TUFTS UNIVERSITY. Arts and Sciences Online Learning and Education. Working Group Report. A&S Online Learning and Education Working Group 7/1/2013

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1 TUFTS UNIVERSITY Arts and Sciences Online Learning and Education Working Group Report A&S Online Learning and Education Working Group 7/1/2013 Table of Contents I. Summary and Recommendations Continued Planning Efforts...2 Opportunities.2-3 Investments and Support Governance and Policies 4 II. The Values and Mission of the School of Arts and Sciences 4-5 III. Where are we now..5-6 IV. Where do we want to go.6-9 Implications for Students and Faculty 6-7 Economics and Institutional Support..7-9 V. Conclusion..9 Appendix A: Resources available through TTS Appendix B: STREAM Vision Document Appendix C: Educational Policy on Online Courses Appendix D: The Landscape of MOOCs Appendix E: Defining the Terms Working group members include: Boris Hasselblatt, Professor of Mathematics (chair); Sarah Herchel, Special Assistant for Curriculum and Program Analysis (staff); Nancy Bauer, A&S Dean of Academic Affairs; Robyn Gittleman, Director of the Experimental College; David Hammer, Professor and Chair of Education Department and Chair of Educational Policy Committee; Sonia Hofkosh, Associate Professor of English and Director of Women s Studies; Kris Manjapra, Assistant Professor of History and founding member of Sharing Technology for Research, Education, and New Media (STREAM); Lynne Pepall, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Sean Recroft, Director of Summer Session; Michael Roberts, Lecturer in Occupational Therapy and Chair of Information Technology Faculty Committee; Gina Siesing, Director, Educational and Scholarly Technology Services, Tufts Technology Services; Annie Soisson, Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning; Paul Stanton, Director of Student Services; Vickie Sullivan, Professor and Chair of Classics Department; Laura Wood, Director of Tisch Library

2 Summary and Recommendations The question of what to do about current and rapidly emerging online learning technologies and opportunities is a pressing one for all institutions of higher learning. The landscape has changed dramatically in just the past year. Some institutions, concerned about branding and finances, have taken the risk of making quick decisions to invest considerable sums of money on ventures that may or may not pay off. The cautious approach taken by the School of Arts and Sciences and the Provost s office during AY12-13, also known as the year of the MOOC, was the right strategy for Tufts. In the past few months, media headlines have moved from a sense of urgency about getting on the online bandwagon to observations about the potential pitfalls. We are pleased to see the pendulum swinging back toward the middle. This trend matches our overall judgment: we believe that Tufts should take steps immediately to develop a presence in online education but that we should do so in a way that leverages our particular strengths and is driven not by financial enticements but by our core values. Building on work done by the T10: Digital and Online Initiatives Working Group, we recommend that the School of Arts and Sciences enhance its current undergraduate residential model through the innovative and effective use of technology in the classroom: we can deepen the intellectual relationships between faculty and students by synergies between the use of innovative technology, our growing strength in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the pedagogical and research commitment of our faculty. continue to explore internal and external possibilities of developing online courses, possibly including a test massive open online course (MOOC), which could be of particular value to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in creating innovative and interdisciplinary online degree and certificate programs to overcome barriers and facilitate partnerships across Tufts schools. Further investment in the use of innovative technologies for teaching and research would enhance student learning in the residential model in many ways. Such technologies can strengthen and diversify student-instructor relationships and help create active and engaged classroom communities. With a flipped or blended classroom, students have more opportunities to build collaborative bonds with each other and with faculty members. Collaboration encourages teamwork, develops leadership skills, and fosters experimental approaches to complex problems. Many forms of technology-based and blended pedagogies promote such an active learning approach, which is already a hallmark of Arts and Sciences. In addition, the use of technology provides increased assessment opportunities for faculty and students. Online learning tools allow faculty to assess learning immediately, and not just at test-taking or paperwriting time. They allow instructors to switch gears mid-term and tailor teaching to the needs of all of their students. In this report, we offer recommendations about online opportunities, investment and support, and policies, with reference to the following set of concerns culled from our charge as a working group: Scholarship of teaching, learning, and assessment Implications for faculty and for students Emerging academic opportunities Economics and Institutional support Learning environments necessary for successful active learning 1

