On-Demand Webinar: Examining Online Learner Experiences

Last updated on: August 25, 2022

clock icon 1 minute read
clock icon 1 minute read

Watch Now

When students choose to study online, they desire more than the flexibility to take courses remotely. As our Online Learner Experiences 2022 report shows, student satisfaction requires your university to design high-quality programs that provide ongoing support and consistent engagement with faculty and peers. Dig into this data with the report’s authors by watching our on-demand webinar.

Webinar topics

Learn how your university can empower online student success and satisfaction by:

  • committing to a consistent online course design
  • building an online learning community
  • strengthening faculty presence in online programs
  • meeting students’ desire for variety without sacrificing rigor

Presenters

  • David Capranos, Director of Market Strategy and Research
  • Lauren Wright, Director of Program Development
  • Andrew J. Magda, Manager of Market Research

Stream the Webinar

Close Transcript

David Capranos:

Hey. All right. Well welcome, and thank you for joining us for today’s webinar, examining online learning experiences 2022. My name’s David Capranos, I’m the director of market strategy and research here with Wiley university services. I’m happy to be moderating today’s discussion with some of my colleagues in our academic services and market research teams, who I’ll introduce in a minute here.

I’m going to start off by doing some housekeeping. Andrew, if you want to take us to the next slide there. Yep. So before getting started, I wanted to let you know, you’re all in mute today for the webinar, however, we welcome your questions and comments. For the questions, there is a question pane, so there’s a little window there where you can type in your questions. Please post any comments to the general chat thread, questions in the question thread. A moderator will respond to questions and comments throughout the presentation, but we also reserve some time at the end today for the presentation to answer questions that came in through registration and also through the chat today.

I also want to remind you that a PDF of today’s slides, as well as a copy of the online learning experiences 2022 report is available in the handout section. So you can download there, please be sure to download these right now, do it before the end of the presentation. If you don’t get a chance to do it, though, we are going to be sending it out through email afterwards, along with a recorded copy of today’s presentation.

So with that, I’m going to go ahead and introduce today’s presenters. I already introduced myself, David, I’m our director of market strategy and research here. I’m joined by Lauren Wright, who’s the director of program development, and Andrew Magda, one of our managers here for research in Wiley University Services.

So before we get into the actual data, just want to explain where we’re from exactly, who we are. And so many of you will be familiar with Wiley, we’re a 200 year plus publishing company. A lot of you may have even used our textbooks, or written our textbooks, or maybe you’re part of our research platforms, or part of one of our societies or journals that we publish. We work in a division called Wiley Education Services, and what we’re committed to is providing services to our university partners and to industry to provide career connected education. So a lot of the work that we would do is everything from marketing and recruiting of students to designing and helping facilitate online programs, different workforce development challenges, upskilling, reskilling folks, a number of things along those teams.

You can see in the next slide here, we’ve got a number of partners that we’ve partnered with over the years. It’s over 70 now, multiple countries too. I think we’ve got all our US partners here, but we’ve got folks in the UK and out in Asia and Australia, really worldwide at this point, representing many, many years of partnership with a number of institutions. Today, what we’re focused on of course is our students and the learning experiences that they go through. Can we go to the next slide here, Andrew? What we’re going to do is set up Lauren to tell us a little bit about her role.

Lauren Wright:

Thank you, David. So the Wiley Academic Services team is a full service team that rivals any design agency. And in collaboration with our partners, we provide consultation around a number of challenges the schools are trying to solve for, as well as provide full service course design development and production, program strategy and project management, platform technology and management, and faculty support and development. And we work with schools in part of our partnership as well as in separate fee for service opportunities. And when we work with you in partnership, we support your programs through their life cycle, from startup through maturity, and refresh and revisions.

With faculty, we approach our partnership with a focus on designing courses that are outcomes driven, create opportunities for community, and are learner centered focused in programs that are distinct and relevant to the students’ goals and aspirations and creates connections for students to have relationships with other students and faculty.

Two points that have come out of the data that we’ll share with you today. We create these types of learning experiences with our partners through are creative and dynamic team who’ve made building expertise in online learning space, their career. And this next slide shows our dynamic team that we have. The strength of our team allows us to meet our partners where they are, and offer services that they need to achieve their goals. With program design and delivery, our program strategy managers keep us organized. They are involved in the day-to-day operations with our partnerships around all things related to the academics and curriculum.

Our learning designers are at a minimum master’s level prepared and instructional design or a related field. And they’re supported by in-house media developers that specialize in bringing content to life through graphics, videos, and interactives. We have 20 years of experience supporting faculty around and across a range of disciplines on all points of the spectrum with experience in online learning. We take a lot of pride in the close relationships that we have with our faculty, program leadership, and how we work as a team to really focus in on those and designing those learner centered experiences.

As mentioned before our partners needs vary, and we have a range of services that can be customized to meet the strategic needs that they have for their programs, faculty, and their students. The online learner experience survey helps us keep a pulse on how students are experiencing the learning in their online programs. And now let’s learn more about that student voice and the online learner experience report. Andrew Magna is going to begin taking us through the results of the report, beginning with our methodology. Andrew?

Andrew Magda:

Thank you, Lauren. So what I wanted to talk about here today is about the study that we’ve conducted. It’s not the first time we’ve surveyed our Wiley supported learners before, we had done a similar report about this, I think around two years ago, but we really wanted to take this year to really focus upon your experiences, learning through the pandemic, coming out of the pandemic, what were some of the students experiences in these online courses? So in the fall of 2021, we developed a 29 question assessment, and anyone who’s conducted survey research would know that 11 open ended questions out of that 29 is a lot of open-ended questions, but it really gave us just this richness in the data from our 2000 plus respondents across those 31 Wiley supported partners that we surveyed. So a lot of rich data to come out of this particular survey.

