By Ellen Wasserman and Amy E. Brown

Online learning in higher education increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has now expanded access for many students, including students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, first-generation students, and adult learners, who may find it difficult to attend college classes in person. In fact, 59% of students were taking some or all of their courses online in 2022 in U.S. public two-year colleges, according to the Department of Education. Although the rise in online coursetaking has benefits in terms of convenience and flexibility for students, it is not without challenges, and colleges are struggling with the best way to support students in these courses.

Two new reports from the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative (the Collaborative) offer insights into institutional and classroom approaches for supporting students in online courses, particularly STEM courses. The Collaborative, led by SRI Education, the Community College Research Center, and Achieving the Dream, conducts research in partnership with nine broad-access colleges and universities and has developed an evidence-based framework that describes how motivational, metacognitive, and applied learning processes work together as students manage their online learning. Collectively, we call these processes self-directed learning (SDL) skills and mindsets.

Both of the Collaborative’s new reports—based on a study at seven community colleges and two broad-access four-year universities—share examples of how institutions and instructors can support students’ SDL skills to manage online learning. The first focuses on institution- and classroom-level supports for online teaching and learning based on interviews with administrators, staff, and faculty. The second (a research brief) provides a closer look at faculty teaching practices that support SDL skills and mindsets in the classroom.

SDL Supports Can Address Challenges in Online Courses

Learning online can be isolating for students, and they can be overwhelmed by the need to manage some or all aspects of a course independently. This sometimes leads to disengagement that may impact students’ sense of belonging and self-efficacy and could negatively influence course completion. To help students build a sense of belonging and support motivation, some faculty in the study created videos to introduce themselves to their students and asked students to introduce themselves to their peers using a discussion board or video post. Some faculty also used low-stakes assessments in the beginning of a course to help build students’ confidence.

The Collaborative’s research underscores many of the demands of online learning, such as time management, that can impact student success. Asynchronous courses in particular are a challenge for many students because, instead of offering built-in class times and deadlines, they require students to work independently. Faculty members told us that these challenges often resulted in poorer work quality and fewer opportunities for deep learning, with students rushing to complete assignments at the last minute. To help students think about the learning process and improve their time management, faculty asked students to set goals for the course and to use a time tracker to plan when they would do coursework. Students then reflected on their progress at several intervals, especially around exams. Instructors also supported applied learning skills by inviting students to share study strategies with each other, teaching students note-taking methods, scheduling one-on-one check-ins, and providing links in the course learning management system to tutoring and other institutional resources.

Institutions Can Do More to Support SDL in the Classroom

The Collaborative’s research found that colleges offer many types of support for online learners, including new student orientation, student success courses, affinity group programs for targeted student groups, and online course orientations. However, there are fewer formal, institution-wide supports delivered directly to students within disciplinary online classes. Notably, a lot of the beneficial supports provided are front loaded in students’ college careers; in some instances, students engage in them before they begin taking courses, where the skills they have learned can be applied and practiced. What’s more, our analysis indicates these existing supports focus more on the applied learning skills described in the Collaborative’s framework and less on the motivational and metacognitive processes that we argue work best together in a self-reinforcing cycle. Though our research points to the need for classroom-based skill building, we found that faculty use strategies to reinforce SDL skill development inconsistently. Many faculty in the study did not have information about how to support SDL skill development and felt that they did not have time for it within their course activities. Yet faculty also reported frustration with students’ lack of engagement in online courses, which emphasizes the need for faculty professional learning about SDL development strategies.

The Collaborative’s research findings will form the basis of an evidence-based instructional model and professional learning program that will help higher education leaders and instructors adopt teaching strategies and effectively use online course tools to help students develop self-directed learning skills. In the next phase, the Collaborative will develop and test the instructional model before making it available to colleges and faculty nationwide. To follow the progress of the Collaborative’s work to improve student support in online learning, please subscribe to our newsletter.

https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/easyblog/online-courses-aren-t-going-away-two-new-reports-show-how-self-directed-learning-skills-can-improve-student-success.html

For centuries, writing has been the cornerstone of learning. In just a year, generative AI has completely disrupted writing as a practice and called into question its value to the learning experience.

Using Grammarly’s unique position as the leading writing assistant and our deep relationships with higher education institutions, we’ve spent the last year answering one of our customers’ biggest questions: What is the future of writing? 

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• Considerations to effectively grapple with gen AI’s massive disruption to writing output
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Our co-founder, Alex Shevchenko, will join our lead Product Marketing Manager for Education, Cliff Archey, for a candid conversation on the future of writing. Join for a nuanced perspective on the process of writing and why teaching methodologies need to evolve to foster critical, creative, and original thinking through writing in their students. 

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PTC has partnered with a new vendor to provide free online tutoring and academic resources!  Starting February 19, the college will begin to transition from our current online tutoring provider, NetTutor, to Brainfuse.  Students will be able to access Brainfuse in D2L and will continue to have access to NetTutor for the next few weeks.

Brainfuse provides 24/7 help in math, science, and English. They also offer live tutoring in many other disciplines. Whether students need assistance with assignments or feedback on written projects, they can receive on-demand help anytime, anywhere.

Brainfuse assists students by:

• Providing On-Demand One-to-One Assignment Help: Brainfuse tutors employ a range of field-tested techniques based on current research and best practices that have been specifically adapted for online tutoring to ensure high-quality service and instructional consistency.

• Offering Personalized Asynchronous and Live Writing Assistance: Brainfuse’s writing lab methodologies, customization features, and quality control safeguards truly make them unique among online tutoring providers. They employ a multi-layered review process to maintain methodologically consistent feedback.

• Hiring Highly Qualified Tutors: Brainfuse employs a team of approximately 4,000 tutors, of which 96% have a graduate degree in the area they tutor. Their ongoing monitoring and review system helps ensure student satisfaction.

In addition, students enjoy unlimited access to academic tools, which include flashcards, SkillSurfer practice tests and lessons, MEET virtual meetings, LEAP diagnostic testing, language lab, Brainwave recorded notetaking, and eParachute career aptitude tests.

Instructors also have the added benefit of a faculty dashboard in Brainfuse where students can be targeted for tutoring intervention.  Please see below for a training video for faculty.