like the checklists).

I've been using the OCQR recently in reviewing several online courses for a client. The course instructors seem appreciative of the level of detail provided in the OCQR. You can take a look at version 1.0 of the tool below.

Feel free to let me know if you decide to use it or if you'd like to have someone complete a review for you.

Online Course Quality Review version 1.0 [pdf; size=91.8kb]

2005 Sloan ALN Conference: "Pattern Language" Presentation

2005-11-18T17:32:00.000-05:00

I am presenting aspects of the Online Course Criticism Model in a session titled: Toward A Pattern Language for the Design of Online Courses

The session description follows:
"Informed by pattern language models from urban design, this session will help participants explore the possibilities afforded by having a shared pattern language for online courses. If rich descriptions of “patterns” in diverse instructional contexts can be articulated, those concerned with understanding or designing such contexts will have a “language” with which to communicate. To get to this point, however, characteristics of many courses from a variety of disciplines and institutions need to be identified. To this end, participants will be encouraged to follow a consistent educational criticism approach so that course characteristics can be identified and readily shared among the practitioner community. Resources will be distributed to participants, and discussion will be encouraged during the session."

PowerPoint Presentation [ppt file; size=125kb]

"Symphonic" Aspects of the OCC Model

2005-11-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

"Symphony," the third aptitude articulated by Pink, denotes a propensity for integrating constructs from diverse fields in new combinations. An emphasis is placed upon seeing the relationships between relationships. Arguably this is the most prominent aptitude manifested in Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses: A Model for Implementation by Practioners.

As summarized in Chs 1 & 6, constructs from instructional theory (Chs 1 & 5), Eisner's connoisseurship and criticism approach (Ch 2), qualitative research case study (Ch 4), typology examples from urban design & architecture, forensic science, archival studies, and archaeology (Ch 3), and a way of conceptualizing building construction (Ch 5) are presented alongside characteristics of online courses (Ch 3).

Personally, I find it helpful to look to fields other than one's own for insights and inspirations that bring about new ways of seeing and solving familiar problems.

In addition to the resources recommended in Pink's "portfolio," I have found these helpful:
- A Whack On the Side of the Head
- Whack Pack
- Conversations with knowledgable people from unfamiliar fields

(I would also suggest a tangentially-related book on prototype theory by Lakoff called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things in addition to Lakoff's book on metaphor recommended by Pink.)

Training A Department Chair to Recognize Quality in Online Learning

2005-11-17T13:40:00.000-05:00

Recently I have been involved in several inter-institutional conversations in which the need for department chairpersons to be able to recognize quality in online courses has arisen. The focus of these types of conversations tends to be on rubrics or checklists. However, to counterbalance these approaches (which do have value in their own right), I thought I would point to some specific elements of the Online Course Criticism Model that might be somewhat helpful in accomplishing this goal. While my focus in this model wasn't on training per se, I was motivated to find a way to help people who are inexperienced with quality online learning to become more aware (among other goals).

Let me point out a couple of sections from Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses: A Model for Implementation by Practitioners relevant to this question:

- One paragraph (on pages 173-174 of the pdf or 156-157 of the printed document) briefly explains the value of Online Course Criticism in "educating" those without online course experience.

- This idea is expounded upon in an earlier section (specifically pp 55-56 of the pdf or pp 38-39 of the printed document, but that whole chapter adds more depth).

- The importance of a robust, qualitative approach (as opposed to relying only on a "checkboxing" approach) is summarized in the paragraph starting at the bottom of p. 45-46 (pdf) or p. 28-29 (printed).

- The Online Course Criticism model is summarized in Chapter 6 (pdf page 114 or printed page 97), and an example criticism is provided in Chapter 7 (pdf page 136 or printed page 119). The "Portrayal" section (p. 137-149 or p 120-132) is probably *most* helpful as an illustration.

I'm curious to hear the thoughts of others on relevance/irrelevance of this kind of approach to "training" of chairpersons or others.

The "Story" Sense of Educational Criticism

2005-09-04T17:45:00.000-04:00

Pink's second aptitude is "story,"
the capability of conveying compressed information with emotional impact through narrative. Pink asserts that the value of this aptitude is in its compatibility with human cognitive processes and its appeal to emotions, leading to a powerful mode of human-to-human communication applicable in many vocational contexts.

In Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses, I emphasize the role of Eisner's conceptualization of rich, evocative description in educational criticisms. While such descriptions are not explicitly required to be narrative in nature, they do lend themselves to the telling of story. (Certainly, the description contained in my example criticism is presented in the form of a narrative.) By their nature, stories draw readers into another setting and cause them to care to some extent about the characters encountered there. Although Pink doesn't elaborate on the defining characteristics of story, McDaniel (2004) observes that stories rise from an introduction (beginning) to a climax (middle) and fall to a denouement (end). Or as Bruner (1996) notes:

At a minimum, a "story" (fictional or actual) involves an Agent who Acts to achieve a Goal in a recognizable Setting by the use of certain Means. What drives the story, what makes it worth telling, is some misfit between Agents, Acts, Goals, Settings, and Means" (p. 94).

That is, there must be some reason to conduct an educational criticism of a particular context.

If educational criticism consisted only of description (narrative or otherwise), it would be appropriately categorized as a genre of literature or journalism. However, as I detail in Chapter 4 of Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses, when description is supplemented by theoretically-based interpretation, evaluation and themes from a connoisseur's perspective, and is supported by a rigorous methodology,
educational criticism is clearly a form of qualitative case study research.

References
Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

McDaniel, T. (2004).
A Software-Based Knowledge Management System Using Narrative Texts . Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Central Florida: Orlando, FL.

Pink's "Design" Aptitude

2005-08-25T09:16:00.000-04:00

The first of Pink's six "senses" that he believes necessary for success in the Conceptual Age is "design." Design, as depicted by Pink, centers around the facilitation of experience by the artful creation of artifacts.

In Chapters 1 and 6 of Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses I make a similar connection between instructional experiences and instructional environments:

In online courses the virtual environment is distributed across multiple venues and includes the instructional experience arising from the interactions each learner has with other learners,instructor(s), and materials. There is an instructional experience that is unique to each individual, but there is also an aggregate instructional experience arising from all the interactions of all the individuals in the course. Although online courses exist at moments in time, the instructional experience and the broader learning environment produce artifacts that can be studied (Thompson, 2005, p. 101).

Pink's view of design privileges the visual arts (although consider his exploration of a design problem from the 2000 presidential election that a good technical writer or instructional designer could've avoided). Design is presented as a marriage between utility and significance.

In Chapter 3 I consider design as the dichotomy between arrangement and intent (or "description vs. design") that Belland,Duncan, and Deckman (1991) suggest:
"Criticism may provide insight into the unifying theme(s) and design(s) which help to hold [online courses] together in all [their] richness and complexity" (Belland, Duncan, and Deckman, 1991, p.157).

While a connoisseur/critic may be successful, based only on her experience and observations, in applying Eisner’s (1985, 1991) basic approach by describing the arrangement of elements within (and including) the “whole” of an online course, providing counterpoised interpretational perspectives on the arrangement, evaluating the educational value of the arrangement, and articulating themes arising from the arrangement, she can only infer the designer’s intent unless she is able to obtain information directly from the designer (Thompson, 2005, pp. 36-37).

Pink's "portfolio" exercises for cultivating an aptitude for design can be applied in the context of instructional experiences and environments as well.

A few examples:

1) The admonition to carry a notebook in which particularly well-designed instructional environments and experiences are reflected upon.

2) The "Put It On the Table" exercise, in particular, would be a rich source of such reflections.

3) Finally, Karim Rashid's quote on p. 92 could easily refer to the artifacts and experiences of instruction as a focusing mantra:

"Experience is the most important part of living, and the exchange of ideas and human contact is all life really is. Space and objects can encourage increased experiences or distract from our experiences."

References

Belland, J., Duncan, J., and Deckman, M. (1991). Criticism as Methodology for Research in Educational Technology. In D. Hlynka and J. Belland (Eds.), Paradigms Regained: The Uses of Illuminative, Semiotic and Post-Modern Criticism as Modes of Inquiry in Educational Technology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Eisner, E. (1985). The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Eisner, E. (1991). The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Thompson, K. (2005). Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses: A Model for Implementation by Practitioners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Central Florida: Orlando, FL.

"A Whole New Mind" Necessary for Online Course Criticisms

2005-08-19T12:10:00.000-04:00

I have been reading Dan Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age" during the past week, and I am struck by the degree to which Pink's proposed aptitudes for success in today's "conceptual age" matches with my intent in creating the Online Course Criticism Model.