What we’re going to talk about today, with the results, is how we’re connecting satisfaction with the design and practice within these online courses. So what we initially found with some of these questions is that the learners in these online courses at these institutions that Wiley’s been supporting are generally satisfied. They were satisfied with their decision to pursue their online program, and within their program, they felt challenged. 85% felt challenged to grow personally and professionally, and an additional 85% felt challenged within the coursework. Meaning that these are rigorous online courses that they’re in, that they’re getting this enriched experience and it’s making them delve deeper into their particular subject matter. 78% feeling motivated to keep up with developments in their chosen field.

Anyone working in marketing or, knows individuals with marketing, you know the importance of asking around, recommending a program to others. It’s really the best form of marketing you can have, because it is based on peer experiences. And a lot of these students that we surveyed were highly likely, or likely to recommend their program to another individual in that field. So really that word of mouth marketing, those promoters out there, being advocates for your particular institution, for your program, that’s really some of the best form of marketing you can have.

Delving deeper into recommendation, we cross that with the idea of having your expectations met within your online learning program. And more likely that those expectations are met, they’re more likely to recommend that program, as you can see. Meeting those expectations is really, I think one of the bedrock principles there around creating strong learner satisfaction, and also allowing them to have those enriching learning experiences. What that idea of expectations, which you’ll see is going to be one of the central tenants throughout this presentation, is that those learners, if they know what they’re getting ahead of time, they can prepare themselves for it. And then they feel that those expectations are being met. And then as you see here, more likely to go out and recommend that program for you.

And really one of those real expectations you can meet early on is understanding their needs in terms of the value of their time. So when they’re coming into that program, understanding what they’re going to get out of that program, and understanding how they’re going to be able to get those goals settled in a flexible way is really one of the initial points of setting those expectations with them.

As I was saying, that 29 question assessment, 11 open ends, really throughout that report created a number of best practices and recommendations that you can read about. But what we wanted to do here was distill that down into our online program checklist, which is towards the end of the report. So there’s really four main themes that we’ll cover here today. And then you see on the right there, with that visual, that there are going to be some sub bullets there. We’re not going to be able to cover all those today in our presentation, but they are in that report for you. So you can get those tangible takeaways on how you can hit some of these key takeaways.

So the first being that commitment to a consistent course design, setting clear expectations for those online learners taking those courses, offering ample opportunities for those online learners to engage with each other, and encouraging your faculty to strengthen their presence within these online courses. We feel these were those four main themes that, once those are understood, those are really going to be able to raise those online learner satisfaction scores, and also give them a very enriching online experience within the classroom.

So this first point here is that, commit to consistent course design. That’s important because the more students can take that valuable time of theirs and focus on learning, rather than relearning to navigate the LMS, is really going to allow them to have that enriching online experience. And also again, understanding the value of their time is key for them in terms of meeting those expectations. One of those open ended respondents we had there was under, you could see the most valuable component online learning. One of these students told us that they’re a full-time graduate student, but also, they’re a full-time employee, a full-time parent. You could imagine a full-time spouse, a full-time caregiver. So these individuals that are choosing online learning, they are adults, they are career professionals, they are people that are being pulled in multiple directions and wear multiple hats.

So it’s key to understand that when designing these courses, and also for faculties to understand that when they’re working with these individuals, providing them the feedback, designing what assignments that they’re going to be giving them, understanding that again, the time that they’re putting into their study is very limited in terms. And making sure that they’re spending that time focused on the learning rather than trying to relearn where the particular assignment should be posted within the LMS because it changes course by course there. Less time they can focus on the navigating of those courses and more time spent on focusing on learning is obviously going to be a better outcome for that student.

So we’re talking here today about having a single LMS system, I know at some institutions that sometimes can be difficult. Different departments may be able to have their own LMS, but then when those departments have to work together to bring a single program to an online audience, if those students have to change LMS’ halfway through because certain courses are in one versus the other, and also if they’re not using that primary course shell, then these students are going to have to bounce back and forth between relearning, where to submit the assignment, where do they find the syllabus? How do they reach out for help? Versus spending that time that they’re putting in there to their actual studies.

From the survey, we found that our learners generally feel these courses are laid out in a consistent way, that they do know where to get online resources if they do have a problem with their course, and that the navigation is consistent from course to course, generally. So what we find here is that if we’re hitting these particular marks, and we have those higher levels of satisfaction, then these should be ways that we can make these recommendations, that this is what’s leading to some of the success.

But I wanted to pause here for a second and reach back out to Lauren. Lauren, as she said, is working with some of our institutions here. I’m sure you brought up the idea of a primary course shell to some of these institutions that maybe didn’t have one before. What has been your experience working with these institutions? Has there been some pushback to this idea? And if you think about some of the people on our webinar today, if they’re going to go on there to campus and recommend this primary course shell and get some pushback, how would you advise them to work around some of that pushback?

