The Relationship of Learning Management Services (LMS S) To

The Relationship of Learning Management Services (LMS’s) to Access to Excellence

By Keith Boyum Reviewed by Marten denBoer and Otto Benavides

[email protected] Office: (714) 278-3454 Cell: (949) 433-1083

For Review by the CSU Task Force on LMS Futures

Draft 2.3 April 17, 2009 Learning management services (LMS’s) are tools. The importance of these tools – perhaps of any tools – is judged first by their usefulness in achieving goals that are aligned with core mission. Characteristics of the tools themselves may be a second way to judge the importance of tools. Among these may be the ease with which they may be learned and used, especially insofar as such ease of use can make a difference in the frequency with which the tools are used.

This brief review argues that LMS’s are important because they are useful in achieving goals that are very high level, meant to operationalize the core mission of the California State University (CSU). Such goals are identified in the systemwide strategic plan adopted by the Board of Trustees in May 2008, Access to Excellence. Eight specific commitments made unilaterally by CSU in Access to Excellence constitute this operationalization. The judgment of the Task Force is that four of the eight commitments are very importantly facilitated by learning management services, and two others are facilitated, if less directly. These are: #8: Act on the CSU’s Responsibility to Meet Postbaccalaureate Needs, Including Those of Working Professionals; #7: Enhance Opportunities for Global Awareness; #4: Improve Public Accountability for Learning Results; and #2: Plan for Faculty Turnover and Invest in Faculty Experience.

The task force finds a significant, but more limited, facilitating role for LMS’s with two other Access to Excellence commitments: #5: Expand Student Outreach; and # 6: Enhance Student Opportunities for “Active Learning.”

We review the intersection of learning management services with these CSU commitments below.

2 The Intersection of Learning Management Services with Selected Commitments in Access to Excellence

Commitment #8: Act on the CSU’s Responsibility to Meet Postbaccalaureate Needs, Including Those of Working Professionals.

The Access to Excellence document notes: The CSU needs to continue to expand its graduate and professional program offerings in order to meet the workforce needs of the state. Special needs exist in science and technology, teaching, and nursing. In addition, the CSU will need to develop a systematic plan to expand capacity through university extension programs.

The Task Force believes that widespread strong preferences for online learning that is available “24/7”and that allow classes to convene without travel are well-documented among many kinds of learners. The preference may be most strongly found among working adults. LMS’s enable students to learn and to communicate, with the instructor and with each other, asynchronously, a key feature in enabling working adults to fully engage in learning.

LMS’s are fundamental to making online learning attractive and successful in terms of achieving learning goals. It is worth noting also that to the extent learning is moved to virtual space from physical classroom spaces, capital and maintenance costs associated with on-campus buildings may be foregone. We note also that we do not view the use of LMS’s in meeting postbaccalaureate needs as a strategy for reducing faculty costs.

In general then: it may be hard to exaggerate the importance of LMS’s in the facilitation of Commitment #8. It seems an essential requirement here – and a tool of varying importance among the other named (and numbered) CSU commitments.

3 Commitment #7: Enhance Opportunities for Global Awareness.

The Access to Excellence document notes: Across the coming decade, strong and effective programs to build global awareness need to be replicated throughout the system. Accordingly, the CSU will support faculty work that internationalizes curricula and the experiences of students and faculty alike.

The Task Force observes that formal study abroad is a specific variation on the active learning discussed and described below, and methods for facilitating the learning are apparent via LMS’s. Consider just one: “e-portfolios” can capture and facilitate the display of learning for all of the purposes that a paper- based portfolio can serve learners during their days as formal students, and beyond. Still further, LMS’s could facilitate very low cost yet authentic globalization of learning in classrooms for students who never deploy a passport: consider twinning a class in nearly any subject or discipline convened on a CSU campus with another class on the same subject or in the same discipline convened at a university beyond U.S. national borders. By attracting foreign students to study virtually alongside CSU students means that costs in time and cash are greatly diminished. It seems clear that thorough globalization of student / faculty experiences will require that many activities take place authentically without immediate personal travel.

Most generally: the Task Force suggests that, by attracting students from beyond U.S. national borders to study virtually alongside CSU students, costs (in time, in cash) for authentic globalization of learning may be significantly diminished. We note that keeping costs low is an urgent constraint as CSU sets out to globalize learning at CSU universities. We suggest that authentic globalization that does not depend upon immediate personal travel is a significant priority, supported by LMS’s.

4 Commitment #4: Improve Public Accountability for Learning Results.

The Access to Excellence document notes: The CSU commits to strengthen its accountability to the public for learning results, through implementation of programs like the Voluntary System of Accountability. It will be important to use findings from the accountability measures to inform curriculum and program improvements at the campus level. In acquiring stronger evidence about learning results, the CSU will also use its accountability efforts to measure effectiveness in meeting workforce and civic results.

