CANVAS LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: AN eLEARNING MODULE FOR ADJUNCT
PROFESSORS
A Project
Presented to the
Faculty of
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
In
Education
By
Jonathan L. Capogrossi
2020 SIGNATURE PAGE
PROJECT: CANVAS LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: AN eLEARNING MODULE FOR ADJUNCT PROFESSORS
AUTHOR: Jonathan L. Capogrossi
DATE SUBMITTED: Spring 2020
Department of Education
Shahnaz Lotfipour, Ph.D. Project Committee Chair Professor of Education
Veronica Estrada, Ed. D. Administrative Faculty Pacific Oaks College
ii ABSTRACT
Modern higher education is delivered to learners by the academic workforce of full time and adjunct instructors, but via the web-based, software framework of
Learning Management Systems (LMS). Yet, research shows that many institutions lack a training system customized to train adjuncts to effectively use LMS application programs
(Bates, 2011). The designer, seeing this need, created a multimedia, eLearning module on the Canvas Learning Management System, titled ‘Jump Into Canvas’.
The literature shows that the rate of hiring adjunct professors grew steadily at
US institutions since the mid 1970’s (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). But the mid 1990’s saw major changes in higher education. With the expansion of the World
Wide Web in society, there was a jump in the rate of adjunct hiring, and the emergence of Online Education. Online classes became possible due to a new software system - the
Learning Management System, or ‘LMS’, but the benefits of such systems caused LMS to become widely adopted as a central framework for all classes, both online and face-to- face, at most US institutions.
However, adjunct professors are often not trained to use LMS systems by the colleges that hire them (Cengage, 2017). Adjuncts are often hired very close to the start of classes, teach for multiple colleges in the same semester, and hold full time jobs that keep them from being able to attend tech trainings during the day (Street, Maisto,
Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). Additionally, many colleges do not have organized training programs for adjuncts in classroom technology, which includes the LMS (Schaffhauser,
2015).
iii Following the ADDIE model of design, and Richard Mayer’s Principles of
Multimedia learning, the designer produced a stand alone multimedia eLearning module, ‘Jump Into Canvas’, designed to teach adjuncts how to do three important functions in the Canvas LMS. Short, segmented video trainings were created and then housed within the Adobe Captivate learning environment. The videos were narrated, edited, and produced by the designer in Adobe Premiere. The module’s design allowed learners to navigate through all video segments at their own pace, and also contained
‘hotspot’ quizzes for learner’s self assessment.
Field-testing was approved by the college leadership, Chair of the IRB committee for the college, and the IRB Committee of California State Polytechnic University,
Pomona. Project Field Testing took place at a small, liberal arts college in Southern
California. Testing lasted two weeks, with a total number of eleven adjunct professors as participants. Due to the Covid19 pandemic, it was an additional challenge to secure any more participants in the time available. However, via anonymous survey of participants, major findings showed that the overall training was successful and rated highly among the majority of participants.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
Signature Page ...... ii
Abstract ...... iii
List of Tables ...... ix
List of Figures ...... x
Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1
Background of the Problem ...... 2
Statement of the Problem ...... 5
Purpose of the Project ...... 6
Assumptions ...... 6
Limitations ...... 7
Definition of Terms ...... 7
Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 9
Adjunct Instructors in Higher Education ...... 9
Adjunct Instructors Defined ...... 9
Increase in Adjunct Hiring ...... 10
Technology Challenges Faced by Adjuncts ...... 13
Hired ‘at the last minute’ ...... 13
Teaching at Multiple Institutions ...... 14
Technology Trainings and Adjuncts’ Working Hours ...... 16
v Technology Trainings for Adjunct Instructors ...... 17
Learning Management Systems in Higher Education ...... 18
Learning Management Systems Defined ...... 18
Partial History of LMS in Higher Education ...... 20
1996-eCollege, ANGEL Learning, and WebCT ...... 21
1997- CourseInfo- The beginning of Blackboard ...... 22
1998- Prometheus, and the launch of Blackboard, Inc ...... 23
1999- Brightspace by Desire2Learn (D2L) ...... 23
2002- Moodle is Launched ...... 24
2004- Sakai is introduced ...... 24
Blackboard Corporate Mergers ...... 25
2008 Canvas by Instructure ...... 25
Intersection of Adjuncts and Learning Management Systems ...... 26
Adjunct Instructors and ‘Technostress’ ...... 29
Technology Training for Adjunct Instructors ...... 32
Summary ...... 33
Chapter Three: Methodology ...... 35
ADDIE Model ...... 35
Content Development ...... 36
Analysis Phase- Needs Assessment Survey ...... 36
Important findings from Needs Assessment Survey ...... 37
vi Target Audience Analysis ...... 39
Extant Data Analysis ...... 39
Technology Analysis ...... 40
Design Phase ...... 40
‘Syllabus’ Lesson ...... 40
‘Assignments’ Lesson ...... 41
‘Announcements to Texts’ Lesson ...... 42
Program Development ...... 44
Development Phase ...... 44
Production of the Video Clips ...... 45
Creating the eLearning Module with Adobe Captivate ...... 46
Importing Video Segments as Slides ...... 49
Creating Hotspot Quizzes ...... 50
About This Project section ...... 52
Field Testing Procedure ...... 53
Implementation Phase ...... 53
Evaluation Phase ...... 55
Chapter Four: Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations ...... 58
Summary ...... 58
Conclusions ...... 63
Recommendations ...... 77
vii Challenge of Field Testing during Pandemic Crisis ...... 78
Adobe Captivate Software Challenge ...... 80
Playing to Strengths ...... 82
Quick Analogy Animations ...... 83
Concluding Remarks ...... 85
References ...... 86
APPENDICES A: NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY ...... 93
B: FIELD TEST AUTHORIZATION FORM ...... 97
C: INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL ...... 98