Lauren Wright:

I appreciate the question, Andrew. And this is a topic that we definitely explore in many of our partnerships. But I feel like once there’s a conversation around what is considered a common core shell or a primary core shell, what it is and what it’s not, the concerns tend to abate a lot, because it’s really about focusing on the impact of the learner. And when courses vary across a single term, or over even multiple terms, now we’re bringing in cognitive load of the learners and they’ve just increased. So not only do students need to figure out what’s expected of them for this week, or for the overall course, now they need to find the information, make sure they have all the information to be successful in their course, because it could be in different places.

Now, I often think of the course shell as the online classroom, much akin to a physical classroom. And when you go on campus physically, you know the buildings, that’s not going to change. You know the layout of the classrooms. You’re not going to find the desks’ upside down, the boards all moved around. You can come in, you can sit down, you have your syllabus, you’re ready to learn. In the online classroom, students want the same experience. And anxieties can increase when they’re not able to find their syllabus, the course navigation is different, and they can’t reliably feel like they have a consistent learning flow. And that’s really what I feel like the primary courses allow students to experience is that consistency in navigation, but support with their flow of learning.

Andrew Magda:

Thank you. That’s a good point to make there, that if they try to equate it back to the physical classroom, they wouldn’t expect to walk into one classroom and have the white board on one wall versus walking to the other one and it’s on the other wall. As you were saying, the desks are always facing forward. So if we can have that consistency in the physical classroom, it makes sense that we can have some sort of consistency with the online classroom. I think that’s a good way to look at it.

Lauren Wright:

Exactly.

Andrew Magda:

Thank you. So the next point is around setting clear expectations. So when students understand what’s coming in their courses within their programs, they can better prepare for it. And again, linking it back to that idea that looking for ways to best use their time. So that’s going to be around obviously in the syllabus, clearly communicating what is expected to them with the different assignments. What are the rubrics for grading? How are they going to be assessed in terms of their weekly engagement within the class? But also making sure that students are connecting with that by having the instructor walking through the syllabus with them early in the course. And that can be obviously be done before the course starts, or maybe in the first few minutes of the initial course, depending how these are laid out.

But also with setting clear expectations, we’re going to talk about the idea of the program itself. Students, when they’re looking to enroll in a program, understanding what is there. So again, that goes to meeting their expectations for their career goals, that they’re in the right program for them, that they feel the program is the right fit for them. But also the instruction in terms of the assignments in each of the individual courses, making sure that those are varied, that they don’t necessarily want a cookie cutter, cut and paste from course to course, in terms of those same expectations. And online students, they understand what a good online course is. They’ve gone through a couple of them and they appreciate the organization, the clearer expectations, and that effort in planning of the course materials. That resonates with them, they understand what is a good online course. If they feel they’re getting these, then again, they’re more likely to be engaged with that content and satisfied with those outcomes.

So around that clear expectations, as I said, starting off with the syllabus again, located in a consistent location course by course, going back to that idea of an online course shell. And also, during that enrollment process, understanding what the program is, what are the requirements for that program, and then having that communicated to them during that stage, when they’re enrolling in the program. And then once they’re in the program, again, communicating through the syllabus, what is the requirements for the degree? What is requirements for this course? So that they can, again, plan accordingly, understand that, and then they are properly leveled expectations for that.

And then the instructor walking through the syllabus, obviously that could be done, as we’ll talk in a few minutes through maybe a live synchronous session, or also through a prerecorded video as a way to one, introduce that instructor to those students. Again, have that instructor in their own voice, communicate what is needed of those students. And also a way to engage those students in a different way than necessarily just posting everything on a discussion board or through a PDF link.

Another point around the expectations, as I was saying, is around what are those students supposed to get out of that course, and around the whole program. We asked some questions around hard and soft skills within our survey, did the students feel they were being prepared across a number of different soft and hard skills? Again, around 80 to 90% felt they were having the necessary hard and soft skills for their careers. And then again, linking it back to expectations. If they go through looking at your program page, deciding to enroll, are they knowing what skills they’re going to be taught so they can align that to your career objectives?

And then once they enroll in the program, looking through the course listings, picking what courses they want to take next semester, do they know again, what is going to be taught in those courses? What skills are going to be emphasized? So again, they can choose the right courses to support their career objectives. And again, between 85 and 93% of our students that we surveyed felt they were going to be prepared to succeed in their careers, both practically and theoretically. Again, just understanding what they’re going to get, what those skills are, and feeling that they are gaining that from our particular programs. Before jumping into the third skill I just wanted to open to you David. Or did any questions come in yet that we could look at? Or are we saving most of those towards the end?

David Capranos:

I think for pacing, let’s do them towards the end, Andrew. I think we’re in a good spot.

Andrew Magda:

Okay. Just wanted pause for a second to see. And just a reminder to make sure you type those in to the chat function there, and then we can answer those towards the end.

The third practice we have here is around opportunities for engagement, and specifically around peer-to-peer student engagement. Again we, from the survey, find that these are enhancing those in classroom interactions, and also can foster relationships even outside of the classroom. Again, maybe unintended consequence here that these students are going to an online program, they’re around the similar subject matter, similar careers, and they end up making connections that they foster even outside the classroom. And just the value that they again are getting out of a program that maybe isn’t necessarily focused on the skill or an academic outcome there, because these are ways that students are able to engage each other inside and outside the classroom.

And also thinking about the students that you’re enrolling in your programs, varied backgrounds, varied careers, and how enriching that can be for the learning experience for them to interact with each other, learn from each other, network with each other, comment on each other’s posts. So really just looking for ways that we can foster this engagement can lead to a very enriching experience for these learners.

