LED Research Group Impact at 2019 InnovateX

The LED Research Group made an impact at InnovateX on May 16, 2019 at the Ohio State University. We gave two sessions at the conference in the Experience and Excite tracks, and presented our ideas to a packed audience of academics, practitioners, and students.

Our first session was “Digital Engagement: What Students Want from Your Online Class?” In this session, Drs. Ana-Paula Correia and Rick Voithofer hosted a panel of current and former students who had taken online courses for the Master of Learning Technologies at the Ohio State University. The panelists include LED members, Karen Bruce Wallace, Erin Clarke, and Cara North, as well as Anna Leach and Robbie McCord. They shared their thoughts on how to make online classes more engaging. They discussed the technologies and teaching methods they preferred, shared recommendations and solutions to help instructors improve their online teaching, and talked about how they applied their learning beyond their online course. Afterwards, they participated in a robust question and answer session, where they fielded a range of challenging questions from the audience.
Panel on Digital Engagement, May 16, 2019 at InnovateX

Panel on Digital Engagement, May 16, 2019 at InnovateX

Our second session was “Creating Interactive Learning Experiences.” In it, Cara North, incoming LED member Sean Hickey, and Karen Bruce Wallace explored the importance of choice in learning. They examined how choice could improve learners’ engagement, covered principles of using choice in learning, and offered a range of applications in the form of interactive demos. The demos included adventures built in Camtasia and Storyline, Keynote, and Twine.

Creating Interactive Learning Experiences, May 16, 2019 at InnovateX

In addition, the three presenters structured the session around the idea of choice. The audience could choose from whom they wanted to hear, what topics they wanted to be explored, and help to navigate the demos. That way, the audience could experience the power of choice for themselves.

LED had a fantastic time at InnovateX, and hope to return next year!

Making it Through the First Year: An Appreciative Take of the Research Group

If you are reading this, you may be interested in starting a Ph.D. or how what it is like to be in a research group. Well, I will begin by telling you that being a first-year doctoral student is no joke. It is stressful and draining on many levels, but I can confidently say that being in the Learning & Experience Design Research Group has helped. The LED Research Group offered me the support (both academic and emotional) I needed to get through my first year. When I was accepted into the Learning Technologies Program in the College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE) here at OSU, my advisor told me I would be joining her research group. Honestly, I was intimidated and had no idea what to expect. I falsely assumed that I would have to give up my personal research interests to participate. However, I have learned that a good research group allows each member to contribute their own perspectives to the group’s work.

As a first-year doctoral student, I had very little confidence in my work and not any substantial research to my name. That is okay!! It is thanks to the members of the LED Research Group that I plucked up the courage to create and present my first ever research poster for the EHE Research Forum.

Erin presenting at EHE Research Forum on February 14, 2019.

My advice to anyone joining a research group is to listen and take advantage of the opportunities extended to you through your participation in the group. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be a member of the Educational Studies Diversity Committee (EDGE), be working collaboratively on a manuscript for journal submission or soon be traveling to Las Vegas to present at the Association for Educational Communications & Technology conference so early in my doctoral studies. I am so excited that my work with the group this past year culminates this week at the OSU 2019 Innovate conference. It has been one heck of a year, but looking back, I can say it was worth all the hard work, and I look forward to two more years.

Come and Learn from LED at Innovate on 16 May 2019

Ohio Union Exterior

LED members will be presenting at two highly interactive, engaging sessions at InnovateX on 16 May 2019.

Digital Engagement: What Students Want from Your Online Class

10:15-11:00, Great Hall Meeting Room 1

Meaningful engagement in online learning is a major challenge when teaching at the college level. Do you know what students want from your online class? In this interactive panel presentation, students from Ohio State’s online Master of Learning Technologies program candidly discuss their experiences with teaching methods and technologies in higher education. Gain insight from a variety of students, and take the opportunity to ask them your questions.