D: INVITATION FLYER ...... 99
E: INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...... 100
F: FIELD TEST PARTICIPANT SURVEY ...... 102
viii LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 Least Favorite Things About the Module……………..…...... 75
Table 4.2 Most Favorite Things About the Module…………….……………….76
Table 4.3 Suggestions would you give the designer..………………….………77
ix LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 College Instructor Hiring Trends in U.S. 1975-2015…...... 11
Figure 2.2 LMS Market Share ……………………………………………………………….20
Figure 4.1 Enjoyed eLearning Module Overall……………………………….………65
Figure 4.2 Module addressed needs on how to use Canvas…..………………66
Figure 4.3 Training was practical and relevant……………………..….……………67
Figure 4.4 Multimedia helped with understanding.…..…………….……………68
Figure 4.5 Module was good use of my time ……………..……....….……………69
Figure 4.6 Quick Analogy Animations were helpful….………….…..…………..70
Figure 4.7 Mini Quizzes Were Helpful…………….……….…..……….………………71
Figure 4.8 Which lesson was most relevant ………..….……….………..…………72
Figure 4.9 Which lesson was least relevant to you.…………..…....……………72
Figure 4.10 Amount of material covered each lesson….……………….………73
Figure 4.11 Right proficiency for User………………………………..…………………74
Figure 4.12 Speed of Training…………..……………………………..……………………74
x CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Higher Education in the United States has undergone many changes since the mid 1990’s. Colleges have faced both financial cutbacks and lowering endowments
(Education Encyclopedia, 2019). Four-year institutions have faced competition for tuition dollars from community colleges (Education Encyclopedia, 2019). Recessions experienced in the US in 2007-2009 have caused some institutions to be reluctant to make long-term financial commitments, like hiring new full-time faculty members
(Education Encyclopedia, 2019). However, at the same time, the number of students seeking a college education has continued to increase (Education Encyclopedia, 2019).
These are just a few reasons why institutions have increased the hiring of adjunct instructors (Education Encyclopedia, 2019). Adjunct instructors (or, ‘adjuncts’) are defined in the literature as college instructors who (a) are not on track to receive tenure (Porac, n.d.), (b) teach for one or more institutions on a ‘per-course’ basis (Hose
& Ford, 2014), (c) receive an individual teaching contract for each course they teach
(Hose & Ford, 2014), (d) are not guaranteed any particular number of courses per semester/academic year (Hose & Ford, 2014), and (e) in most cases, do not receive any benefits (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). However, statistics from as recently as 2015 hold the numbers of adjunct to tenure track faculty in the US at a close to a
50/50 ratio (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).
1 According to Ronald Dworkin (2018) of The American Interest: “The rise of adjunct faculty is the most significant trend in faculty hiring during the past forty years”
(¶9).
Another major shift in higher education was the rapid development, emergence, and adoption of Digital Learning Management Systems (or, ‘LMSs’), which began in
Higher Education in the mid 1990’s (Dahlstrom, Brooks & Bichsel, 2014). LMSs were developed originally in response to the need to convert college classes into what was then a new and expanding modality of Online Education (University of British Columbia,
1996; Leibovich, 1999). However, no longer just an ‘Online Teaching Tool’, Learning
Management Systems are now widely used at US institutions as a central framework/tool by which all classes, whether online, hybrid, or traditional face-to-face, are delivered, taught, and managed.
Background of the Problem
Statistics from the National Center for Educational Studies show that in 1975, only about 30% of US college professors were adjuncts, as defined above. Moving forward through the 1970’s, 1980’s, and into the early 1990’s, the rate of hiring adjuncts continued at a steady pace of 5% per every 10 years. However, the pace of hiring adjuncts increased, starting in 1995, which coincided with a time of mass expansion of the World Wide Web into society (Pew Research Center, 2014), which included the advent of Online Educational courses (Pew Research Center, 2014). Ten years later, in
2005, the ratio was 53% tenure track, and 47% adjunct (Edmonds, 2015; NCES, n.d.).
2 The literature that exists regarding adjunct Instructors does, in many instances,
highlight some of the challenges this category of college instructors face. Adjuncts feel
they are not adequately compensated (Strang, 2015), do not have enough job stability
(Strang, 2015), and are offered too few courses per semester (Strang, 2015).
However, one particular area that is not as widely discussed in much of the
literature is that the employment ‘lifestyle’ that must be adopted by the adjuncts in
order to earn a sufficient living salary (Hose & Ford, 2014) makes it difficult for them to
gain technology training. Technology training for Adjunct Instructors is particularly important, because almost all college courses in America are taught via a Learning
Management System, or, ‘LMS’ (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005).
A Learning Management System has been described as an integrated, internet-
based computer software system, which provides an organized framework of
pedagogical and course administration tools (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005). Learning
Management Systems are used to administer all aspects of a college course:
attendance, syllabus, uploading assignments, posting discussions, links to videos or
additional readings, grading rubrics, and the posting of final grades (Canvas Doc Team,
2017). LMS Systems also offer advanced methods for students and instructors to be able
to communicate, via announcements and internal emails (Canvas Doc Team, 2017).
A technology system as central to college teaching as a Learning Management
System is important for a college instructor to get to know how to use it effectively
(Bates, 2011), but many adjunct instructors do not get an adequate opportunity to learn
3 to use these important systems (Canvas Doc Team, 2017), due to employment challenges inherent with adjunct teaching work (Hose & Ford, 2014).
