Building a Truly Connected Learning Experience: How Learning Communities Help You Drive Better Outcomes

Concurrent Session 8

Brief Abstract

Online discussions typically form the only consistent basis for student-to-student interactions in many courses and programs, but they are labor-intensive and quite frankly, underwhelming. This interactive roundtable discussion considers how community-focused design can replace this worn-out paradigm, sharing first-hand experience from educators who will share best practices to consider.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Tyler Rohrbaugh, Yellowdig

Tyler Rohrbaugh is the VP of Strategic Partnerships for Yellowdig, a Philadelphia-based EdTech company that works with some of the top institutions in the world to improve student engagement and retention. Having joined the company in Summer 2017, he prides himself on building strong relationships with the administrators, professors, and course designers he works with, and in identifying new ways that they can use Yellowdig technologies to see improvements across the KPIs that they care about most. Tyler received his MBA with specialization in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from Drexel University's Lebow College of Business, where he also completed his undergraduate studies and continues to guest lecture in undergraduate and graduate Marketing courses.

Co-presenter: Tawnya Means, University of Illinois - Gies College of Business

Dr. Tawnya Means is the Assistant Dean for Educational Innovation and Chief Learning Officer in the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Prior to this role, Tawnya served as the Assistant Dean and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center for the College of Business at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, leading teaching and learning support and providing faculty development programs and resources for instructional innovation and adoption of pedagogical best practices. With 20 years of experience in higher education, course design, and educational consulting, Tawnya has also taught courses in entrepreneurship, strategy, technology, and leadership in remote teams. Dr. Means received her B.S. in Education, M.S. in Educational Technology, and Ph.D. in Information Science and Learning Technologies with an emphasis on learning systems design, all from the University of Missouri. She completed the AACSB Post-doctoral bridge program in Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in online and blended learning, active learning, learning space design, technology for teaching, access to digital learning resources, and faculty preparation to teach. She has long been a leader in campus initiatives and committees and actively presents at conferences and other institutions and organizations on technology-enhanced learning.

Co-presenter: Melisa Tanger-Brown, University of Rochester

Lisa is the Director of Online Learning for the University of Rochester's Institute for Innovative Education. She holds a Doctorate of Education, along with an Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning. Additionally, she teaches future teachers how to teach online at the University's Warner School of Education.

Extended Abstract

Many degree programs and courses include online discussion boards to engage students, promote critical thinking, increase topic relevance, help students network, etc. In these spaces, instructors and course designers expend considerable effort doing administrative tasks, creating weekly assignments, enforcing posting rules to ensure they meet requirements, and meticulously grading the resulting “discussion” to motivate participation. In reality, these assignments rarely spur anything even remotely resembling real conversations. Moreover, the grades that are given may accurately reflect post quality according to an instructor’s rubric, but rarely capture whether a post actually created or sustained meaningful interaction.

Consequently, though traditional discussion models lead to content generation, they tend not to propel content consumption or conversation. Assignments with prescribed rules and deadlines like “post once and comment twice this week” tend to yield a couple of forced and unnatural student interactions and this model encourages procrastination to just before the weekly deadline. These assignments evoke little interest or excitement from students (and we are guessing from you either). Because these discussion boards are not engaging, dynamic, or thought-provoking places they also do not actually deliver most of the promised educational benefits of the discussion paradigm (e.g., social learning, peer interaction, etc.).

Instead, this session will explore a new methodology to deepen student interaction called Connected Learning Experience. As we all contemplate the future of education, well-designed, connected learning environments will integrate students immediately into a learning community where they become an increasingly important part of the social fabric of their institution. Moving seamlessly between experiences before, during, and after their classes, they will have a wide range of learning opportunities constantly available to them. They will also have access to support services, instructors, and fellow students that can help them at any time. As they progress through this well-connected and continuous learning experience they will have the ability to grow into leaders of their learning community, eventually emerging as engaged, successful alumni. These types of connected learning environments not only improve student engagement and satisfaction but lead to higher retention and positive long-term association with the program

This session is all about community-focused learning design that rethinks the common approach to building student interaction. Attendees will leave with new ideas to deepen student interaction with use cases to consider inside the classroom and throughout the learning lifecycle. Presenters from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Rochester will share their experiences developing community-focused learning and will field questions from the audience in a roundtable-style discussion. The suggestions made are supported by data gleaned from Yellowdig, a community-building technology that amplifies student engagement and interaction.