Creating Interactive Learning Experiences

11:15-12:00, Great Hall Meeting Room 1

Did you flip pages in narrative adventures such as Choose Your Own Adventure? Did Black Mirror: Bandersnatch snatch your attention? Both excite their audience by offering meaningful choices and encouraging multiple attempts through branching storylines. Learn how the research behind—and applications of—choosing your own adventures inlearning can inspire curiosity and encourage higher-order thinking. Experiment with sample games created through simple presentation software, an eLearning module, and video.

Come and start your conference experience by learning with LED!

 

North and Hickey Win National Award in Instructional Design

Cara North and Sean Hickey (incoming LED research group member) received the “Best in Show” award for their eLearning game entitled Multiple-Choice Mayhem at the Learning Solutions, March 2019.

Multiple-Choice Mayhem teaches the user how to identify common item-writing flaws that make the answer apparent or allows a test-taker to easily eliminate several choices. This eLearning game was designed to prepare subject-matter experts for creating more effective multiple-choice assessments. Hickey and North created the game after realizing the existing teaching tools were not effective and contained information that was outdated.

Designed in the style of a 1970’s television game show, Multiple-Choice Mayhem presents users with 7 multiple-choice trivia questions. Users may miss one or two but will generally find the questions easy. After answering the questions, the user will then learn through a brief animation and explanation of why the item was easy to answer. Hickey and North designed the game to have the player to learn the consequences of bad item-writing firsthand to help them recognize the value of following item-writing standards and to avoid pitfalls. Since its launch in September 2017, Multiple-Choice Mayhem has been viewed and played by more than 600 people.

“Best in Show” award at the Learning Solutions conference, March 2019.

The Learning Solutions conference is an annual conference from the eLearning Guild, a professional organization for those in the field of learning and development. More than 1,500 human resources, learning and development, training, and eLearning professionals from more than 15 countries attend the three-day conference to get practical learning and training content they can take home and apply immediately.

The last evening of Learning Solutions is DemoFest, a showcase of attendees’ best eLearning, video, and training programs. A month prior to the event, attendees must apply to participate. For 2019, 40 products were selected to participate in categories that included Academic, Alternative, Blended Learning, Business Process, Game-Based Training, Immersive/Simulation, and Video. Conference participants attend DemoFest and vote for the best demos. One “Best in Show” award is given to each of the eLearning vendor demo and the non-vendor attendee demo with the most votes. In addition, the highest vote earner in each category is given an award for that category. Multiple-Choice Mayhem won “Best in Show” (non-vendor) as part of DemoFest.

Congratulations Cara and Sean!

Learning Solutions conference, March 2019.

Ohio State’s Innovate, here we go again…

Last year LED research group led a 45-min session on “Shifting the Balance: Engaging Students as Collaborators in Online Course Redesign” at 2018 Innovate that attracted more than 100 participants who engaged in collaborative design activities.

During this January writing retreat, LED research group members worked diligently on creating different session ideas for InnovateX, the Ohio State’s annual conference in online learning and teaching. The Request for Proposals is now open and asks for new ways to excite students about learning, explore teaching opportunities outside the classroom and delve into the student experience.

Hurry, the deadline is January 25, 2019!

LED writing retreat, January 18, 2019.

LED in 2018: Year in Review

Sign reading Hello There 2018

The LED Research Group celebrated its first year anniversary in August 2018.  Following Reeves & Oh (2017)*, we were founded with the intention of bridging the contexts of theory and practice, and showing how they could mutually inform each other.

For a young research group, we had a number of remarkable accomplishments.