First, the literature states that adjuncts are often hired to teach at new institutions with only a minimal time to prepare (Strang, 2015; Cengage, 2017). With the amount of academic and human resources related tasks they have to care of (Hose &
Ford, 2014), usually the technology they will be using is an afterthought, in part because there is often not a structured training program in classroom technology, like the LMS, offered to new instructors at many institutions (Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017). Therefore, when selected to teach under a ‘just in time’ hiring practice (Strang, 2015; Cengage,
2017), adjuncts will likely be putting all of their focus on preparing lectures, reading through textbooks, and making sure they have received their teaching contract. They will often have to start the first week of classes feeling unknowledgeable in how to use the LMS system (Schaffhauser, 2015).
Next, adjuncts often travel from college to college, teaching different courses at different institutions during the same semester (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades,
2012). This has brought about adjunct ‘nicknames’ such as ‘freeway flyers’ (Street,
Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). Due to this challenge, adjuncts are expending much of their mental energy on navigating freeways, finding campus parking, and generally getting from one college to the next (Hose & Ford, 2014). This leaves little time left to be able to also train on how to potentially use more than one LMS system, as various institutions often have adopted varied LMS systems that exist in the educational technology marketplace (Severence, 2012).
4 Finally, most institutions do offer technology trainings for faculty specific to important systems like an LMS, but often these trainings take place during hours that adjuncts are not able to attend (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015). This may include live webinars, or live face-to-face trainings (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015).
However, for those adjuncts that cannot attend such trainings, often due to obligations to full time ‘day job’ employment (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015), they will not be able to benefit. Due to their statuses, it is often challenging enough for adjuncts simply to arrive at campuses they are hired to teach at in time for their evening class session to begin (Hose & Ford, 2014), much less arrive in an early afternoon to attend technology training. Despite this time constraint, they are often ready to teach their material, but with little knowledge of how to successfully utilize technology in the classroom beyond
PowerPoint (Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017).
One study has shown that most adjunct instructors do not necessarily feel the need for comprehensive, detailed overview trainings on an institution’s LMS. Instead, due to time limitations, they instead seek specialized trainings on certain, specific features. (Little-Wiles, J, et al, 2012).
Statement of the Problem
The literature shows that institutions of higher education rely heavily on adjunct instructors to teach courses, and also rely heavily on Learning Management Systems as a central framework by which those courses are structured, taught, and delivered. But, the problem is that institutions do not always adequately provide training on LMS systems that is tailored to adjunct instructors.
5 Due to the short time frame often available for adjuncts to prepare to teach
(Street, Maisto, Merves & Rhoades, 2012), and, simultaneously, the importance of the
LMS as a central framework where modern college courses, effectively, ‘happen’, it is evident that a specialized, shortened, and tailored on-demand LMS training system must be developed, in order to support the adjunct in getting a class successfully launched by the start of the term.
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of this project was to create ‘Jump Into Canvas’, an eLearning training module comprised of short mini video trainings on the Canvas Learning
Management System (‘Canvas’). The modules were created using Adobe Captivate, with the learning outcome goal of teaching an adjunct instructor the initial basics on Canvas, including how to get a Canvas Shell set up properly, and how to use the most essential features they will need to teach their first class. Interactivity and engagement was built in using ‘Mini quizzes’, comprised of visual ‘hotspot’ quiz screens as part of each quiz.
The designer’s goal was to closely follow Richard E. Mayer’s Multimedia Learning
Principles (Mayer, 2009), with the goal of lowering any excess cognitive processing. The designer used segmenting to keep what is learned in shorter sections, with regular summaries to help the learner track what they have learned.
Assumptions
The following assumptions were made during the development of this project:
• Adjunct Instructors have a desire to improve their own knowledge and self-
efficacy on Learning Management Systems.
6 • This project would serve the technology training needs of the adjunct instructors
of a small liberal arts college.
• Participants have access to the necessary technology (a laptop computer, desktop
computer, or tablet) to participate in field testing of this project.
Limitations
The projected size of the test group was 20 adjunct instructors. All of the instructors teach for one particular, small, private institution of higher education in
Southern California. While there were additional adjunct instructors in the program, this was the original projected number of participants.
One challenge the designer faced is that the institution’s parent company did already have LMS training modules. However, while these were created by an extremely knowledgeable professional Instructional Designer/Professor, the designer’s goal was to create shorter trainings as a Graduate Student as part of this Thesis Project. Therefore, the designer segmented the training, following Richard E Mayer’s Segmenting principle
(Mayer, 2009) into a ‘basic essential’ mini course. For these reasons, the designer limited the scope of this training to just three (3) features of Canvas. These features were ‘Syllabus’, ‘Assignment Due Dates’, and ‘Class Announcements as Text Messages’.
Definition of Terms
ADDIE Model
ADDIE Model is a systematic approach to designing instruction. It is
comprised of the following phases: Analysis, Design, Development,
7 Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) of learning materials and
activities (McGriff, 2000, p. 1)
Adjunct Instructor
Adjunct professors are defined as professors who are hired on a
contractual basis, usually in part-time positions (Room 241 Team, 2015,
p. 1).
LMS
Learning Management Systems, enterprise-wide and internet-based
systems, such as WebCT and Blackboard, that integrate a wide range of
pedagogical and course administration tools (Coates, James, & Baldwin,
2005, p. 1).
Multimedia Instruction
Multimedia instruction refers to the presentation of material using both
words and pictures, with the intention of promoting learning (Mayer,
2009, p. 3).
Techno-Stress
Technostress is a modern disease of adaptation caused by an inability to
cope with the new computer technologies in a healthy manner (Brod,
1984, p. 16).
8 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The purpose of this project was to create an eLearning module to teach adjunct college instructors introductory information about the Canvas Learning Management
System.
This Literature Review investigates the following areas: The rate of hiring of
Adjunct Instructors at US Institutions of Higher Education, and the professional challenges that Adjunct Instructors face in receiving technology training at their institutions. It also covers Learning Management Systems in Higher Education, the history of their development, and the marketplace of varied Learning Management
Systems currently used at different institutions.