Using the old right brain/left brain dichotomy as a metaphor for two complementary approaches to thinking, Pink makes a business case for developing six aptitudes that will beef up the atrophied "right brains" most of us have so as to better complement our over-developed "left brains."

I'll post some reflections on the individual aptitudes (i.e., design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning) later on. Check out http://danpink.com for more.

Complete Dissertation

2005-08-19T10:24:00.000-04:00

My complete dissertation includes the following sections:

Reading This Dissertation
Introduction
The Case for Connoisseurship
On Criticizing Online Courses
On Conducting Case Studies of Online Courses
The Lenses We Wear Determine What We See
Presenting the Online Course Criticism Model
Applying the Model
"Conclusion:" The Road Forward from Here

All frontmatter and backmatter are included as well.

Complete Dissertation [pdf size=2.61MB]

An Example Criticism

2005-08-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

One example online course criticism is provided in Chapter 7 of my dissertation. I will stress that, although this example is consistent with the Online Course Criticism Model, this is only one way of writing an online course criticism. Other critics will undoubtedly produce criticisms that are different in style, tone, and organization depending upon their unique perspectives and the characteristics of the courses they study.

An Example Criticism [pdf size=598k]

Summary of the Model

2005-08-19T10:22:00.000-04:00

The Online Course Criticism Model is summarized in Chapter 6 of my dissertation. As noted in the overview, the model includes a conceptual framework, procedural guidelines, and required elements for inclusion in the written criticism.

Summary of the Model [pdf size=751k]

Overview of Online Course Criticism

2005-08-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

Online courses are complex, human-driven contexts for formal learning. We might want to study them in order to learn more about:

Essential components of online courses
Effectiveness of online courses relative to other modes of instruction
Best practices in instructional and management strategies of online courses

Studying online courses is fraught with challenges. This difficulty is exacerbated, however, by the fact that “online course” means different things in different contexts. The label is routinely applied to situations as varied as a traffic school course taken to avoid increased insurance premiums, a skill improvement tutorial available to U.S. Army tank drivers while deployed abroad, a certification course offered by a professional association to real estate agents, and an English course taken to complete a university’s degree program.

Online course criticism (Thompson, 2005), is a mode of inquiry that provides practicing online course professionals (e.g., instructors, administrators, instructional designers, etc.) with an approach that they can use to study online courses from a variety of contexts. A form of educational criticism in the tradition of Stanford curriculum scholar Elliot Eisner (1985, 1991), online course criticism depends upon the heightened perceptions of an expert practitioner and a rigorous qualitative research case study methodology as the bases for portrayal and appraisal of individual online courses. This rendering progresses in a narrowing spiral fashion. That is, the actual course is represented in a rich but limited description followed by progressively narrower treatments of interpretation, evaluation, and a few overarching themes. From the themes presented, readers may choose to generalize to other courses.

Individual online course criticisms are valuable in that they reveal some of the nuance and complexity that a connoisseur sees in specific online courses (what Stake, 2000, refers to as intrinsic case study). This is useful in that readers of criticisms who are not experienced with online courses (especially those whose opinions about online learning are influential) may become better informed. However, even greater value may be found in larger collections of online course criticisms from which more general patterns begin to emerge (comparable to Stake's conceptualization of instrumental case studies).

The Online Course Criticism Model includes:

A conceptual framework for the rationale underlying online course criticisms
Procedural guidelines for practitioners to follow in creating online course criticisms
Required elements to be contained in the final written criticism

References

Eisner, E. (1985). The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Eisner, E. (1991). The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Stake, R. (2000). Case studies. In Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Thompson, K. (2005). Constructing Educational Criticism of Online Courses: A Model for Implementation by Practitioners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Central Florida: Orlando, FL.

Welcome to the Online Course Criticism Blog

2005-08-19T10:20:00.000-04:00

This is the companion blog to the Online Course Criticism Model web site. (The web site was getting lonely, so I decided to get it a friend.) [Update Note: The web site has now been replaced by this blog entirely.]

Actually, I was beginning to get comments about the Online Course Criticism Model, and the web site is not set up to deal with comments/questions from visitors. This blog is.

So....

Ask/comment away!!!