So again, looking for that engagement, looking for those peer-to-peer, fostering those peer-to-peer interactions, because those can help contribute to their learning, as we see with 73% feeling their peers are helping them through their discussion board posts. 64% feel they’re working well together, and also looking for those additional tools outside the classroom that can help them connect on these group projects, and really how they’re able to connect through that.

Another way is through those optional live class sessions, as we were talking about earlier. It may not work for all programs or all different types of courses, but through our voice of the online learner study, which is coming out next month, it’s really a great companion piece to the online learner experiences report we’re talking about here today, but in that we surveyed a number of online learners in their career, and finding that perhaps through the pandemic, they were exposed to some of these live classroom sessions. And now they’re becoming a little bit more open to having those types of sessions, realizing the enriching experience that they could have.

So these synchronous sessions that used to be not necessarily well advised, given that, as we were talking about, the work, these are career professionals, these are workers, their time is valuable. But if in specific, well chosen timed spots during a program, it may make sense for these live sessions, and students may be more open to them now than they were in the past. So really just those different ways of looking for engagement.

So I just wanted to turn again to Lauren to see again, from your experiences, we’re hearing from the students, they really like these peer-to-peer interactions, they’re really enriching to them. But we also saw on some of the open ends, the begrudging, oh, not another group report or group assignment, because that seems to be the default way that we can get individuals to work together is to give out a group project. So are there different ways you feel with the online courses? Just again thinking about different assignments that could be done to foster peer-to-peer interactions that isn’t necessarily focused on that group work assignment that some students don’t necessarily look forward to.

Lauren Wright:

Thanks Andrew. And I think there is, but the group projects are, it’s tied to what we do in our business world, in our life world, it’s about coming together. And there’s meaning there, but there’s also opportunities to expose students to smaller, lower risk opportunities to create that sense of community and connection. Like one that comes to my mind is creating a student forum or a coffee hour, a discussion forum where students can just go in and share some thoughts, share some questions about the content that they have. It’s very low stakes community building, but it’s there for the students, similar to a student center if you were on a physical campus.

But other lower stakes, small group assignments, I think can really bring a lot of value to creating that community and that connection that students want. And maybe the rationale for that activity is tied to a larger, independent individual assignment. But it’s where you’re creating that opportunity to go deeper in dialogue. It could be in the form of just small group discussions where you’re going to, here’s a topic and it’s related to the readings that we’ve done, but answer these questions together. Let’s, explore, share your thoughts, build different layers in there.

Another one sometimes can be, an activity I love to design for is a debate. And it brings students together for a very intentional reason, but it’s short, it’s tied to a unit, it’s tied to a week of learning. It’s not tied to the overall exposure or extent of the course, but it allows students to get in there and wrestle and wrestle with some really deep topics, but then come back out and keep moving on. So I think there’s some opportunities to explore how we can build that sense of community and connection without always having to tie them to the larger group, higher stakes activities, which I think can lead to some higher levels of anxiety for our students.

Andrew Magda:

Thank you. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. If it’s always that big end of the year assignment, then that’s going to be seen as more of a potential detriment to my grade, if everyone doesn’t work well together. But if it is a lower stakes, as you say, it could be a way that they still get that same experience, but at a, as you said, a lower level of anxiety.

Lauren Wright:

Yeah. Thank you.

Andrew Magda:

Sure. So from those peer-to-peer interactions, what I think is even a stronger driver for this is also the faculty interactions students can have. And really looking for ways to encourage faculty to strengthen their presence in the classroom, because it really can be that key to student success and satisfaction. Again, thinking back to that voice of online learner study that I was just talking about, we did have some questions in there around working with faculty, and just how much that is seen as being valuable to that experience that they’re having.

So they’re looking for faculty, obviously as experts in their field, to provide that timely feedback to them on their assignments so that they can look to learn and grow, not just personally and professionally, but also just in that class itself. So if they start out with the first assignment and they get the feedback, and if they get it in on time, and it is personalized deep and rich feedback, then when they do the next assignment and the third assignment, they can obviously incorporate those changes, incorporate that learning versus just getting a letter grade and no real comment. Or just not getting any of the feedback until it’s too late to obviously make those changes and involve they’re learning there.

So also that’s obviously a secondary way of interacting, but also looking for, again, those in-person ways of interacting. If it is holding outside the classroom office hours, if it is through some of those optional live sessions, just different ways they can connect with their students, and giving them those opportunities. As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, short videos is another way that can be done, if that can be used to introduce the syllabus in that first week, but then each week maybe a short five or 10 minute, at most, video, just introducing the topic for the week, what the assignments are, what those due dates are.

Again, setting those expectations for what’s going to be needed in the week or the weeks to come. But also being done in that video form so they are hearing directly from that instructor’s mouth, seeing them and being able to connect with them in that virtual way, and understand what is going to be asked of them in that particular week. And also using those videos judiciously that they are going to be short and they are consistently posted each week. That can be another way of strengthening that position. Again, we’re finding-

Lauren Wright:

Andrew?

Andrew Magda:

Sure.

Lauren Wright:

I was saying, and Andrew, I wanted to just share, because I know there can be a lot of pressure and anxiety around thinking, as a faculty member, a video. I don’t want to flub. I don’t want to mess up. What’s the quality? What’s the production? I will share, we had students responding and they don’t care about the quality. They don’t need high production videos, they just want to see and hear from you. They want to hear, you’re the subject matter expert, you have chosen this field of study for your depth, and help me understand how you got there. What should I take away from that? So they just want to feel that overall connection to you.

