Novel Uses of Social Media and On-line Technologies in Teaching and Recruitment

1. Novel Uses of Social Media and On-line Technologies in Teaching and Recruitment Breakout session Session chairs Dagenbach & Weinraub Sunday, February 24, 2013 Annual Meeting Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology

2. Useful Links re Job Searches • http://psychjobsearch.wikidot.com/2012 • Forum cover page http://psychjobsearch.wikidot.com/forum:star • example of discussion http://psychjobsearch.wikidot.com/forum/t-591980/ Ivy League University –cognitive • Example of active discussion http://psychjobsearch.wikidot.com/forum/t-568368/-educational-psychology-cognitive-science

7. On-line learning Useful report can be found at http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf

8. COGDOP Survey Questions • Does your department offer online courses? If so, what are the enrollments (estimate)? • Does your department offer entire programs online? If so, what kind?

9.  If you do offer online courses or programs, how do you assess the quality of them?  In particular, how do you determine the extent of learning? • Online courses are rapidly becoming more prevalent. What do you think are the major implications for higher education? For Psychology Departments?

10. Social Media and Teaching Starting assumptions: • Today’s student is different, used to Facebook, Twitter, 24-7 digital interaction with the world, etc… • Using the technologies they’re familiar with will be more effective than trying to produce that same effect using our technologies even when our technologies include things like blogs on Blackboard, Sakai, etc…

11. Effective use creates dialogue outside of classroom bringing new energy back to the classroom for example, Facebook page for a class where material is posted, students are required to comment, leading to more comments, postings, etc… Caveat: Need to segregate personal and academic social media

12. Current Use of Social Media in Teaching Faculty responses Do Use 34 % Don’t Use 66 % Age effects Do Use Under 35 40% Over 55 30%

13. Types of Social Media Used at Least Monthly Blogs & Wikis 23 % Podcasts 14 % Facebook 8 % Twitter 2.5 %

14. Concerns about Social Media in Teaching Intergrity of student submissions 70% Privacy 63 % Separation of course and personal accounts 61% Grading and assessment of submissions 53% Inablityto measure effectivenss 45%

15. Online teaching: Has there been a sea change? Source of data: 2013 Babson Survey Report http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf

16. Online Teaching Definitions On-line course – at least 80% of content delivered online Blended or hybrid – between 30 – 79 % delivered online Face to face – zero to 29% delivered on line

17. New ideas MOOC Massive open online course (and FREE to students) Currently offered by 2.6 % but an IMPORTANT 2.6 % 9.4% planning MOOCs Massive = Massive, 100K students in a course Reward for completion = learning + course certificate

18. Why offer one? • Way for institution to learn online technology • Way to advertise your brand • Way for students to pilot test whether they’re good candidates for online education

19. MOOC issues Will MOOC credentials count? The same as a formal course? Will they muddy the waters about what a course is? Lots of confusion

20. “Traditional” Online Teaching • Importance • Prevalence and Trends • Quality and Quality Assessment

21. Institutional importance attached to developing online learning Chief academic officers (CAOs) reporting online learning is critical to their long term strategy Critical Not important • 69.1 % 11.2 % • < 50 % Administrators clearly perceive gold in those hills.

22. Prevalence of online learning • N taking at least one course online 6.7 M • Proportion taking online courses is at an all time high: 32% • Growth of online course enrollments slowed for the first time in the survey’s 10 year history, but so did enrollments for higher education in general

23. Something we’ve learned along the way: Doing online courses well takes a lot of time and effort . Many teaching them find them way more demanding than a large lecture class. CAO’s only partially agree: Online teaching takes more faculty time and effort 45% of academic leaders agree (moving up from past years) 24 % of academic leaders at private for profit agree

24. Learning outcomes? Large discrepancy between faculty and administrators. Learning outcomes comparable? Academic leaders Yes No 77 % 23 % and these values have been going up.

25. Faculty perceived to have less belief in efficacy of online education CAO’s report faculty in general do not accept value and legitimacy. The strongest faculty supporters are at institutions with fully online programs, and then only 38% of the faculty agree that they’re comparable.

26. COGDOP Response to Online Education Poll: 24 responses 1. Does your department offer online courses? If so, what are the enrollments (estimate)? Some are doing a lot: 1250 students / semester, 1379 students currently enrolled Some classes are large 160/course , lots of 100/course, BUT Most actually are surprisingly small Answers ranging from 15 to 50/course were the most prevalent

27. 2. Does your department offer entire programs online? If so, what kind? Few do – 4 yes responses, but also more programs in development Human Resources MS Psychology general major General psychology; human services administration BS major; Masters in human factors

28. 3.  If you do offer online courses or programs, how do you assess the quality of them?  In particular, how do you determine the extent of learning? Divided responses based on whether question was interpreted as aimed at quality of teaching or learning. For those answering about learning, 3 common themes • Assessment is a big problem • We use tests and papers • We’re going to start, or already have started, proctored exams

29. 4. Online courses are rapidly becoming more prevalent. What do you think are the major implications for higher education? For Psychology Departments? Virtually every respondent acknowledged that this is going to have enormous implications for our future. • Some see it as potentially positive, freeing resources for other things . • Some suggest, hopefully, that it’s a fad that will eventually go away. • Most see it as real but with lots of possible costs:

30. “This is tricky.   I strongly suspect that, if things just unfold organically, we may well see the Amazonification of academia. One version is many lower division/entry courses will be taught on-line. An extreme version is that Univ degrees will become obsolete and people will provide a CV showing a set of on-line classes on their resume in lieu of a degree. Either way, I do envision that there will be a significant decrease in faculty positions.    It has happened in every other industry and it isn't clear why academia would be immune.”

31. Some indicated what we need to move forward ”We are NOT getting answers to our  main questions: (1) what kinds of learning can be effectively delivered online?  (2) what are best practices for doing so (3) As we hire based on research productivity, is there a single person who's a model for a well-funded researcher teaching online courses?  …  I think it's possible, but not easy, to stimulate thinking and conceptual growth with online...  So, jury's out, we can accept doing it badly, or we can insist on doing it well  and selectively/thoughtfully if we are going to.”

32. And some, taking that online teaching is going to be prevalent as a given, asked that our session today move in this direction: “Here's what I think would be UNproductive - opening up session for gripes by the uninitiated. That could fill a week. Find out who in the room believes they have the most mature problems and ask them to tell what has gone well in how they’ve established and what conundrums they now face. I guarantee trajectories will be similar for other depts that head down this path and chronicling 3 effective models for those who do attend the session and those like me who can't would be a great gift to the listserv and a good starting point for what comes next.”

33. If online education is a given, can we productively influence its course? Designing next year’s long session on this Issues: • What kinds of learning can be effectively delivered online? a. knowledge b. critical thinking/discussion? c. clinical skills? 2. What are the best practices for doing so

34. Implementation Questions What has worked in setting up online courses/ programs? What were major obstacles? For those courses / programs that are working, what new issues have arisen?