UMass Local Blended Learning: Building Programs and Increasing Access through Partnerships

1. UMass Local Blended Learning: Building Programs and Increasing Access through Partnerships Presented by UMass Collaborators: Charmaine P. Hickey, UMass Lowell Kathleen Polley, UMass Boston Jeannette E. Riley, UMass Dartmouth Hector N. Torres, UMass Lowell November 8, 2007 13TH ANNUAL SLOAN-C INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ONLINE LEARNING Orlando, Florida

2. What brought us together • All participants had a strong ALN presence • Spearheaded by Jacqueline Moloney • Existing programs met a local need: “localness” • Customized through different kinds of partnerships • The potential for growth • Showed signs of five pillars of quality online education (Moore).

3. UMass Boston: Online RN to BS Program • 53% of the nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are prepared at the Associate Degree level. Aiken study calls for ↑BS prepared nurses • Massachusetts expects a 29% shortfall of nurses prepared to meet the needs of the commonwealth by 2020. • Articulation agreements with community colleges • Cohort based RN specific curriculum starts 3 times/yr. • Meets 4 times over 18 months including technology orientation

4. UMass Lowell: Leadership in Educational Administration Program • Customized 6 course licensure program for urban leaders • Co-developed and co-instructed with client • Content includes relevant local cases • Blended delivery: online and f2f at client site • Cohort model • Extensive local publicity • Continuous feedback from client • Affordable cost • University liaison to support program

5. Housed in the College of Arts and Sciences • Offers a minor degree for students, with an anticipated major coming online in January 2008. • Minor degree: • Offered fully online since 2003 • Supported by institutional grants for course development • Supported by campus Instructional Development team • Collaboratively taught and developed by WMS faculty and affiliates • Courses attract non-traditional and traditional students working toward degree completion

6. Commonalities • Student access to degree completion • Flexibility of schedule • Understanding of curriculum • Intentional blend • Career and professional development • Affinity with faculty and campus (anchor) • Met workforce development need

7. UMass Boston: Student Satisfaction • ↑ in enrollment from 2 applicants 2001 to 300 in 2007 • Retention defined as matriculated and graduated within 2 years…93% • Graduates that have gone on to graduate school 88% • Brigham and Women's Hospital focus group study

8. UMass Dartmouth: Institutional Commitment to Faculty Development • Incentive Grant Programs • Faculty Training • Campus Policies • Developing Learning Effectiveness Through A Focus on Blended Learning

9. UMass Lowell: Partnership Model • School district and university partnered to meet local need and state regulations for administrator licensure • Student satisfaction enhanced by • cohort • blended delivery • ongoing program review and refinement; • option to apply program courses to advanced degrees at UML; • no cost in exchange for 3 year commitment to district; • promise of promotional opportunity at completion of program • Faculty satisfaction developed • through cohort model • engagement with client on program design and delivery • Shared financial investment by university and district supported collaboration • Shared commitment to goal of excellence in urban education guided partnership

10. Lessons Learned - Inter-campus Collaboration • ↑ training resources available to students and faculty • ↑ in discussion of best practices in delivery of blended format for wide variety of students • ↑ in the number if identified barriers to success from a support and administrative perspective. This provides stronger voice to create solutions. • ↑ in institutional strength

11. Lessons Learned – Community Partnerships • Partnerships that meet needs of all parties are critical to successful development and implementation of local programs • Traditional institutional roles and responsibilities need to be revised if innovative collaborative work is to succeed • Partnerships need continuous nurturing and re-commitment by all parties to thrive

12. Lessons Learned - Faculty Development • The 2007 Horizon Report (http://www.nmc.org/horizon/2007/report), sponsored by the research groups New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative notes higher education faces several challenges, among them: • globalization • a skills gap between how we use technology for media creation versus the creation of meaningful content • informational literacy is often considered a “given” • growing influence in areas that will have a major impact on college and university campuses in the next five years: User-created content; social networking; mobile phones; multiplayer educational gaming; and virtual worlds • Most importantly, • Student views of technology are very different from faculty, resulting in an increasing gap between student and faculty use and knowledge of technology, especially as students are using mobile and personal devices to deliver and access services, content, and media.

13. Lessons Learned – Administrative Partnerships • Marketing • Technology • Shared knowledge and skills

14. Where we are going • Based on leadership and understanding society (localness) UMass was awarded a $650K Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Local Blended Learning at UMass • 18-month system-wide initiative for local blended learning • Increase access • Build greater number of strong partnerships • New models for faculty collaboration • New models for synergy across the system

15. More Information • Judith A. Boccia, Director of the Center for Field Services and Studies and a faculty member in the Graduate School of Education at UMass Lowell Judith_Boccia@uml.edu • Charmaine P. Hickey, Director, Faculty Development Center, UMass Lowell, and Project Director, Alfred P. Sloan Grant for Local Blended Learning at UMass Charmaine_Hickey@uml.edu • Kathleen Polley, Director Online RN-BS Program University of Massachusetts Boston. Kathleen.Polley@umb.edu • Jeannette E. Riley, Associate Professor, English & Women's Studies; Faculty Trainer, Computer and Information Technology Services; UMass Dartmouth. j1riley@umassd.edu • Hector N. Torres, University Liaison for the Lawrence Public Schools, Director of the College Prep Programs and Instructor at UMass Lowell. Hector_Torres@uml.edu