3 Continued planning efforts The world of technology-driven and online education is fast-evolving. In the five months we met, new developments were reported regularly in the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding new third-party providers of educational tools, backlash from faculty at various institutions, and innovations in the available technologies. The T10 Working Group on Digital and Online Initiatives recommended the creation of a standing committee to track and discuss online learning. For A&S (or AS&E), we also strongly recommend creating a faculty/staff committee to track and evaluate online learning and education trends, developments, and research, and to give continuing consideration to the question of whether Tufts should invest in offering and/or licensing MOOCs. This committee should interact closely with the proposed university-wide committee, the Dean s office(s), and internal organizations such as CELT, Educational & Scholarly Technology Services (ESTS), and the grassroots group Sharing Technology for Research, Education, and New Media (STREAM). It should consider ways to work jointly with other schools at Tufts and, specifically, to think about whether technology might help us overcome cross-school barriers. Opportunities Promote scholarship on teaching and learning in Arts and Sciences and beyond. One central question about advances in teaching technology is the extent to which it actually enhances student learning. There is much we do not understand about what makes good learning and teaching. Research on this question is an area of increasing faculty specialization in the academy, and more and more education specialists are working to develop methods for evaluating teaching effectiveness that are more precise and less subjective. In order to make informed decisions about the use of technology, online education, and blended classrooms, we need to better understand their actual effect on student learning. Conversely, online components of courses can provide rich data on student behavior and thinking; assessment of technologybased learning should be an integral part of our investment in developing best practices in education more broadly. While historically, matters of learning and teaching have not been treated as subjects of rigorous, scholarly research, outside of education programs and teaching and learning centers, a number of research universities are investing in discipline-based education research. We are pleased that A&S is among them, that CELT includes this in its purview, and that the Tufts resource site disseminates vetted research references. Develop local or peer-group consortia on select subjects. The School of Arts and Sciences should be a driver of partnerships with other schools within or outside the University to develop interdisciplinary online degree and certificate programs, especially at the graduate level. For example, we might consider developing a unique, interdisciplinary, online certificate program in Pain Management, which could engage the Medical School and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Other examples include online certificate programs in Program Evaluation or in Cybersecurity, joint with Fletcher. We applaud the participation of A&S in the newly founded Boston-Area Language Consortium and are pleased that the provost s office is also pursuing the possibility of shared online courses in language-instruction with the Colonial Group consortium. It also might be worth engaging the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) or other consortia in exploring mutually beneficial technology-facilitated learning opportunities. 2

4 Consider MOOCs first as an opportunity from within, without necessarily signing on with a third-party provider, and charge the newly created standing faculty/staff committee with exploring the possibility of other revenue-generating online initiatives. Proceeding cautiously and thoughtfully with respect to MOOCs is critical. Arts and Sciences should consider supporting the development of a MOOC in one of the areas in which the university has unique strengths, such as Food Security, Human Rights, or Nutrition. Because there are pitfalls to partnerships with third-party providers, such as requirements to scale up to accommodate very large numbers of students, the possibility of compliance hazards (Casion & Gewolb, 2013) and intellectual-property issues, we might begin with an in-house Tufts MOOC (or a smaller forprofit online course) directed at segments of our own constituency, e.g., alumni or parents, to attract audiences of a manageable size while targeting people we already have a stake in serving and thereby developing models for future ventures. This is matter for further discussion by a standing faculty/staff committee on online learning. Take advantage of existing MOOCs. We recommend providing opportunities to faculty to experiment with components of MOOCs from other institutions to enhance our existing coursework and curriculum. For instance, segments of a MOOC might be used in lieu of a traditional textbook (Kolowich, 2013d). As with textbooks, this may best be left to departments and instructors. Collect and analyze data (from our courses or from the literature) on the effectiveness of blended, online, and face-to-face learning at Tufts. A&S should continue to improve assessment of learning outcomes for both traditional face-to-face residential courses and emerging blended and online courses. Explore whether the Summer Session model of supporting the integration of educational technology into traditional courses can be exploited for use in fall and spring term courses. Gather more information about how our peer institutions are using technology for learning and how they are assessing outcomes of such use. Investments and Support Increase support for instructional design and for faculty, doctoral, and postdoctoral development. We will need increasingly more support from technology experts and teaching experts to help faculty articulate and assess learning outcomes and to use technology effectively to support course and program goals. Meet faculty where they are. The university would do well to mine the insight and wisdom about innovative teaching that our faculty already has. We recommend in particular that A&S support the grassroots group STREAM, which supports technological innovation in pedagogy and encourages faculty to share ideas with one another. Forestall reinvention of the wheel. A&S should charge a standing committee on online learning to keep track of experiments and innovations in the use of online pedagogy and to serve as a central source of information for interested faculty across the University. 3

5 Invest in technologically enhanced and flexible spaces for active learning environments. In order for faculty to embrace an active learning environment, we need to have a comprehensive plan for creating flexible spaces that can be used for a number of purposes and are easily adaptable as technology changes. Create peer coaches and reward faculty who integrate technology into their curriculum. We propose creating a structure by which faculty could coach, collaborate with, and support each other in their innovative teaching with technology. For faculty who have proven success at teaching well with online tools and who are skilled at coaching others to do so, coaching should be part of their faculty workload and be rewarded as such. Coaching should count as the work it is: a form of teaching. Rewards structure tied to innovation in teaching and learning. We propose the development of a rewards structure for faculty who engage at any level in innovative teaching practices, from informally trying new ideas in courses to doing serious data collection about learning effectiveness. Governance and Policies Institutional leadership. A&S leadership should engage faculty in developing a clear and transparent vision statement for the use and support of online and blended learning approaches. Evaluate and create policies and criteria for granting credit for online courses. In spring 2012, AS&E faculty voted to create an interim policy according to which the number of online courses an undergraduate student may use toward graduation should be limited to two credits offered by Tufts. This policy also requires that courses be designated as online on a student s transcript. The Educational Policy Committee will soon be proposing a permanent policy, see Appendix C. We recommend that criteria for approval of courses be consistent across modes of teaching and that decisions about the granting of credit for external courses offered by accredited institutions be made independently of the mode of course delivery. 4