Adjunct Instructors in Higher Education
Adjunct Instructors Defined
Adjunct Instructors of Higher Education are referred to by many different titles in the literature, including, but not limited to:
· Adjunct faculty (Bettinger & Long, 2005)
· Non -Tenure Track Faculty (Porac, n.d.)
· Part-Time Faculty (Edmonds, n.d.)
· Contingent Faculty (American Association of University Professors, n.d.)
For the purpose of this literature review, adjunct instructors are defined within the following parameters, as defined by the literature:
9 • Part-time faculty that are hired by institutions of higher education to teach
one or more classes in a semester or academic year (The Room 241 Team,
2015)
• Experts in their field who are selected and hired by institutions of higher
education to teach on a part –time or discontinuous basis (Boston
University, n.d.)
Based on these definitions, it can be concluded that the following are a partial list of aspects of the Adjunct Instructor’s working condition:
· Adjunct instructors are not on track to receive tenure (Porac, n.d.)
· They often teach for one or more institutions on a “Per-Course basis” (Hose & Ford,
2014)
· They are issued an individual contract for each course (Street, Maisto, Merves,
Rhoades, 2012)
· They are not guaranteed any particular number of courses per semester or per academic year (Hose & Ford, 2014).
Increase in Adjunct Hiring
Research and statistics confirm that a steady and continuous increase of hiring of adjunct instructors took place at institutions of higher education in the United States from 1975 to 2015 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016) (see Figure 2.1).
10 Figure 2.1. College Instructor Hiring Trends in U.S. 1975-2015 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).
According to Ronald Dworkin (2018) ‘The rise of adjunct faculty is the most significant trend in faculty hiring during the past forty years’ ( ¶9).
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1975, there were a total of approximately 628 thousand persons in the US that could be described as having the job title of ‘college faculty’ (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).
Of that 628 thousand, 440 thousand were considered to be Full Time/Tenure Track, while only 188 thousand of the total college faculty in the US were part time, or Adjunct
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). This gives an approximate percentage of only 30% of all US college faculty being adjuncts in 1975 (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2016).
In 1985, the total approximate number of college faculty in the US had increased to 715 thousand (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Full-time faculty were measured in 1985 at 459 thousand, and Part Time/Adjuncts were measured at 256
11 thousand (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Therefore, the approximate percentage of College faculty that were Adjuncts in 1985 had risen in ten years from
30% to 35% (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).
In 1995, the numbers were at approximately 550 thousand Full Time Faculty in the US, versus approximately 380 thousand Adjuncts (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2016). Therefore, the percentage of increase in Adjuncts went from approximately 35% in 1985 to approximately 40% in 1995 (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2016).
These statistics show a fairly steady increase of the ratio of adjunct to tenure- track faculty of 5% per 10-year span.
But, in the mid-1990’s, a major change takes place in US Society in general, and to
Higher Education specifically. That change is the Internet revolution, also described as
“Web 1.0” (Aghaei, Nematbakhsh, & Farsani, 2012). This widespread emergence of the
World Wide Web into society creates a major societal change, and from this emerges a new modality of education, which was Online Education (Dahlstrom, Brooks & Bichsel,
2014).
By 2005, approximately ten years after the Internet revolution, full time faculty in the US were at approximately 675 thousand, while Adjuncts had jumped to 614 thousand. This was a marked increase from approximately 40% of all college faculty being adjuncts in 1995, to approximately 47% in 2005 (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2016).
12 According to statistics for 2015, 807 thousand full time faculty are teaching in the US, while Adjunct Faculty is at 743 thousand (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2016). The total percentage of US college faculty being Adjunct instructors has somewhat held steadily, at approximately 47%. (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2016). However, the literature does display that the percentage of total college adjunct instructors has not declined once in the past 40 years.
The complete reasons for the marked increase of hiring of adjuncts may vary, and may be too numerous to examine in this research. However, some of the reasons stated in the literature include institutions experiencing challenging economic times, and larger than expected enrollment numbers, but still with a continuous need to introduce new degree programs (Stenerson, Blanchard, Fassiotto, Hernandez, & Muth,
2010).
Technology Challenges Faced by Adjuncts
Due to the nature of adjuncts’ particular place in higher education, some specific characteristics have emerged regarding the working conditions for Adjunct Instructors
(Street, Maisto, Merves, Rhoades, 2012). According to the literature, these working conditions have brought about some levels of ‘disconnect’ for adjuncts (Kimmel, &
Fairchild, 2017), which can make it challenging for them to receive adequate technology training.
Hired ‘at the last minute’
Adjuncts are often brought in to teach courses in what has been described as
‘just in time’ hiring practices (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). The literature
13 states that while most are hired a number of weeks in advance, at times, adjuncts are sometimes hired to teach a course with less than one week to prepare (Cengage, 2017).
For these reasons, adjuncts feel they have little time to prepare for the lectures and discussions they will have with students, topics they will present, or in class activities that will best foster learning (Edmonds, 2015). When the need for an adjunct to learn a new Learning Management System is also factored in, this becomes a very daunting challenge.
Teaching at Multiple Institutions
Many adjunct instructors are not always able to teach enough classes at one college in the same semester to meet their financial obligations (Hose & Ford, 2014). If one college is not able to offer a full load of classes to a particular adjunct in one particular semester, that adjunct must be ready to teach at two, or sometimes three or more, different colleges in the same semester (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades,
2012).
