Abstract
Higher education has a national imperative to change the ways it supports its increasingly non-traditional populations who seek completion of college degrees in more flexible online environments. However, online education can present challenges to such students learning remotely and often independently, and who may struggle with accessing, understanding, and processing course content and achieving mastery of outcomes. A unique model based on technology and data-driven decision-making that is undergirded by two teaching and learning frameworks—adaptive learning and universal design for learning—is presented, along with outcomes and best practices. By adopting revolutionary methods of engaging students online and ensuring mastery of course and program learning outcomes, which enhance persistence and degree completion, such a model addresses this national educational imperative.
TopBackground
As the 21st century dawned, Bay Path University (BPU) was serving an increasing number of adult women undergraduates who were older than 18-24, working full-time, raising children (many single-handedly), or caring for parents, and who were determined not to remain among the 77 million American women without a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Census, 2017). Since these students needed to be able to complete coursework and interact with classmates and professors on their schedules, in 1999 BPU developed an accelerated academic schedule that disrupted the traditional semester calendar by implementing a weekend college. The 6-week accelerated face-to-face classes offered in this model met students’ needs for a time.
More recent technological innovations have allowed BPU to consider the delivery of adult women’s education in ways that profoundly shape the teaching and learning experience. In 2013, the university responded to needs for flexibility with an online program called Social Online Universal Learning (SOUL), a model built on evidenced-based practices that is at the heart of The American Women’s College (TAWC) of Bay Path University. SOUL’s optimum virtual learning environment capitalizes on technology to facilitate interaction with instructors, advisors, peers and mentors; clear examples and rubrics that provide step-by-step explanations; prompt and frequent feedback on performance that includes strengths and ways to improve; validation of women’s abilities and prior experience; and straightforward pathways to graduation. To achieve the elements of optimal and personalized teaching and learning in this model, TAWC employs a learning management system (LMS) populated through a centralized course development model, with consistent business rules that govern the functioning of courses, including expectations for feedback on assignments, faculty and student interaction, and faculty professional development. These attributes, when working in concert with data on course and faculty performance, ensure instructional consistency and quality necessary to engage effectively TAWC’s 1,250 students, who take 90% of their credits online.
Key Terms in this Chapter
American Women’s College: Adult women’s undergraduate division of Bay Path University offering online and hybrid courses in over 40 academic programs.
Subject Matter Experts: Academics with deep expertise in a particular discipline who identifies and creates course content, assignments, and assessments under the guidance of Academic Program Directors.
UDL: Universal design for learning curricular guidelines for multiple means of engaging students, representing content, and demonstrating learning, promoting universal accessibility.
Data Warehouse: Repository of data from adaptive learning platform, learning management system, student information system, customer relationship management application, and other technology tools and applications used to inform business operations and power predictive analytics.
Social Online Universal Learning: Online educational delivery model powered by technology and data, serving adult students at The American Women’s College.
Academic Program Directors: Educators who oversee curriculum in respective disciplines in TAWC’s centralized course model.
Adaptive Learning: Learning system built around a set of AI algorithms that process data drawn from tens of thousands of learner interactions, whose computations are designed to discern the best content to deliver to a student based upon their prior knowledge, pace of learning, preferences, and many other variables, resulting in no two students experiencing the same course in exactly the same way, though all students ultimately achieve the same learning outcomes.
Instructional Designers: Designers who build and maintain courses in the learning management system.
Educator Coaches: Professionally-trained advisors engaging in proactive, data-driven interventions.