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Student Engagement in a Co-Sourced Learning Environment. Joanne Kossuth January 14, 2011. Olin College. Located in Needham, Massachusetts 4 year undergraduate engineering college Collaboration with Babson and Wellesley Colleges How is Olin Different? http://www.olin.edu
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Student Engagement in a Co-Sourced Learning Environment Joanne Kossuth January 14, 2011
Olin College • Located in Needham, Massachusetts • 4 year undergraduate engineering college • Collaboration with Babson and Wellesley Colleges • How is Olin Different? • http://www.olin.edu • http://www.olinprojects.com
Agenda • Learner Engagement • Assessment of Learner Engagement • Learning Environments • What should we be doing to increase engagement? • What is the impact of technology tools now available? • Who are the learners? • How do we create the cohesive co-sourced experience?
Student Engagement • Create an emotionally safe environment • Create an intellectually safe environment • Cultivate an engagement meter (know your audience) • Practice different communication tools: journals, blogs, twitter (Mr. Wiki, Carpe-diem, HelpMe) • It is not just about the right answer but about the explanation (BOW, Grand Challenges)
Student Engagement (Edutopia) • Teach self-awareness about knowledge • Questioning strategies make all students think • Use the design process to increase the quality of work • Teach students to market their work and sell their concepts • Olin examples: UOCD, EXPO, SCOPE
Assessing Student Engagement • Level of Academic Challenge • Active and Collaborative Learning • Student-Faculty Interaction • Enriching Educational Experiences • Supportive Campus Environment
Engagement Assessment:NSSE Categories • Diverse, but interpersonally fragmented • Homogeneous and interpersonally cohesive • Intellectually stimulating • Interpersonally supportive • High-Tech, low-touch • Academically challenging and supportive • Collaborative
Other Student Engagement • Chat with a librarian • E-portfolios • Graduation planners (degree audit) • Self service administrative functions • Ask Us, Chat with Us, Blog with Us, etc. • Others?
Learning Environments • Face to Face • Blended • On line • At a distance • Immersive
Environment Types • High collaboration/low self-direction • Classroom with breakout • Multi purpose room • High collaboration/ high self direction • Project room • Conference room
Types II • Low collaboration/low self direction • Lecture hall • Computer classroom • Low collaboration/ high self direction • Distance learning class • Media lab
Increasing Engagement • Shift our focus from education to life-long learning • Navigate the increased availability of resources on the internet • Lack of resource constraint • Reflection and practice • Make work in progress public
Increasing Engagement, Cont. • Provide education in giving and receiving feedback (orientation, FIB) • Increase peer interaction • Learn from others • Learn from failure (as well as success) • Multiple learning opportunities from shared “public” learning experiences • Learn more about “learning to be”
Technology Use • Questions about the effectiveness of new technologies for enhancing education • Little focus on evolvingappropriate new teaching practices to take advantage of the potential of the new technologies • Technology, alone, is not the solution • What has been your experience?
Students • Students multitask; create and learn at the same time • Need to access content easily and be able to manipulate the content in a personal manner • Their way is the right way for their learning style • These activities bridge learning and knowledge
Learning Profiles (Mosley) • Transforming Learners prefer loosely structured, flexible mentoring environments that promote challenging goals, discovery, strategies, problem solving, and self-managed learning. • Performing Learners prefer semi-structured environments that stimulate personal value and provide details, tasks, processes, and creative interaction (hands-on) not exploration and great effort. • Conforming Learners prefer simple, safe, low-learner control, structured environments that help learners achieve comfortable, low-risk learning goals in a linear fashion.
Creativity Traits • Seven traits of creative people: • independence of judgment • self-confidence • attraction to complexity • aesthetic orientation • openness to experience • risk taking • self-actualization (Sternberg et al, 2005. p. 358). • Where do these traits fit with the creativity traits? • Where do these traits intersect with knowledge?
Content • Knowledge is combined in new and exciting ways by the learners themselves • Innovation occurs at these edges • Examples: • Wikipedia • Creative commons • Open source • Video (You-Tube) • Gaming • Mobile applications • What has been your experience?
Content • Important to interact with classmates online (Muirhead) • Reflect and comment on observations and ideas • Be constructive • Suggest alternative solutions • Identify potential or real problems • Explore new theories • Share relevant work and research experiences and knowledge
Tools • Personal learning environments • YouTube • Blogs, Wikis • Facebook • Chats • GPS • Crowd sourcing • Games/augmented reality
Tools II • Cloud services • SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, AaaS • Rackspace, Dropbox, Google Docs, Google Apps, Microsoft Live, bill.com, salesforce.com • Skype • Others?
Potential Co-sourced Example • Student designed personal learning environment web site • Website running on institutional servers in Rackspace (cloud service) • MiMedia cloud storage and backup • Photos from FLICKR • E-portfolio of work • Videos from Youtube
Example, cont. • Music from iTunes • Skype for video conferencing • Google docs for collaboration with others • Wiki for community source work • Research from library databases throughout the world on topics of interest • My blog and My surveys/research • Links faculty and expert resources
Where do Educators Fit? • What is our role in this new paradigm? • Are we relevant? • What do we need to do to adapt and continue to serve our future leaders?
Resources • http://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-teaching-strategies • http://www.nsse.iub.edu/ • http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2010_Results/pdf/NSSE_2010_AnnualResults.pdf#page=8 • http://www.johnseelybrown.com/newlearning.pdf • http://www.trainingplace.com/source/research/designingenvironments.htm
Resources • http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss_september2006.html • http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/StudentEngagement/213723 • http://cpr.iub.edu/uploads/Pike,%20Kuh%20(2005)%20A%20Typology%20of%20Student%20Engagement%20for%20American%20Colleges%20and%20Universities.pdf
Resources • http://www.wgsite.com/Resources/LearningEnvironments.pdf • Muirhead, 2006c, Weekly Participation, para 1