However, this also means the added challenge of travelling the physical distance between different college campuses. This has lead to adjunct instructors gaining the somewhat unfortunate monikers of ‘Freeway Flyers’ or ‘Teachers On Wheels’ (Street,
Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). Therefore, in addition to securing such academic items as the syllabus, desk copies of textbooks, and parking passes, adjuncts are also constantly using navigational items, like GPS’s, maps, and various freeway applications, as they drive to get from one college to another (Hose & Ford, 2014).
Here is just one Florida-based adjunct instructor’s experience:
14 After these two back-to-back classes at the private school, E.J. would drive
twenty-five miles to teach cultural anthropology at a major multi-campus state
university. He had just forty-five minutes for this commute. Often, E.J. would
end the day's second class a few minutes early to improve the odds that he
would arrive on time. . After the cultural anthropology class, E.J. would drive a
further forty miles and finish his day at another private university in Sarasota.
After a comparatively long break of about four and a half hours between his
afternoon class and the evening class, E.J. would teach a three hour class in
human diversity to art students. That class would end at about 9:40 pm.…He
would generally get home at around 11:00 pm. That was Monday. Tuesdays, he
had one class; it was scheduled in the morning, which meant that as he strolled
into the classroom, he was fighting sleep deprivation while trying to focus on the
class materials and mentally prepare the lectures and teaching activities for the
day (Hose & Ford, 2014, ¶18)
The quote above serves as an illustration that just managing the commuting and teaching hours alone is considered to be challenging for many adjunct professors to maintain (Hose & Ford, 2014). However, notably, as seen in this example, a vast majority of adjuncts teach at more than one institution in the same semester (Street,
Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). With different institutions often also comes different technologies that are used (Severence, 2012). One adjunct instructor could potentially teach at three different colleges in one semester, where there is a possibility
15 that the first institution uses Blackboard as it’s LMS, the second uses Canvas, and the third uses Moodle (Severence, 2012).
This is an additional challenge that adjunct instructors face, that tenure track faculty do not (Cengage, 2017). Tenure track faculty teach at one college, repeatedly, for an extended number of years. Therefore, they are guaranteed to use the same LMS semester after semester, as long as their respective institutions continue subscribe to that LMS (Cengage, 2017). This repeated exposure to the same system allows the Full time faculty more time to familiarize themselves with many of the features of the system (Cengage, 2017).
There are many cognitive challenges adjuncts already have to struggle with due to working at varied institutions, but the need to master more than one LMS adds an additional layer of difficulty, for which specialized tech training is shown to be beneficial
(Little-Wiles, et al, 2012).
Technology Trainings and Adjunct’s Working Hours
In order to support faculty technology training needs, many institutions do in fact create live training series, webinars, and other tech training opportunities (Dimeo,
2017). For example, Arizona State University offers a two-week, eight-hour-per-week master class, in how to teach using the Online teaching platform (Dimeo, 2017). This training program walks new Online instructors through the entire process of teaching a class online, as well as experiencing the LMS from the student’s perspective, including training instructors through such aspects as participating in discussion boards, completing quizzes, and uploading assignments (Dimeo, 2017).
16 However, often, due to the hours of the day that such trainings are often offered,
it is sadly the Adjunct instructors, who would benefit the most from such trainings, that
are often least likely to be able to attend (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015). Many
adjunct instructors hold full time day jobs as K12 teachers, social workers, and other
important work roles. Yet, often, at Higher Education campuses, tech training is offered
during the daytime hours at college campuses, when the Tenure track faculty are most
likely to be on campus (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015). Often live trainings or live
webinars hosted by technical experts in Learning Management Systems for colleges are
offered at time slots like 10:00 am or 2:00 pm, which are time slots that do not work for
Adjunct instructors with ‘day jobs’. (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012).
Technology Trainings for Adjunct Instructors
According to a 1997 study from the National Center of Education Statistics, only approximately 60 percent of institutions provided training opportunities for Online, or,
‘Distance Education’ faculty (Bower, 2001). These statistics highlight that, in 1997, forty percent of institutions that offered online courses did not provide any training or preparation for online education (Bower, 2001).
Twenty years later, in 2017, another survey of Adjunct instructors demonstrates
that in many ways not much has changed (Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017). The Adjuncts
surveyed stated to the researchers that they embraced technology, but mainly
elaborated that this mainly included software like PowerPoint (Kimmel & Fairchild,
2017). The adjuncts did not mention Learning Management Systems at all in the survey.
17 When it came to feeling a sense of connection or preparation from the
institutions that hired them, they still felt “disconnected” and “not included” (Kimmel &
Fairchild, 2017). The researchers concluded that their survey found continued
limitations in Adjunct faculty incorporation of technology in the classroom (Kimmel &
Fairchild, 2017). No mention of institution-provided technology training was relayed by
any of the adjunct instructors surveyed (Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017).
Learning Management Systems in Higher Education
Learning Management Systems Defined
A Learning Management System, (LMS) has been described as an integrated,
internet-based computer software system, which provides an organized framework of
pedagogical and course administration tools for educational institutions (Coates, James,
& Baldwin, 2005). The framework provided by the LMS is the means to both design and
deliver a course, or learning environment, online (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005). LMS
have often been described with the phrase ‘Enterprise Wide’ systems. (Coates, James, &
Baldwin, 2005). ‘Enterprise Wide’ has been defined as a system, or process, that
impacts all the various functions of a company or institution (Kokemuller, 2017).
Therefore, what the LMS provides is, essentially, a collection of tools that the instructor can use to fit their course’s curriculum and help achieve Student Learning
Outcomes (SLO’s). The LMS can be used to share content, allow students to interact with each other, and to communicate with the instructor (Anderson & Dron, 2018).
