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Survey of Online Language Education

Kathryn A. Murphy-Judy, VCU

05/28/2015 from 9:45 AM to 10:15 AM in Kittredge Multipurpose Room B

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Abstract

Results from a survey of 2013-2014 fully online language postsecondary education in the USA. The survey has 5 major sections:

basic institutional information;
a matrix of courses with drill down information on enrollments and student success rates;
design and development of courses and materials choices;
teaching modes, practices and training;
student preparation, assessment, and reasons for success.

Discussion of the results will follow.

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Here we go!

BOLDD and beginnings of the survey
Structure of the survey
Sharing and discussing the data

Institutional profiles
Courses & languages
Design issues and choices
Teaching
Learning and evaluation

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BOLDD Collaboratory

Basic Online Language Design & Delivery

CALICO & ACTFL 2011
BOLDD https://sites.google.com/site/bolddcollaboratory/
Data and data needs (CARLA & NFLC)
BOLDD Survey 2013-2014

I’ve been teaching hybrid since the late 90’s, but created my first fully online course after a summer Provost’s initiative in 2010, I launched my first fully online French class in fall 2010. By spring, 2011, I had 2 courses fully online and was preparing 2 more for the summer for a full suite of Fren101-202, the entire first and second year curricula.

At CALICO 2011, I attended the sessions on fully online basic language programs and started talking to those colleagues about our need to share information, resources, practices. At ACTFL 2011, I did the same and met up with many of the online educators at the Distance Ed SIG meeting. We agreed to form a collaboratory, which we did in February 2012, calling ourselves BOLDD. Most of our members are in post-secondary education, but we do have some Virtual Virginia members and we are open to ALL online designers, developers and faculty.

As our numbers grew and Sloan reported the sharp increases in online education nationally, BOLDD drew up a list of data that would help us comprehend our field and its growth and directions. In 2012, both CARLA and the NFLC sent out their surveys, both of which targeted mostly teachers and teacher training, but not design, nor capturing a snapshot of how, what, when, where, and why the online surge is happening.

This survey is BOLDD’s first effort in that direction.

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Structure of the Survey

RedCap as a robust, secure system
Original BOLDD data needs
CARLA & NFLC surveys-focus on teaching
Five areas:

(1) Basic institutional information;
(2) A matrix of courses with drill down information on enrollments and student success;
(3) Design and development of courses and materials choices;
(4) Teaching modes, practices and training;
(5) Student preparation, assessment, and reasons for success.

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Survey results

414 invitations, untold spinoffs ( IALLT, CARLA, COERLL, colleagues of invitees )
128 responses for a response rate of between 31% - 25% (if 500 hits : Pew has a 25% rate)
The sampling bias stayed relatively low (next slide)

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Types of institutions

Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

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Babson Grade Change, 2014 (p. 17)

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Institutional size

Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

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Babson, Grade Change, 2014 (p.18)

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Who launched these initiatives?

Faculty

Chair/Director

Dean

CTE

?

Other

Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

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Across different types of IHE ...

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Who are the others?

1. Students - they were the ones who requested it from the CCE

2. Faculty groups within specific languages

3. A very old correspondence course was converted to a completely online course.

4. State Foundation for Independent Colleges initiative. President and Provost were points of contact, named a faculty lead.

5. Contributing Editor & business owners.

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What about MOOCs?

Despite all the hype, there are only 4 responding institutions hosting MOOCs.

There is more fear of MOOCs than actual MOOCs!

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Languages and Levels

	Arabic	Chinese	French	German	Spanish
First year	5%	6%	11%	9%	22%
Second	3%	8%	19%	13%	27%

Other courses surveyed : 3rd year, 4th year, Review, Profº, Extra-curr

Other languages: Port, Ital, ESL,Latin, Russ, Jpn, Créole, Mvskoke, ASL

Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

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First year dropout & success rates

	% Drop/Withdrawal	% Success
Arabic	1.43 (median 1)	40 (median 8)
Chinese	3.1 (1)	64 (90)
French	17 (12)	59 (88.5)
German	8 (4)	60 (85)
Italian	15.7 (10)	49 (60)
Russian	9 (5)	42.5 (37.5)
Spanish	18 (10)	54 (77.5)

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2nd year dropout & success rates

	% Drop/Withdrawal	% Success
Arabic	1 (median 1)	80 (median 80)
Chinese	3 (1.5)	67 (85)
French	5 (3)	43.6 (34.5)
German	5 (3.5)	54 (75)
Italian	7 (10)	40 (10)
Russian	5 (5)	85 (85)
Spanish	? (?)	54 (77.5)

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So, who designs these courses?

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Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

How are they prepared to design?