Andrew Magda:

That’s great. Yeah. Because that is another hurdle you can obviously have is that fear of failure there with the video and not necessarily knowing about it. But if we even think today, just how much video is being posted that we see across our different social media feeds, none of it is necessarily the highest production. So even that same standard of just being able to post something to get it out there is great.

Again from our survey, finding that again, most of these learners here that we’re working with feel that the faculty are there and available for consultation. They’re also there to help them work through different, difficult subject matter during the course, during the content that they’re sharing. So again, that’s another opportunity for those virtual office hours, just some special one-on-one time that they can work with that instructor to work through a difficult challenge. Or just obviously posting the different ways they can get in contact with that faculty member and having that faculty member make sure they respond in that timely fashion to help ease some of those concerns.

And again, that personalized, deep feedback I think is also crucial. So it can obviously help the learning process for those students. And also feel that that faculty member is taking that time to look over their work and evaluate it, versus just again, assigning a generic letter grade to it, or just a general good job type of comment.

And I think… Yup. Again, those four main points we wanted to cover. There’s more detail in the report for some of those sub bullets and recommendations, but I just wanted to go over some of these key themes and takeaways that we just walked through. So again, that online program checklist is where we’re really distilling down a lot of this information. And the first two points here is really around again, setting expectations and clear communications. And this can be done obviously through the syllabus, making sure it contains all that information on those course objectives, activities and assignments, and the faculty members walking through that with these students early on in the process. Also, setting those clear objectives for the program even before they enroll in it, so they know again, what are they getting out of this program, what are the skills, so that they’re choosing the right program for their particular career.

And then all those within that course itself, everything is again structured in a way that it is consistent, course to course, semester to semester, so that students can really jump into their learning and get started right away versus having to take a good chunk of that first week or two to relearn that LMS. Where am I supposed to post that assignment? Where is the discussion board again? Not necessarily wasting their time doing that. So again, that’s going to set them up for success, they can jump in, have those clear expectations for the course, what is expected of them. And then once they achieve those through that course, again, they’re going to be very likely to have a high satisfaction and recommend this program.

The second two points of the checklist are around that engagement and having that enriching experience within the classroom. That’s engagement between the peers and also between the student and the faculty, and looking for ways to foster this engagement, whether it be through the live sessions. So as Lauren was saying, they can have some of those deep discussions. If that’s not necessarily an option there, there’s still ways to do it through video. Whether it be from faculty posting those weekly videos walking through the content, or maybe there’s even an assignment where students can post short videos walking through what they’ve learned for the week, there’s different ways to foster some of these interactions.

And then through faculty providing again, that deep, rich feedback, they help those students learn and grow just that much more. And they can take that feedback and incorporate it into their future assignments. And they really feel that they’re engaging with that faculty member, and that faculty member is taking time with them, even though they have obviously a lot of other students in that classroom. And just generally being present and available. So again, having multiple ways to contact them, if those outside the classroom office hours aren’t always available, different ways that they can get in contact with that faculty member during the week. So that faculty member can then respond in a timely way so that learning can continue. I think those were all of our takeaways for right now. David, any questions come in?

David Capranos:

Yeah, we did have a few. Thanks for that, Andrew. So I am going to remind the group, some of you found the question application there, go ahead and feel free to add something in here. Or you can put something in the chat too, if you have a reaction to something that we’re saying here or a question, we’d love to hear it.

I will say I’ve got a couple here that I’ll go through in a minute, but I also want to remind folks to download. The actual report is in the handout section, you can go ahead and do that, and you can see a number of other reports that we’ve done that are more on maybe how students select a program or things along those lines. There’s ones on skills gaps that we’re seeing out in the marketplace, things along those lines too, that are really interesting. But you can go to that resources link that you see at the bottom of the page there as well, and you can always email us questions that you have to that universityservices@wiley.com email address.

So one question that I do have in here, I think it’s probably mostly for Lauren, there was actually a handful of questions that I’m going to try to collapse down into one. But essentially there were all these questions around certain Edtech platforms and tools. And so there was this general series of questions about, oh, I heard about this one, or I heard about that one. What’s the best strategy here? What are best practices? Lauren, I just want you to… What are our thoughts? What are your thoughts when it comes to some of these different tools and apps that are out there?

Lauren Wright:

Well, I think as we’re starting to think about designing online programs and looking at the individual courses, at the programmatic level, it’s looking at what is the overall goal of the program and how does this technology support the students learning in this program? Introducing students to a lot of technology, or different technologies throughout their program without necessarily sharing if this is a technology program, or if this is a program that’s going to introduce a lot of technologies. Again, that can lead to an overarching cognitive load anxiety for students because they’re not expecting new technology course after course, unless that’s the typical program that they’re going into.

Where I’ve seen our partners be very successful is really looking at it at that strategic level. What is available across the campus that then lends itself to online? And how do we provide resources to support students as we’re introducing the technology? But not only for the student, but for the faculty member as well. Faculty want to feel very confident in using the technology that they’re using to teach those courses.

So it’s really a balance, but I think the more we can explore ways to enrich the learning experience without necessarily overwhelming that cognitive load is where students want it. They want engaging experiences, they want enriching experiences. They want new activities and assignments that bring in diverse ways to engage with each other. Not just the same types of learning experiences over and over again, through the courses, and technology definitely gives us a chance to get there.