However, what the LMS does that is also very impactful to higher education specifically is to ‘make digital’ or, in another way of stating it, ‘make paperless’ (De
18 Bonis & De Bonis, 2011), many of the classic processes of the educational experience.
Therefore, the (now) ‘classic’ parts of the educational process that once were done all in hard copy format, which includes activities like printing out assignments using computer paper and printers, stapling assignments, or submission of 3-ring binders for items like final portfolio submissions, or even the classic handwritten ‘teacher’s notes in red ink in the margin’ of essays, are all replaced in the paperless digital realm (De Bonis & De
Bonis, 2011). This, in a sense, makes obsolete the phrase ‘hand in your paper’, as the modern college student neither ‘hands’ the instructor their assignment, nor uses ‘paper’ to print it out, but rather creates their assignment digitally, uploads it to the proper assignment submission area, and clicks ‘Submit’. Everything is done in the digital realm.
(Anderson & Dron, 2018)
If a student needs to retrieve any assignment in the future, even three or more years after they have finished the course, the college usually can retrieve the original digital assignment, and simply email a copy to the student (Anderson & Dron, 2018). In this way, institutions can eliminate much of the physical archiving of student portfolios and other items (Anderson & Dron, 2018). There is an entire digital history of student’s work that can be revisited in the future for program assessment (De Bonis & De Bonis,
2011).
Also, the communication features of the LMS provide a level of communication
interactivity previously not in existence in higher education between instructor and
students (Canvas Doc Team, 2017). Instructors and students are able to communicate
with each other through internal LMS messages, but also by linking their smartphones
19 to the learning management system’s announcements function (Canvas Doc Team,
2017). This interactive ability to communicate with students in real time is another
obvious benefit to using a Learning Management System (Anderson & Dron, 2018).
Partial History of LMS in Higher Education
To better understand the current climate of Learning Management Systems, it is important to take a brief step back in time to see the history and development of these important tools. Figure 2.2 highlights the progression of LMS systems from the mid
1990’s.
Figure 2.2 LMS Market Share (Dahlstrom, Brooks, & Bichsel, 2014, p. 6).
20 1996- eCollege, ANGEL Learning, and WebCT
In 1996, the Real Education group creates eCollege (Dahlstrom, Brooks, &
Bichsel, 2014). eCollege as a company provided a number of education based products,
with the original goal of helping educational institutions get their courses converted to
online courses (Dahlstron, Brooks, & Bichsel, 2014). That same year, Real Education
launches their first Online Campus, for the University of Colorado. eCollege continued
as a developer and hoster of online courses for Educational institutions, until it was
acquired by Pearson Company in 2007 (Dahlstron, Brooks, & Bichsel, 2014).
Also that year, the “CyberLab” at the School of Engineering and Technology at
Indiana University-Purdue University Indiana is established (IUPUI CyberLab, n.d.). One
of its earliest projects was an early LMS called ‘OnCourse’. OnCourse is later renamed
ANGEL Learning. (IUPUI CyberLab, n.d.)
Finally, in that same year of 1996, University of British Columbia computer science professor, Murray Goldberg, first creates WebCT; ‘CT’ stands for ‘Course Tools’.
The goal of WebCT was to allow a pre-designed platform to be used by instructors to take a class they were already teaching, and be able to convert it themselves into an
Online course. (University of British Columbia, 1996). WebCT starts off as a beta test in
1996, but, in 1997, Goldberg further develops the software and launches WebCT
Educational Technologies Corporation. During that same year, WebCT served close to 3 million students. However, after being acquired by Boston-based company Universal
Learning Technology, the number of students using WebCT had grown by 1999 to closer to 10 million, at institutions in 80 different countries (UBC News Archive, 2015). WebCT
21 was considered to be the world’s first widely successful Course Management System
(Business Library, 1999).
1997- CourseInfo- The Beginning of Blackboard
Stephen Gilfus and Daniel Cane, students at Cornell University, create a class
project called ‘Teacher’s Toolbox’, meant to be a helpful type of class website
(Leibovich, 1999). This is eventually developed into ‘CourseInfo’, which originally held
the purpose of helping college educators put their courses Online. Much like Facebook’s
‘dorm room’ origins, Gilfus and Cane start off running the company from a room in
Cane’s house in Collegetown (Leibovich, 1999). Soon, through marketing and expansion
to other colleges, CourseInfo experienced rapid growth, and Giulfus and Cane moved
their budding company to a 4-room office building. By October of 1997, CourseInfo had
been adopted at a number of Universities outside of Cornell, including UC Berkeley and
Moorehead State College. Using the combination of Cane’s tech knowledge and Gilfus’s
business training that they both acquired as Cornell students, CourseInfo’s initial
success took place very close to home, as the company was staffed entirely by either
active Cornell students or recent Cornell alumni (Nagler, 1997). CourseInfo as a software
program would become instrumental in the development of Blackboard as a Learning
Management System (Leibovich, 1999).
Meanwhile, in the same year, ‘Blackboard LLC’ begins as a consulting firm started by two education business consultants, Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky, formally from major consulting firm KPMG (Leibovich, 1999). Chasen and Pittinsky were working and researching to try to create a prototype Online Learning product that they dubbed
22 ‘Blackboard’ as a product for their sponsor organization, the IMS Global Learning
Consortium. IMS was a non-profit that was spun off from the Educause Organization
(Leibovich, 1999).
1998- Prometheus, and the launch of Blackboard, Inc.
The George Washington University develops Prometheus as their college’s
eLearning platform (Licamele, 2002). Not unlike other Learning Management Systems
launched on college campuses, Prometheus also begins to be marketed as a product to
other institutions as a platform to launch online Education (Licamele, 2002).
However, 1998 saw a significant business partnership emerge, when Daniel Cane
from CourseInfo met Michael Chasen from Blackboard LLC at a business conference
(Leibovich, 1999). After subsequent business meetings, the two groups decide to form a
business partnership and merge CourseInfo with Blackboard LLC (Leibovich, 1999).
