engaging the learner in a

Engaging the Learner in a Distance Education Setting

Sharon Fratta-Hill, PhDVP of Distance Education

Graduate School USA

Charles LeeSr. Manager, Solution Engineer

Blackboard

2(888) 744-GRAD(888) 744-GRAD www.graduateschool.eduwww.graduateschool.edu

Accessible Collaborative Compelling

Easy to Use Personalized Responsive

What Makes an Experience Engaging?


Engaging the Distance Learner

• Create a high-end distance education training platform• Move away from the text-based point-and-click experience that

was so familiar to the government employee• Find out how to change skill levels and hold the interest of the

government employee• Measure what engagement really was


Bridging the Engagement Gap

Capture and keep your learners’ attention• Simulate a face-to-

face experience • Create interactive

content that keeps them engaged

• Focus on learning,not the technology


How Could We Make the Course Interactive?

• Choose a platform that allows students to chat or interact with the teacher in a real time, collaborative manner.

• We needed:

• The ability to share video and audio with students

• To create a continuous learning environment

• The ability to allow students to privately work and speak with each other

• To be able to share simulations and application software with students

• To archive live sessions so that participants could review sessions

• To create a just-in-time learning experience


What Were We Thinking?

• How could we create courses that meet the needs of federal agencies?

• What worked for adult students who are federal employees?– It must be either very flexible so that they can move at their

own pace or• The course must be short enough to complete within a

period where employees could be excused from their office duties.

– Exact skill outcomes must be obtained on completion of the course.


Choosing the Right Distance Education Modality

• Page turner format may be able to produce Bloom’s Taxonomy Knowledge (rote) level learning, but student engagement is needed for Application (or higher) level knowledge acquisition.

• Students must have the opportunity to:– Acquire basic knowledge.

– Share and analyze knowledge with their peers and instructor.

– Engage in hands-on activities which apply the newly acquired information or skill set.


Blackboard• Adopted v. 6 of Blackboard to

create initial online classes– Federal clients wanted more

interaction with faculty and fewer independent activities

• Blackboard version 9.1.4 was adopted with an Adobe Connect Building

Adobe Connect• Use Adobe Connect to create

asynchronous and synchronous online classes– Asynchronous classes lacked

structure – Students could not determine

the sequence in which learning events should be completed

The Journey


Blackboard Integration• Collaborate (formerly

Wimba and Elluminate) may be used in the same manner as Adobe Connect.

Interactive Features• Captivate Simulations• Quizzes• Flash Content• Videos• Polling• Breakout Rooms

What Does Synchronous Engagement Look Like?


Synchronous Training


Interactive Features• Presenter files with

recorded lectures synched with PowerPoints

• Wikis and Blogs• Journals and Discussion

Boards• Video and iTunes links

Mobile Support• Access to online content

available for students with iPads and iPods

• Bb also provides access for android devices (wifi-only*)

http://wbt3.graduateschool.edu/

What Does Asynchronous Engagement Look Like?


Asynchronous Training


Interfaces Vary on Tablets and iPhones


Pedagogy + Instructional Design = Learning…or does it?

LearningInstructionalDesign

Pedagogy

Epistemologies

Methodologies

EffectivePractices

Learning analysis

Audience analysis

Media design

Media development

Evaluation

Achievement

Completion

Retention


It’s Also About the Experience

• Starbucks is more than a cup of coffee.• Amazon is more than shopping.• iTunes is more than music.• Why shouldn’t your elearning programs be

more than good pedagogy and effective instructional design?


Summary

• Student/teacher interaction is required to create a meaningful course.

• Blackboard makes it easy to offer a variety of engaging elements in an organized continuous learning environment.

• The Graduate School can use your content, or ours, to create engaging training sessions in either live or self-paced format.

• Our academic-corporate partnership gives us opportunities to enable engaging experiences in ways that we could not do individually.