David Capranos:

Yeah, I think that’s great. We had a question that came in around measuring levels of engagement. I thought that was an interesting one, Lauren. The question was, is there a way that you can see how engaged students are in some of these EdTech schools and platforms? And is that a measure to see if things are being effective?

Lauren Wright:

There are, and there are tools out there that campuses or programs can use to evaluate how well students are engaging with the material that’s being provided. Or if you have videos, is it on a platform that allows you to track the analytics? What I find really, really powerful if you’re able to leverage these analytics, is then you can bring that back to the student. Sometimes students pick and choose what they feel they can best benefit from. If they’re limited on time, as Andrew was saying, our students are, they’ve got a number of priorities.

But if we know from specific types of analytics, that there are key videos that are tied to how well a student is going to do on a test, then faculty can bring that back into the communication. Of all the things you avoid this week, or pick and choose, these videos are really critical to building your success in completing this assessment or this project. There are tools that are out there that really are valuable, but it’s picking and choosing the right ones, because it can lead to a lot of noise for faculty as well. And that’s where, if it’s too much, then it’s not benefiting me as a faculty member in supporting my students learning. But there’s definitely value in exploring what the right balance is and what tools are best utilized to help navigate students through their curriculum.

David Capranos:

It’s interesting, there’s this theme that’s emerging in some of the questions that I’m seeing here, Lauren, where it’s really great to see, because I think it comes from a place of empathy and understanding. And so there’s a couple questions here about how do you know when you’ve done too much? And these students that are saying maybe they’re overwhelmed, or maybe it’s even this debate idea you brought up, students that are maybe reticent to do that sort of thing. Right? And maybe they’re the folks that maybe sit in the back of the classroom instead of the front of the classroom. Right?

Lauren Wright:

Mm-hmm.

David Capranos:

How does online learning help engage those folks? And how do we make sure that we’re engaging them enough?

Lauren Wright:

I think it’s not a one stop shop in terms of creating that level of connection and community with our students. And that’s where the different avenues that we can take, whether it’s through the structure of the curriculum where students can flow and feel like they can be successful in that flow of learning, or where faculty members come in with really deep feedback on different learning assignments. And checking in if they’re not receiving the assignments as they’re supposed to. Or posting those beginning of the week, middle of the term, you’re doing great. Let’s keep going. Those varied approaches allow students then to see what their level of connection that they want. They want connection, but it’s not a one size fits all. Sometimes one student may be needing some really strong consultation from faculty.

They connect, they’re good, they got their problem answered, their question answered, they’re ready to go and no other need in the future. Others, they may need more engagement and more interaction, and this is where students are going to figure out what that level is and then faculty along the way. But yeah, again, faculty maintaining certain rhythms of communication and connection, right down to that confidence or consistency. If I receive an email am I receiving and responding to that within 24 hours? That also can help fulfill that level of communication that students are looking for, and that level of connection that students are looking for.

David Capranos:

Mm-hmm. In some of the advice that we’ve given, and this is one of the questions that came through, there’s almost this paradox that we’ve laid out where we’ve said you should be really consistent, do the same thing again and again. But then we have students that tell us, I’m burnt out. I’m doing the same thing over and over again.

Lauren Wright:

Yeah, yeah.

David Capranos:

And so can you help us understand, there’s some nuance there, but can you walk us through that?

Lauren Wright:

There is. And that’s where I think yes, students, I mean, there can be a traditional where, okay, you’re going to read, and then you’re going to watch some short lectures. Here’s a couple of discussions, and then you’re going to write a paper. And doing that week after week, course over course, that’s not challenging the student’s critical thinking in many aspects of what they’re looking for. I think what students are really looking for is a consistency of flow. They want to be able to feel confident that when I enter week two or enter week three, the structure is the same. I’m not going to have to start at the bottom to find out what my objectives are for the week, or where my readings are.

But the opportunities to create different ways in which you would engage and connect students to the goals of the course or some really dynamic, challenging aspects of what’s being covered, I think that’s where we have opportunities to really dig in and explore other ways to engage students. And again, it’s not looking at it extremes, you don’t have to throw one out just to go to the other. It’s finding that blend, where some weeks it makes sense. You’re going to have to do some discussions because in two weeks, this is the foundation for that.

David Capranos:

Sure.

Lauren Wright:

Maybe we share that. Maybe we provide more rationale for why the learning is structured this way, because then it also helps students feel connected, and understanding what the thoughts were that went into designing the course and what they can take away from that course.

David Capranos:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know that you get that discussion board post every single week, but maybe some writing, even how that’s asked can help too, right?

Lauren Wright:

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that’s where is it a large group one week-

David Capranos:

It’s reading a list and then writing a five paragraph essay every time, right?

Lauren Wright:

Yes.

David Capranos:

Or something, right? Yeah.

Lauren Wright:

Yeah.

David Capranos:

Or maybe it’s even asking for, Hey, record your thoughts this week, give me a video, or something along those lines. Yeah.

Lauren Wright:

Yup. Yeah.

David Capranos:

This one can be a little tricky. So there was a question around assessment of academic readiness versus true academic outcomes for a specific course. Right? And there’s this tension between student satisfaction, but are they actually learning what they need to learn? Those sorts of things. Do you want to talk about that, Lauren, about some of the ways that we assess, or how we can use design to assess folks better?