CourseInfo is renamed under the new company and product name, ‘Blackboard’
(Leibovich, 1999). Blackboard’s business headquarters moves from Cornell University in
Ithaca, NY, to Washington DC, and the company begins growing in both investment
partners and venture capital (Leibovich, 1999).
1999- Brightspace by Desire2Learn (D2L)
Desire2Learn was first created by John Baker while he was a student of Systems
Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada (Texas Distance
Learning Association, 2008). In 1999, he launched Desire2Learn an eLearning company
and released Brightspace as a Learning Management System (Texas Distance Learning
Association, 2008).
23 2002- Moodle is launched
Open Source platform ‘Moodle’ (which stands for Modular Object Oriented
Dynamic Learning Environment) is developed and launched by Australian educator and
computer scientist, Martin Dougiamas (Dougiamas & Taylor, 2003). As an open source
software, educators were able to actually add their own code to Moodle, therefore
building their own features into their online learning platform (Dougiamas & Taylor,
2003). By 2013, eleven years after its initial launch, Moodle had become the 2nd largest
provider of Learning Management Systems to Institutions of Higher Education in the
United States (Edutechnica, 2017).
2004- Sakai is introduced
A consortium of U.S. Universities, including the University of Michigan, Indiana
University, MIT, and Stanford University, combine their resources to seek to create an
integrated, open source Learning Management System (Sakai Project, n.d.). The
resulting LMS from the project was ‘Sakai’, an Open Community sourced educational
software platform, which becomes managed by a member-based, non-profit
corporation, which was dubbed Sakai as well (Sakai Project, n.d.). The name ‘Sakai’ was
chosen based on the fact that the largest contributor towards the project was the
University of Michigan, with their ‘CHEF’ Course Management System. As one of the
most well known Chefs at the time was famous ‘Iron Chef’ from the Japanese television
program, Hiroyuki Sakai, the name ‘Sakai’ was chosen for the project (Sakai Project,
n.d.). At one point, more than 350 institutions worldwide were using Sakai as their
Learning Management System (Sakai Project, n.d.).
24 Blackboard Corporate Mergers
Blackboard Inc., through corporate buyouts and mergers, acquires both
Prometheus, and ANGEL Learning. (Lieberman, 2017; Licamele, 2002). However,
Blackboard Inc. created its biggest impact in 2005, when it acquired WebCT, which was its largest competition at that time (Lieberman, 2017). This corporate merger creates a small amount of controversy in the education field, as all institutions that had adopted
WebCT had to either re-train to learn Blackboard, or, in the case of some institutions, switch to another LMS, like Moodle (Yupangco, 2011). Blackboard spends a total of 500 million dollars between 2006 and 2012 on acquiring competitors (Lieberman, 2017).
Blackboard also changes from calling their product a ‘Course Management
System’ and renames it with the new term ‘Learning Management System’, or, ‘LMS’. By
2011, Blackboard is used at more than half the colleges and universities in the US
(Lieberman, 2017).
That same year, Blackboard Inc. agrees to be acquired by Providence Equity
Group for $1.64 billion (Lieberman, 2017). By 2006, with its completed mergers and acquisitions, Blackboard is the single largest provider of Learning Management Systems in education, worldwide (Lieberman, 2017).
2008-Canvas by Instructure
Not unlike Blackboard, ‘Instructure’ was created in 2008 by two graduate students, Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley, at Brigham Young University in Utah
(Israelson-Hartley, 2010). The Learning Management System they created, Instructure, was soon re-named ‘Canvas’, and Instructure became repurposed as the name of their
25 (then new) company (Israelson-Hartley, 2010). Canvas is a Cloud based platform that is offered to institutions as a ‘Software as a Service’ (Tate, 2018). Canvas utilized many of the features that users of social media had become accustomed to, including
Smartphone Alerts when something changes, a clean graphical design, and the ability to easily link and embed YouTube videos, pictures, or other files (Israelson-Hartley, 2010).
In 2010, Instructure won a contract with the Utah Education Network, to become the official statewide LMS at all Utah public schools and state colleges (Israelson-Hartley,
2010).
In 2011, Canvas was formally launched as a product that could be adopted at large by schools, colleges, and universities (Arrington, 2011). As recently as July of 2018, new data potentially shows that Canvas has slightly surpassed Blackboard as the leading
LMS at US colleges and universities, with Canvas having 1218 adoptions at US institutions, compared with 1216 adoptions with Blackboard (McKenzie, 2018).
Intersection of Adjuncts and Learning Management Systems
The literature discusses two realities in Higher Education: the centrality of
Learning Management Systems to the delivery of Higher Education courses, and Higher
Education’s major reliance on adjunct instructors as the academic workforce that teaches those courses. When we also see the current status of both, we get a clear picture of the challenge.
With most daily experiences in technology, there are choices of applications that exist for users. If someone wants to use a search engine, they can choose between
Google, Yahoo, or Bing. If someone needs directions to get somewhere, they can use
26 Mapquest, Google Maps, or Ways. However, when an adjunct instructor starts teaching at an institution, the LMS used by that institution is already the adopted LMS of that institution (Severence, 2012). Therefore, for example, an adjunct instructor who has five years of experience using Blackboard cannot ‘choose’ to keep using Blackboard, if he is hired by an institution that has adopted Canvas. The adjunct instructor must learn to use the LMS that is adopted by the institution (Severence, 2012).
In addition, there is no central, singular Learning Management System that is used by all colleges and universities, and there are no national or international standards that exist in how these different products work (Severence, 2012). Despite the many mergers and acquisitions carried out by Blackboard, Inc, Blackboard itself did not have the goal to become one central LMS system that would be used at all institutions (Severence, 2012). On the contrary, Blackboard began to rethink it’s strategy in 2012 (Severence, 2012). As part of this process, Blackboard actually decided to continue running some of the other LMS’s it acquired, but as stand alone products, including ANGEL Learning and others, that previously had an ‘end of life’ date for their systems (Severence, 2012).
