Sloan ALN Summer Workshop

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Sloan ALN Summer Workshop
August 16-18, 1999Urbana, Illinois
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Learning Effectiveness

• SUNY Fredericksen et al.
• UIUC Shapley
• OUI Aviv
• Drexel Hislop
• UW-Stout Holland
• NJIT Hiltz and Turoff
• NVCC Stover and Sener

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What can ALN provide?

• Access to learning opportunities
• Information
• Interactive course materials
• Simulations, multimedia, visualization
• Homework and quizzes
• Access to people
• Subject matter experts (faculty, TAs)
• Other students (peer-peer group interactions)

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The Power of ALNs

• Active learning
• Collaborative learning
• High interaction (with faculty, with other
  students)
• Team-based activities
• Address different learning styles
• Multiple assessments
• More frequent feedback
• More evaluation by students

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ALN Value Added

• Positive Interdependence
• ALN course must be structured to promote
  collaboration

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Instructor in ALN course

• Faculty as facilitator co-learner
• Attributes
• Visible
• Approachable
• Motivated
• Discrete
• Pro-active
• Explicit
• Assume nothing

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Student in ALN course

• Need for orientation to ALN
• Student attributes
• Leading
• Lively
• Lucid
• not lurker, listless, lagging, lost

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Faculty Development

• For ALN to become mainstream, faculty development
  is critical
• Good teaching is good teaching
• Effective teaching promotes effective learning

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Learning Effectiveness

• Need for additional controlled studies, comparing
  on-campus and online course taught by same
  instructor
• Need for long-term follow-up future courses,
  placement, etc.
• Need to disseminate findings more widely to
  counter perceptions in the press