Publications

Correia, A.P., North, C.A., Korkmaz, C., Simmerman, V.E. & Bruce Wallace, K.A. (2018). No prior experience necessary: Reflecting on the learning experiences offered by student-created online discussions. In T. Bastiaens, J. Van Braak, M. Brown, L. Cantoni, M. Castro, R. Christensen, G. Davidson-Shivers, K. DePryck, M. Ebner, M. Fominykh, C. Fulford, S. Hatzipanagos, G. Knezek, K. Kreijns, G. Marks, E. Sointu, E. Korsgaard Sorensen, J. Viteli, J. Voogt, P. Weber, E. Weippl & O. Zawacki-Richter (Eds.), Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning 2018 (pp. 2205-2218). Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Correia, A.P., Koehler, N., Thompson, A. & Phye, G. (2018). The application of PhET simulation to teach gas behavior on the submicroscopic level: secondary school students’ perceptions. Research in Science & Technological Education. doi: 10.1080/02635143.2018.1487834

Leach, A., North, C.A., Gintert, N., Correia, A.P., & Archambault, L. A Portrait of a Modern Online Graduate Student. In M. Simonson (ed) 41th Annual Proceedings of theAssociation for Educational Communications and Technology. Bloomington, IN: Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT).

Presentations and Talks

Other Accomplishments

  • Ana-Paula Correia was awarded OSU’s Office of International Affairs Academic Enrichment Grant.
  • Ana-Paula Correia was chosen as OSU’s director for Center on Education and Training for Employment.
  • Cara North was sworn in as President-Elect of the Central Ohio ATD.
  • Cara North was elected as AECT’s Communications Officer on the Board of the Research and Theory Division.
  • Cara North was a featured speaker in the Training Magazine Network The Masters Series.
  • Erin Clarke was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Enrichment Fellowship.
  • Vicki Simmerman and Karen Bruce Wallace graduated with their Master of Learning Technology.

With such a great first year, we are excited about what 2019 will bring. We plan to expand LED’s presence both nationally and internationally, add more members to the research group, publish more of our research, and shape learning design and experience theory and practice.

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* Reeves, T. C., & Oh, E. (2017). The goals and methods of educational technology research over a quarter century (1989–2014). Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(2), 325–339.

North presents at Central Ohio ATD and Greater Cincinnati ATD Conferences

LED research group member Cara North recently presented at Central Ohio Association for Talent and Development and Greater Cincinnati Association for Talent and Development annual conferences. The Association for Talent and Development is the oldest and largest professional organization for learning and development professionals across the world.

The Central Ohio ATD Conference, Learning Technologies and Design Day, was September 18, 2018, and held at the Quest Conference Center in Columbus, Ohio. North served on the conference committee and had two presentations and facilitated a panel. North presented with her podcasting partner, Joseph Suarez, eLearning Developer at Cardinal Health. North and Suarez led a session called Podcasting for Learning, which focused on getting started technically with creating a podcast as a learning solution. Additionally, North presented with Sean Hickey, Lead Curriculum Developer at Ohio State’s Center on Education and Training for Employment. North and Hickey’s session, None of the Above: Common Pitfalls for Multiple-Choice Assessment was presented in a gameshow format and was the highest rated session of the day. Finally, North facilitated the closing general session panel: How Do You Keep Up With the Pace of Technology?. The panel included the conference keynote speaker Mike Taylor, Jeff Zoller, Learning and Development Specialist at AEP, and Joseph Suarez.
Hickey and North

The Greater Cincinnati ATD Powers of Possibilities Conference was October 5, 2018, at the Savannah Center in West Chester, Ohio.  North was an invited presenter and lead a table topics discussion Twitter – Building Knowledge 280 Characters at a Time.

North is President-Elect of Central Ohio ATD and is looking forward to providing more leadership and programming opportunities to emerging professionals.

Erin Clarke, Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Fellow, is joining the LED research group

The LED research group welcomes Erin Clarke this semester. Erin is the recipient of Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Enrichment Fellowship and a first-year doctoral student in Learning Technologies.

Erin completed a Master of Library Science with a specialization in Digital Libraries at Indiana University-Bloomington. While in graduate school she was awarded two competitive assistantships. The first, as Metadata Graduate Assistant at Library Technologies, Herman B Wells Library. The second, as an Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Graduate Assistant, at the Lilly Library and University Archives and Records Management. While at Indiana University, she was awarded the Information & Library Science Merit Scholarship created to support students with a record of academic excellence.

