Final Project: Leadership Activity

By Carla Wilson

The purpose of my leadership activity is to explore how to build or redesign courses which
effectely develop online learning communities in continuous intake DL schools with
asynchronous classes. First I will give a brief history of how I decided to pursue this topic. Then I
will outline what I have undertaken thus far and finally finish with where I still with to go with
this topic.
A few years ago, DESK (Distance Education School of the Kootenays), the school where I work
participated in the Ministry of Education Quality Review Process1. Ministry staff visited our
school and interviewed teachers, administrators, support staff and parents. At the end of the
experience, we ended up with a quality review report which we have since used to identify our
strengths and areas where we could improve. For me, the glaring weakness in our courses was
the lack of opportunity for students to interact with each other and develop online learning
communities. I began to wonder if increased opportunity for student to student interaction
would lead to increased engagement in our courses and to increased completion rates. I was
unable to find official data on Ministry websites about completion rates in DL schools in British
Columbia, however, the North Vancouver Quality Review Report2 posted online states that the
official provincial average is 55%.
After our quality review, there was little follow-up and teacher collaboration time to work on
making improvements to our courses in this area. Our staff basically worked independently on
their own courses making changes where they saw fit. I still felt, however, that our school
would benefit from some cohesiveness in our courses: a common standard with built in
strategies and activities aimed at developing stronger learning communities.
In OLTD 501, one of our assignments was to create an inquiry based action plan. I decided that I
wanted to do further research into developing online learning communities in continuous
intake DL schools with asynchronous classes. We had discussed that one of the challenges for
DL students was isolation and lack of meaningful interaction with other students in the course
and sometimes even with the teacher. The article Beyond Student Perceptions: Issues of
Interaction, Presence and Performance in an Online Course3 reaffirms this view and concludes
by emphasizing the importance of considering student interaction during the course design
1

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/dist_learning/quality_review.htm
http://www4.sd44.ca/school/distributed/About/minofed/PublishingImages/Final%20Quality%20Review%20Repo
rt%20SD44.pdf
2

Picciano, A. G. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://faculty.weber.edu/eamsel/research groups/on-line

learning/picciano (2002).pdf

phase.
This fall, I applied for and received an innovative practice grant from my school district. In my
application, I noted that continuous intake in asynchronous classes presents a special challenge
to the formation of online learning communities, I asked what strategies exist to engender the
formation of such communities in continuous intake courses and how successful they are. I also
asked if it is feasible for DESK to offer cohort or blended classes in efforts to build learning
communities and promote creativity and academic success.
Two teaching colleagues and both my administrators were willing to join me in exploring these
questions with the hopes of developing a plan of action to look at best practices in online
learning and teaching and to see how we could work on building better learning communities
within our courses and school. In our first meeting, we decided that rather than tackling all our
courses at once, we would focus on one: the consensus was that our Foods 12 course, which
was a former read and spit paper based correspondence course that had simply been scanned
into portable document format (PDF) and put online should be our first priority.
I gave the group two documents to consider. The first was the California State University
Chicos Rubric for Online Instruction4. This rubric offers a framework for what a quality online
course should look like. I thought this rubric might be useful as it can be used as a selfevaluation tool to guide instructors when revising an existing course or as a road map when
designing a new course. We agreed that we would use the rubric to help guide us in designing
the course and as a final evaluation once the course was complete.
The second document I shared was the Hanover Research Councils report on Best Practices in
Online Teaching Strategies5. There are three main sections in the report which deal with the
following: overview of the principles, guidelines, and benchmarks for online education; best
practices in online teaching strategies; and an exemplary program and examples of effective
practise. I chose to share this report as I found many practical suggestions to improve quality of
course design, course delivery and teaching. Further, the report gives examples of specific types
of activities that incorporate each suggested strategy. It also encourages the teacher to set up
and instruct classes in such a manner that pushes interactions beyond simple student
discussions and require them to interact with one another, the teacher, the text, the Internet,
the entire class, small groups and one on one. The belief is that the more students are engaged
in content, the more they learn. My hope is that we will use this document as we consider what
sorts of learning activities to incorporate into our course.
Finally, we decided it was important to have a method to ensure that the whole course was
designed in a consistent manner. All of us are familiar with the UbD (understanding by design)

http://www.csuchico.edu/roi/documents/rubricpdf
http://www.uwec.edu/AcadAff/resources/edtech/upload/Best-Practices-in-Online-Teaching-StrategiesMembership.pdf
5

Design Standards6 and felt that it offered a good framework to keep us on track. We particularly
appreciate the three-stage design process which begins with the end in mind: identifying
desired results (What should students know, understand, and be able to do? What essential
questions will be explored?), determining acceptable evidence (How will we know if students
have achieved the desired results? How will we evaluate student performance?), and plan
learning experiences and instruction. We decided that we would use the templates on An
introduction to Understanding by Design website7.
We are still in the initial planning process of our project: looking at learning outcomes and
deciding on the big ideas. However, when we have completed the course design and are ready
to launch, there is one final idea which I wish to explore. In OLTD 502 our class was introduced
to a video created by David Le Blanc with instruction on how to create cohort groups within
asynchronous courses8. My intrigue of the idea is twofold. Over the past two years I have been
exploring having my students create their own deadlines for assignments. I have created course
outlines with estimated times to complete each section. Students are informed of
approximately how many hours it will take them to complete the course. They then decide by
when they wish to have the course completed. I suggest that they decide between five months
(one semester) or ten months (full school year). Taking this date into consideration, they then
put deadlines on their assignments. I have found this a powerful tool to keeping students on
track, but sometimes it is difficult to manage. If I am able to put students into loosely formed
cohorts, I can then set dates for the various groups making the overall management less
complicated.
My second reason for wishing to explore David LeBlancs ideas is that I believe it will facilitate
the building of stronger learning communities. If I can create groups of students who are
moving through the course at a similar pace with built in deadlines, I can create more
opportunity for students to interact with each other through discussion forums and learning
activities.
I look forward to seeing how this project progresses and monitoring if our efforts to create a
greater sense of learning communities in our courses will result in increased student
satisfaction and completion rates. It is also my hope that eventually more of my colleagues will
come on board and that we can work collaboratively on improving all of our courses.

http://jaymctighe.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Design-Standards-2005.pdf
http://rt3region7.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/file/view/Intro+to+UBD+Handouts.pdf
8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRP4dbvJO_U
7

References:
(n.d.). Retrieved from website:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/dist_learning/docs/dl_standards.pdf
Hanover Research Council. (2009). Retrieved from
http://www.uwec.edu/AcadAff/resources/edtech/upload/Best-Practices-in-Online-TeachingStrategies-Membership.pdf
Gunawardena / McIssac. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://ocw.metu.edu.tr/file.php/118/Week10/Gunawardena-McIsaac-distance-ed.pdf
Hooper, S., & Rieber, L. Retrieved from http://www.nowhereroad.com/twt/
McTighe, J. (n.d.). Understanding by design. Retrieved from
https://www.mheonline.com/secondaryscience/pdf/ubd.pdf

Nash, R. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter84/nash84.htm

Picciano, A. G. (2002). Retrieved from http://faculty.weber.edu/eamsel/research groups/online learning/picciano\(2002).pdf
Rovai, A. P. (2002). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/79/152
Tyler-Smith, K. (2006). Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol2no2/tyler-smith.htm
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://rt3region7.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/file/view/Intro
to UBD Handouts.pdf