The Task Force notes that an available option in developing and deploying learning management services is to consultatively and collaboratively partner with faculty in building into LMS’s opportunities to measure learning results. In turn, such measurements give thoughtful faculty and administrative leaders the opportunity to define, and to encourage the use of, approaches to learning that are demonstratively successful. Accreditors both regional and disciplinary, professional leaders in other venues and roles, and faculty in general all identify easy, non-intrusive, authentic measurements of learning success as goals, and the necessary predicate to thoughtful reform and improvement. LMS’s can apparently intersect this Access to Excellence goal, and facilitate its achievement.

Some early suggestions for using LMS’s to facilitate the assessment of learning results include:  The collection of success rates of individual students throughout a program, at various levels of detail – which then, when aggregated, create course level data that in turn can easily be summarized at the program level. The result is that faculty can make program changes that demonstrably respond to student learning needs. o Note that an easy link to campus program review processes is envisioned.  In the end, the construction of a capacity to tie course learning objectives, to program objectives and university learning objectives is envisioned: when associated with metrics, this may cumulate to a university-wide program of continuous improvement.  It is important to note that all assessment data, obtained from LMS’s or otherwise, must be secured to protect individual faculty and student privacy.

5 Commitment #2: Plan for Faculty Turnover and Invest in Faculty Experience.

The Access to Excellence document notes: The CSU will develop a comprehensive plan for reinvestment in its faculty to meet its goals of reducing compensation gaps and increasing the number of tenure-track faculty. In addition, the CSU commits to a comprehensive faculty planning effort, to include turnover planning, attention to recruitment and retention practices, and consideration of faculty development and evaluation strategies to support excellence in both pedagogy and scholarship.

The Task Force observes that the goal of widespread adoption and use of LMS’s by faculty intersects this commitment in its direct implication of faculty development. This means the equipping of faculty with the skills and capacity to make strong use of LMS’s in the learning programs that faculty devise for their students. Faculty who wish to do so may be facilitated in pedagogical innovation. Further, the close connection of student success to estimates of faculty success in pedagogy means that where LMS’s foster student success, LMS’s contribute to faculty satisfaction. In turn, faculty recruitment and retention efforts will be supported; new faculty expect to have an effective LMS for their teaching.

The task force finds a significant, but more limited, facilitating role for LMS’s with two other Access to Excellence commitments, as follows.

6 Commitment #5: Expand Student Outreach.

The Access to Excellence document notes: The CSU will continue its leadership in reaching out to new populations of students, beginning with expansion of “early outreach” efforts to middle schools. The great success of the Early Assessment Program (EAP) needs to be deepened and extended, and strengthened through systematic partnerships with school districts throughout the state.

The intersection of LMS’s with outreach activities may be largely untried – but can be given consideration, in the view of the Task Force. One may envision learning management services providing vehicles for K-12 teachers seek some Internet-based and easily accessible, attractive yet low cost learning focused on aligning standards for learning success in middle and high schools to the standards needed for first-time freshman proficiency. Some of this may involve CSU ongoing programs aimed at teacher professional development – see http://www.calstate.edu/eap/documents/site-leader- handbook/professional-development.shtml One may envision as well the direct provision of some learning to students in middle and high schools, perhaps strengthening and extending the reach of innovative and successful programs such as the Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC; see : http://www.calstate.edu/eap/englishcourse/index.shtml). It seems apparent that reaching out in ways that LMS’s can facilitate may be of special use to CSU campuses that serve rural areas and populations.

7 Commitment #6: Enhance Student Opportunities for “Active Learning.”

The Access to Excellence document notes: Student involvement in research and community activities increases retention, enhances learning, contributes to building skills and habits of collaboration and problem-solving, and increases changes for success after graduation. Accordingly, the CSU will develop specific plans and programs to enhance opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to link classroom learning to research and community participation, including service, as part of their educational experience.

Internet-based learning management services are an attractive solution for integration of learning activities that take place outside of traditional classroom settings. The Task Force notes that, via LMS’s, students and mentors can track, interact, reflect, and codify learning. The list of active learning methods and approaches that LMS’s may facilitate is lengthy: consider service learning; problem solving in general; internships, the facilitation of learning communities; faculty-student collaborations to include but go well beyond formal research partnerships; group work; prompting and archiving unscripted responses for later consideration; formal and informal learning beyond campus boundaries – and much more. The chat rooms, discussion boards, and asynchronous communication facilitated by LMS’s are key to supporting active learning.