Lauren Wright:

Absolutely. I mean, I think it starts with your overarching objectives for the course. And that’s where you start with the end in mind. The goals of the course, the objectives of the course, you build assessments from there. And the assessments then become the anchors of what students are going to have to show, and levels of expertise and mastery. Now that this is a second level course, mastery is going to look different than a fourth level course, or a graduate program, but you are using the objectives for that course then to create those assessments. And from there you create those enriching learning experiences. How do you want to take students on their learning journey? What is your expectations for the unit or the week? However you want to organize, however you are organizing that course to be able to then guide students through that learning path that you’ve designed for your course.

David Capranos:

That’s great. So I remember early days of online learning, it’s a webcam in the back of the classroom, 45 minute lecture given to an empty lecture hall, and watching that video online, and then taking a quiz. Today, a lot of folks don’t have the attention span. I don’t think anybody has the attention span to sit through that sort of thing.

Lauren Wright:

I don’t think they ever did. Yeah, no.

David Capranos:

Right. Yeah.

Lauren Wright:

Nobody wants to watch a 45 minute webcam. No.

David Capranos:

Can you talk through how we’re delivering things in smaller bite size pieces?

Lauren Wright:

Yes.

David Capranos:

And what that means?

Lauren Wright:

Yeah.

David Capranos:

Yeah.

Lauren Wright:

Well, a lot of literature that’s out there, they really do focus on creating smaller nuggets of information to consume. And we’ve landed on a sweet spot of around 10 minutes, whether it’s a recorded PowerPoint or it’s a lecture, because it’s really about how well you create that story. And you could call it attention span. Some students, if it’s a really enriching presentation, they’ll go longer. But it allows them to digest it, really think about it in those smaller components, and then keep going through and moving through the material.

But the other piece, and this is thinking about the online learner, the online learner, it used to be when I got into this field, were over 35 plus, they are working adults, they have small nuggets of time. So the more you break the learning into those smaller nuggets, they can fit critical learning in key times that they have. But that’s actually shifting, but those same demands and dynamics are applying across the board.

Students as young as 23 and 24 are in fully online programs, but they still have the demands of caring for a family, working full-time. And so when they have time to invest and set aside for their learning period, they may not have time to go through an entire 60 minute video. And then if it can’t stop, you’re making it harder for them to really engage and connect with that material. So really thinking about the learner and it’s not a shorter attention span, but it’s really about creating those opportunities for them to learn, connect the concepts, and then keep moving.

David Capranos:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great. To that end I think that obviously there’s always this potential for burnout. I think especially Andrew did a good job of acknowledging these folks are full-time students, they’re full-time parents, or full-time employees, they’re full-time in a lot of different ways. Right? And even in that classroom experience, there’s these potential for burnout. Do we have any tips or anything that you think can help get people engaged? Especially, I’m thinking class seven is always a real struggle. Right?

Lauren Wright:

Yeah. Yeah.

David Capranos:

In a master’s degree, for example. Are there things that we think about there to help get students engaged and re-engaged?

Lauren Wright:

I think, and this is something that we talked about in the report, it’s normalizing the experiences that students are going to go through. Our partners that have been very successful, and have really strong retention rates have created empathy and communication pathways for their students. There’s a different need in course one to really help students feel they can do this. What their goal is not insurmountable because the first course is always overwhelming, you’re really adjusting. The needs as they’re progressing are different in course five versus course 10. And I think that’s also why we see students much more confident, and much more likely to recommend their program as they get closer to course 10, or they’re towards the end.

But coming back to that question, I think it’s really important. We need to talk, let’s share, some students experience this. How are we reaching out to students at a programmatic level, as well as in specific courses that students may take at that time to say, Hey, you’re rounding a corner, you’re almost there. But we also have additional support resources for you on campus, and here’s where you can find them. Normalizing and communicating, I think really help bring students along on their learning journey. They want to know that they have support and entities that they can reach out to, and this is one way that schools can do that.

David Capranos:

I think that’s great. There’s this cul-de-sac coming, be aware of it and prep for it and know the tool side of it. Yeah. Teach folks to have some self awareness there and pilot around it, I think that’s great. This is a question, Andrew, I know we’ve left you out of the conversation, but I want to make sure you get engaged here too. This might relate to some of the other studies that we do, but there was a couple of different questions around live sessions. Right? So it was this idea of synchronous learning versus asynchronous learning. There was some questions about hybrid, FaceTime versus online time, things along those lines. I’m wondering if you could talk through some of the things that we’ve learned from our upcoming study that would help answer that?

Andrew Magda:

Sure. You know, as I said a little earlier, next month our voice of the online learner study comes out. It’s the 11th version of that survey, we’ve been conducting it, as I said, for a number of years. And usually early on in that it was synchronous sessions were, I wouldn’t say a no-no or ill advised, it was just not something that these students were necessarily craving. They were craving that flexibility of learning on their own time. And that’s what online was really, I would say in that pre pandemic time. Right? They showed up, they did their assignments, maybe they did those discussion board and videos as we were saying, but they weren’t necessarily looking for a lot of that face-to-face time.

But I think what happened during the pandemic was with that shift to emergency remote learning, a lot of faculty that weren’t necessarily used to teaching online were pushed into that and brought in that idea that it has to be done face-to-face, in real-time. That’s how I taught it in the classroom, that’s how I want to teach online. And I think some of that bled into some of these online courses that these students took, and now they understand maybe some of the more benefits coming out of it, that enriching experience that we’ve been talking about, of having some of those face-to-face conversations and whatnot.