Before graduate from Indiana University, Erin worked as an EAD Intern at Library Technologies, Herman B Wells Library. During her work as an intern, she explored the origins and use of Encoded Archival Description, evaluated tools and methods in creation of EAD and offered professional development training. She ended her internship by co-presenting about the future of EAD at Indiana University’s libraries in-house conference.

From 2012 to 2013, Erin was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar at Lamar University. The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program is a grant funded program by the U.S. Department of Education. Currently there are only 186 programs across the country. The purpose is to prepare, through research and other means, first-generation and low-income students or those underrepresented in their field for doctoral study. Coincidently, Erin directed this program at Lamar University as the Director of the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program before starting her doctoral studies at The Ohio State University.

LED group member in the final stretch …

Vicki Simmerman is in her final stretch to complete the Master of Learning Technologies (MLT). Taking four graduate-level classes in one semester was an adventure,  but it was accomplished by reducing student work hours and working while traveling. Three  conference presentations were also on the plate for Vicki during the Spring of 2018 (all with our LED team members).

Now, after an additional summer course in website design, Vicki is ready to devote her attention to working on the MLT Practicum, which will be an evaluative study of the OHI/O Hackathon in October 2018.  Hackathons are 24-hour intense collaborative events that offer a way to learn hands-on.  Tired but usually happy participants have the opportunity to meet real-world sponsors,  eat great food and share ideas and challenges in a cooperative setting,  all within a 24-hour period. Several surveys were developed and would be distributed to the participants. Vicki will be coding the responses to include in my an evaluative report to hand in to the leaders of the OHI/O Hackathon. This will be followed by a presentation of the main results to this leaders.

Vicki is expected to graduate in December 2018 after two years of intensive graduate-level work.  She is feeling energized and inspired. She is taking inspiration as usual from the LED group members. For example, Karen Bruce Wallace recently finished her MLT (after her PhDin English). Vicki is looking forward to this academic adventure  – lots to do with help from her LED research group.

  North and Simmerman presenting at Innovate 2018 with the rest of the LED members (not pictured) 

Correia’s new article in “Research in Science and Technological Education”

Ana-Paula Correia published “The application of PhET simulation to teach gas behavior on the submicroscopic level: secondary school students’ perceptions” with her co-authors Natalya Koehler, Ann Thompson and Gary Phye, in Research in Science and Technological Education, a Taylor & Francis journal,

The article is available at: 

ABSTRACT
Background: A multimedia software designed as a Computer-Assisted Scaffolding system was used to teach gas behavior on the submicroscopic level using Physics Education Technology Project (PhET) simulation. PhET is a set of interactive, research-based science and mathematics online simulations.

Purpose: The purpose was to investigate secondary school students’ perceptions of the simulation-based learning system and how it supported their cognitive processing of chemistry target concepts. Identifying its most (and least) helpful features and instructional strategies was also an objective of this study.

Simulation-based learning system description: The Computer-Assisted Scaffolding system (Program) combined with the PhET simulation were meant to facilitate learners’ conceptual understanding of gas behavior on the submicroscopic level, which would serve as a foundation for learning gas laws on the macroscopic and symbolic level. Chemistry target concepts included causes for gas pressure, relationship between gas pressure and volume/temperature changes, and relationship between gas pressure and the number of particles.

Sample: One hundred and fourteen secondary school students participated in this study as part of their science curriculum.

Design and methods: Data on the students’ perceptions of the overall learning experience and specific Program features were collected and analyzed. Students responded to three open-ended questions and provided ratings of the Program features, such as pop-up explanations, images, model explorations, guiding questions, diagrams and feedback. They used a paper-based survey that was administered during the last 8 min of class.

Results: The results provide preliminary evidence of the benefits of this approach in chemistry education. For instance, the changing variables in the simulation helped students understand gas behavior, the multiple images and working with the simulation lab helped students visualize gas behavior, and the design of the system made it easy for students to understand gas behavior on the submicroscopic level.

Conclusions: The vast majority of the students reported a positive learning experience and described it as worth spending their time.