Let’s look at how those faculty designing online courses get their training:

Degree or certification in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) or other instructional technology (IT) AND languages in hand
IT degree, certificate or formal training (not language specific)
In-house training through a center for teaching excellence or other teaching improvement office
(eg., a summer workshop) prior to or during program creation
Training by a national certification group, like Quality Matters before or during program creation
Workshops through a language association or center (eg., CALICO, CARLA, COERLL, ACTFL, IALLT)
Experiential learning in a program (eg., a Ph.D. degree in CALL)
Official in-house mentoring program
Unofficial mentoring
Self-taught
None
Don't know

Most, evidently the majority of us are trained ‘in house’ is, although little if any of that appears to be language speicific. It is important to note how many of us are self-taught or have none.

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Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

What about compen-sation?

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Who teaches?

Synchronous

Asynchronous

Center for Clinical and Traslational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

Degree or certification for online language teaching as part of hiring
Nationally recognized professional development in online language teaching
General training in online teaching through Quality Matters or a center for teaching excellence
Workshops through a CALL or foreign language association or center (eg., CALICO, CARLA, COERLL, ACTFL, IALLT) specifically for online language teaching
Teaching Assistant training (course work or TA training session/s)
Mentoring program with online language teaching professionals
Unofficial mentoring
Self-taught
None
Other

Please describe the 'other' training.

Online Certificate run internally in the College
eLearning workshop series training
Not sure of faculty training requirement
In house training course - about 12 weeks of coursework with instructional technologists and peer faculty mentors
university training in online teaching and learning
M.S. in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation
Company-provided training with our materials/methodology

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And who teaches the teachers ?

Center for Clinical and Traslational Research (CCTR) and VCU Technology Services grant support (CTSA Award NumberUL1TR000058 )

Degree or certification for online language teaching as part of hiring
Nationally recognized professional development in online language teaching
General training in online teaching through Quality Matters or a center for teaching excellence
Workshops through a CALL or foreign language association or center (eg., CALICO, CARLA, COERLL, ACTFL, IALLT) specifically for online language teaching
Teaching Assistant training (course work or TA training session/s)
Mentoring program with online language teaching professionals
Unofficial mentoring
Self-taught
None
Other

Please describe the 'other' training.

Online Certificate run internally in the College
eLearning workshop series training
Not sure of faculty training requirement
In house training course - about 12 weeks of coursework with instructional technologists and peer faculty mentors
university training in online teaching and learning
M.S. in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation
Company-provided training with our materials/methodology

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What and how we teach online

What

How

Adherence to ACTFL standards and 5 Cs
Coherence with regular curriculum
Communicative competence (grammatical, sociolinguistic, strategic and discursive)
Engagement in authentic online learning opportunities (keypals, teletandem, language exchanges, guest tutors, real time events, etc.)
One or more of the four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) + culture
Level specific grammar and vocabulary
Language learning for a special purpose
Other (specify below)

and the What--ie materials being used:

Academic publisher print materials (eg, VHL, course(s) Pearson, Cengage) with or without online access.
Academic publisher online-only materials (eg, VHL, Pearson, Cengage with web-SAM, etc.)
Online or multimedia commercial materials (eg, Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, etc.)
Online materials with institutional coursesubscription (eg., Carnegie Mellon UniversityOnline Language Initiative)
Open educational resources (OER), freelyaccessible (eg., COERLL French-German-otherlanguages, other LRCs, MERLOT, iTunesU, MIT, etc.)
Non OER materials proprietary to you or your institution (eg., on your LMS or elsewhere and copyright protected)
Materials developed in collaboration with one or more institutions and mutually available
Other (Fully integrated into the curriculum, not supplemental or suggested materials.)

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Where the survey will go next

Series of articles and part of the BOLDD Guide
Connect data from the MLA 2013 survey and the upcoming IE survey.
Include K-12
Include an international component
Add questions about social presence & collaboration

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Study data were collected and managed using REDCap electronic data capture tools hosted at Virginia Commonwealth University.¹ REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based application designed to support data capture for research studies, providing 1) an intuitive interface for validated data entry; 2) audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures; 3) automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages; and 4) procedures for importing data from external sources.

¹Paul A. Harris, Robert Taylor, Robert Thielke, Jonathon Payne, Nathaniel Gonzalez, Jose G. Conde, Research electronic data capture (REDCap) - A metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support, J Biomed Inform. 2009 Apr;42(2):377-81.

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For more information or to join BOLDD

Contact kmurphy@vcu.edu, or go to the BOLDD wiki and contact any of the group!

https://sites.google.com/site/bolddcollaboratory/