And so I think now, as we’re looking at the data, it looks that some of these online students are a little bit more open to these online, face-to-face experience, and maybe even coming to campus a couple of times. Maybe not just for residency, labs, but for some of these interactions that can only be done, say face-to-face. If there’s a special lecturer, or a special assignment, or some sort of hands on learning. But I think our recommendation coming out of it is going to be around making sure it is a targeted, specific reason to have these types of interactions, or these experiences, because they are still online learners. They are still choosing to go online for the flexibility and convenience. And if they were able to go to campus every week or have a face-to-face experience every week, they would go to that campus or they would look for that.

David Capranos:

Yeah.

Andrew Magda:

So I think it is making sure that it is a specific, targeted experience, but also knowing that it is okay. It isn’t as taboo as it may have been five or more years ago, it isn’t going to turn them away in droves. But I think going back to what we were saying early, setting those expectations, making sure that when they’re looking for that course description, that maybe that is noted that there is some synchronous components to it. Or that it is communicated early on in the syllabus so that if they do have to change course sections to someone who doesn’t have that, they’re able to do so without penalty. So I think just tying it back to those other recommendations that for those that really are looking for and want it, they can get it. But for those that really, they just can’t, maybe they’re a nurse working 12 hour shifts, they can choose the right path for them without penalty.

David Capranos:

Lauren, I’m going to take you to the complete opposite end of the conversation.

Lauren Wright:

Okay.

David Capranos:

For folks that are doing things completely asynchronous, there was a question about any advice or resources we could suggest for independent study? Right? So the asynchronous independent study course.

Lauren Wright:

So by asynchronous independent study, you were talking about more of a one-on-one type learning experience?

David Capranos:

I think it’s just more where maybe the didactic coursework is done a little bit more independently and maybe not as group oriented, is how I was reading it.

Lauren Wright:

Okay.

David Capranos:

Yeah. What are your thoughts on either?

Lauren Wright:

Well, I think that traditional courses are asynchronous, but the connection, trying to create that level of connection still comes in the way in which faculty are present in the classroom. Are they supporting students through discussions? Are they supporting students through feedback? Are they keeping grades up? Whether it’s a class size of 50 or a class size of five, students still want that same level of connection. Synchronous components are great, but Andrew said it really well, it’s positioning that information up front.

It’s letting students know if they have to adjust their schedules, how and when they can, are they optional, because there’s a number of students where a fully asynchronous course is what they’re looking for. And they don’t mind communicating in the discussion forum, but the idea of going online, listening to a lecture is not something they want. They want to be able to do it on their own time. And I think that there are learning designs that allow students to engage and interact in the course content without their having to be that video component, that synchronous component, to still have connection community and be successful in their courses. Do you feel like that has addressed the question?

David Capranos:

I think so, we’ll see if they can re-comment in the chat here, if they want to help us understand it a little better.

Lauren Wright:

Right.

David Capranos:

There was a question here, again, this tension that we create where we say, Hey, students learn best in short form, but often these are master’s degrees or degrees where mastery is important. Right? And how do you trade those things off? Right? When we’re saying the short form, are we saying students can’t sit and work for an hour? Help explain that a little bit more?

Lauren Wright:

Well, I think there’s different aspects to learning. You’ve got the information that you’re ingesting, and how am I going to ingest this information, whether I’m reading research articles or watching various video segments or searching online for my own edification to better understand a really complex topic. There’s consuming the information and creating, understanding, and creating your own critical thinking questions that you have around that.

But then there’s producing the results. And the producing the results are the assignments, the activities, the practice, whether it’s a weekly assignment or several course projects, those take deep time, and it takes iteration. And so that’s where short forum doesn’t mean a student can’t sit for an hour or even block out four hours. They may, and they have, and they can. It’s more about thinking about where students are as they’re progressing through that learning unit, I have to consume the information. I want opportunities to practice. I want opportunities to apply. And then I want to be able to show you and demonstrate that I have mastered this material, and here’s how I’m going to do that. And it takes time and it’s iterative and it’s thoughtful. So no, there is a regular amount of curriculum and rigor that every student still wants in these courses.

David Capranos:

Mm-hmm. So you’re still, you can learn paragraph by paragraph, but you’re still probably going to have to demonstrate that learning maybe in a big essay or something along those lines.

Lauren Wright:

That’s right.

David Capranos:

That’s an interesting way to refer to it. Yeah.

Lauren Wright:

That’s right.

David Capranos:

So, Andrew, if you can bring up that screen with the URL one more time. We did have some questions here about the recording, and maybe letting other colleagues look at this. You will be sent an email recording of today’s conversation, so you definitely can forward that along, or I believe you can forward along. If you have any trouble with that, feel free to email the universityservices@wiley.com email here.

Again, I’d encourage you in the next couple of minutes here, go ahead and download those hand outs. So you can download both today’s presentation as a PowerPoint, but you can also get the full report, which as Andrew mentioned a couple times, has much more information than we were able to cover here today.

I want to thank both of our speakers today, Lauren, Andrew, I think you guys did a fantastic job. I want to encourage you folks out there on the webinar, come up to us at conferences, send us ideas, feel free to engage in conversations with us. I think we’re all in this together, we’re all trying to better our education in this particular format. So I want to thank everyone for their time, thanks for your attention, and thank you for your questions. We really appreciate it and thanks again.

Lauren Wright:

Thank you.

  • Let's Talk.

    Complete the form below, and we’ll be in contact soon to discuss how we can help.

    If you have a question about textbooks, please email sscteam@wiley.com.

  • By submitting your information, you agree to the processing of your personal data as per Wiley's privacy policy and consent to be contacted by email.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.