Some clarification of purpose

OK, it makes sense at this point to flesh out the purpose of this pilot a bit more fully, at least from my perspective.  There are at least two sets of goals: institutional and personal. Both of these are outlined, more or less, in the grant application I've linked here, requesting a stipend for a summer research assistant to aid me in the preliminary preparation for this SoTL study.

Institutionally speaking, the group is guinea-pigging some possibilities for incorporating online content delievry and pedagogical options into the classroom learning experience for students.  Slow down -- no one's moving to a University of Phoenix model here.  But here's what we've noticed so far that has provided the impetus of this project.

A recent meta-analysis prepared by the US Department of Education has made some provocative findings regarding the effectiveness of online teaching and learning.  At least in the area of content knowledge, it appears that online learning is just as, or even more effective than face-to-face learning.  Yeah, you heard that right.  A key factor seems to be time spent on task, which should come as no surprise: the more time students spend engaging with content, the better they understand and the more they retain.  As well, the study found that (this is big for us liberal arts teachers!) blended or hybrid learning -- the combination of online and face-to-face pedagogies -- is more effective than online-only learning.  See, you get the engagement of knowledge content and practice at home online, and then you get reinforcement and extension in the classroom.  Seems cool.

Our observations of student study practices, according to 2009 NSSE data, is that Augie students are spending only about 13 hours per week on average preparing for class -- when the conventional wisdom is that it ought to be more like 18 to 24 (2 hours for every hour of class time).  Good luck, right? It seems important to bolster that activity, especially as out-of-class work with course material is a marker of active, engaged learning.

According to NSSE, “A worrisome gap exists between the amount of time students spend on educational activities and what faculty members and others say is optimum.” To become fully engaged, students need time to immerse themselves in a topic. Sometimes one to three hours in class just isn’t enough. And, unlike faculty and other professional practitioners, students often don’t know how to pursue a topic outside of class for hours on end. Fortunately, technology can be used to extend and scaffold student learning over the web ("Student Engagement: Tips and Resources").

Now, on the other side of the coin, we also know from the SoTL literature that active learning strategies in the classroom such as collaborative work, problem-based learning, etc., can enhance students' motivation to learn through more intensive involvement ("Student Engagement: Tips and Resources").  The smaller class sizes and culture of close faculty/student interaction we have at Augie seems ideally positioned for that kind of work... and many of our colleagues are doing wonderful things with this sort of pedagogy in the classroom.  This is the kind of learning that can be difficult, if not impossible to replicate in an online-only learning platform.

So, a key objective of this ACTL (Augustana Center for Teaching and Learning) project, what we're calling either the Hybrid Learning Initiative (HLI) or the Blended Learning Initiative (BLI) -- stay tuned re: how this shakes out! -- is to see how online-based opportunities for engaging with content knowledge can enhance the prospects for engaged in-class student learning.  The idea is not to set up a model for online distance-learning classes, but to see how online technologies can enhance the liberal arts classroom experience.

Here's where my personal motivation for participating in this initiative comes in.  In my "Communication, Politics and Citizenship" class (hereafter "Comm and Politics"), as I mentioned in my first post, I work with students frequently on in-class collaborative analysis of rhetorical texts.  My constant challenge is to figure out how to maximize student engagement with and collaborative discussion of the text, while instructing the students on the requisite concepts and context they need to engage thusly with the text.

For example, we study Reagan's eulogy speech to the nation following the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, considered a classic piece of 20th century political rhetoric.  I use this text to help students learn two important frameworks for examining rhetorical texts: the elements of Bitzer's "rhetorical situation" (which helps students determine how texts are designed as responses to contextual exigencies), and the three "artistic proofs" of rhetorical persuasion from Aristotle: logos, ethos, and pathos. 

So here's the thing: students read the speech in advance of class, as well as read an essay that discusses these frameworks.  But the concepts often need explication and clarification, especially for newbies to rhetorical studies (which is pretty much all of my students).  As well, because most all of our students have little to no sense of US political and cultural history before their high school years, I need to provide them with relevant information on the historical and political context of 1986 (e.g., Reagan himself, controversy surrounding the NASA space shuttle program, the Cold War, and the events of the Challenger launch and explosion itself).  So I do a good chunk of that in class, mapping out Reagan's rhetorical situation with them.  I then have the students view the speech, taking notes as they go on the relevant elements (it's a brief speech), then have small groups unpack the speech to identify rhetorical strategies and consider their connection to the rhetorical situation.  Ideally, I then reconvene the larger class, have them share their findings, and discuss to tie everything together and connect the proofs strategies to the situation and assess how Reagan's response was fitting. 

Of course, after the review lesson on the critical frameworks, the time spent on the contextual stuff, and then the small group analysis exercise, I'm lucky if we get 10 minutes out of a 75 minute class period to discuss a significant American rhetorical masterpiece.  This is a constant source of frustration, especially since these in-class analytical exercises are preparation for work students will do in subsequent essays, a group project and their final exam. 

So, I'm wondering: if I required students, in addition to the regular reading, to view 10-15 minute mini-lectures via podcast on the key areas that suck my in-class time (i.e., the "rhetorical situation"; the "artistic proofs"; background context on Reagan's speech), and have them take an online quiz for some formative assessment of their understanding of that material, before class happens, then maybe devoting the entire 75 minutes of class (rather than just 30-35 minutes) to the small group work and class-wide debriefing and reinforcement of the critical concepts might be more successful?  Might this help students really get a richer sense of how to analyze and evaluate texts -- and engage in the material in a more meaningful fashion?

(There are other things I'm wondering about, re: developing critical thinking skills and student assessment of my effectiveness in terms of teacher immediacy, but those will wait for subsequent posts.)

Anyway, this is the general mission.  So this summer, I'll work with a research assistant to tuck into the literatures on blended/hybrid learning and teacher immediacy, and also produce somewhere in the realm of 20-25 podcast mini-lectures on various theoretical/critical concepts and background contexts for rhetorical artifacts that I use in class.  In the Fall 2010 term I'll teach my Comm and Politics class as I usually do, collecting baseline data on student performance on relevant assignments, assessment of critical thinking outcomes, and student perceptions of teacher immedicacy.  In the Spring 2011 term I'll teach the same class with the same subject matter, but using the podcasts and online quizzes as a substitute for in-class lecture in those areas, and repurpose the class time for more in-class collaborative analysis exercises, debates, discussions, etc., and collect the same sort of assessment data.  The pilot may give me some helpful findings on how things are working in my individual class and, while certainly not generalizable results, might be instructive to others...?  Maybe.  We'll see.