This means that the reality of multiple Learning Management Systems in use at various colleges is not something that is likely to disappear any time soon (Severence,
2012). No matter how big one LMS becomes, there will be other challengers to replace it in the Educational Technology marketplace (Severence, 2012).
To quote the former Executive Director of the Sakai Project, University of
Michigan professor Charles Severence:
27 The notion that we will somehow find the ‘one true LMS’ that will solve all
problems is simply crazy talk and has been for quite some time. I am happy to be
now working with a group of people at Blackboard that embrace the idea of
multiple LMS systems aimed at different market segments. We will bring a
diverse set of learning products to the market and place the most appropriate
product(s) in the hands of teachers and students (Severence , 2012, ¶6).
While this diversity of Learning Management Systems may in some ways serve the diverse needs of learners (Severence, 2012), this still presents a challenge of providing adjunct instructors with the basic functional knowledge of how to use these systems, and how to gain these skills in enough time to be ready for the opening week of classes. Adjuncts do not get a choice of what LMS they will use when they come to an institution to teach (Little-Wiles, et.al, 2012). Any new or unfamiliar LMS, effectively,
‘comes with the job’, and adjuncts must ‘rush’ to learn any unfamiliar LMS when they are hired to teach their first course at a new institution (Little-Wiles, et.al, 2012).
To add to this, beyond just the changes that might come due to corporate takeovers and mergers that happen in the Ed-Tech field, many institutions simply decide to adopt a brand new LMS, even after years of using a previous system (Dahlstrom,
Christopher-Brooks, & Bichsel,2014). According to one study from 2014, the average age of a Learning Management System at an institution is 8 years, and 15% of US
Institutions of Higher Education are planning to make a switch to adopt a new LMS within the next three years (Dahlstrom, Christopher-Brooks, & Bichsel,2014).
28 Adjunct Instructors and ‘Technostress’
The challenge adjuncts face in mastering the use of a new LMS can cause a particular type of workplace stress, dubbed ‘Technostress’ (Brod, 1984). ‘Technostress’ was coined by author Craig Brod, in his 1984 book of the same name. In the book, Brod defines ‘Technostress’: “Technostress is a modern disease of adaptation caused by an inability to cope with the new computer technologies in a healthy manner” (Brod, 1984, p. 16)
The literature demonstrates that Adjunct instructors already face challenges of dealing with last minute hiring (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012), as well as teaching different classes at different institutions during the same semester (Street,
Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). Just these working conditions alone, as described, can cause feelings of stress for adjuncts navigating the challenges with the institutions they teach with (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012).
However, adding the technology component to this combination of circumstances adds another layer of challenge (Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017). A Learning
Management System is a centrally important software program in the teaching of a college course (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005). The use and functions of the LMS are integral to the entire functioning of a college course, from before the class begins, through day one, throughout all course assignments, discussions, and professor feedback, all the way to the final posting of grades (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005).
Therefore, far from being an ‘ optional’ or ‘peripheral’ software used in one or two
29 lessons or group projects, the LMS is instead a central, enterprise-wide framework for the delivery of the entire course to the students. (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005).
For the adjunct instructor, who has never used the particular LMS system in adoption at an institution that’s just hired them, this can be a daunting challenge in the beginning (Bates, 2011). The often unspoken expectation that adjuncts will receive no formal, institutional training on the LMS from the institution, but instead will simply be expected to “figure it out” and be ready to use it to maintain their class on day one, is a difficult expectation to place on these instructors (Cengage, 2017).
When considering the plight of Adjunct instructors that are expected to not only have all academic and contractual preparations completed, but, on top of this, also master a new Learning Management System with no formal training, a type of workplace anxiety can result (Cengage, 2017). In describing this, perhaps the following quote from Brod’s ‘Technostress’, even from 1984, can still be very applicable for today’s Adjunct College instructors:
Many of us had a difficult enough time at school learning new math,
memorizing the dates of history lessons, and writing essays using
correct grammar. Now, in a short time, with our livelihoods at stake,
we must prepare to operate complex machines, solve problems in
new ways, memorize a raft of new procedures, and perhaps even
learn programming languages. We are accustomed to learning by
trial-and-error, but using this method to absorb the new technology
30 can be costly …as anyone knows who has ever lost a whole day’s
work by the simple push of a wrong button (Brod, 1984, p. 36).
Part of the challenge in the lack of formalized, required LMS training at many institutions is the fact that, in many cases, when institutions do not require or offer formal training, it seems to suggest an unwritten expectation from the institution that
Adjunct Instructors should ‘just get it’, and be left on their own to just figure things out, when it comes to essential educational technology like an LMS (Schaffhauser, 2015).
However, this has been shown to be detrimental to many aspects of the educational experience for students (Schaffhauser, 2015).
In a 2015 survey from LearningHouse and WCET, 47% of responding institutions require self paced training on the institution’s technology, and 31% required instructor- led training (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015). However, when taking a look at these statistics, it means that of the 202 deans, directors, and provosts that were surveyed, just on this survey alone, 22 percent of the colleges did not require any technology training for adjuncts. And, of those institutions that did have the training, one of the key findings was that most professional development and training requirements were offered face-to-face or on campus (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015).
Russ Poulin, Senior Director for Policy, Analysis, and Strategic Alliances for WCET, states:
"While many colleges provide extensive orientation and on-going support services, some will allow a new faculty person to find their own way…When we look at recent large-scale research on distance education retention rates, it becomes clear that the
31 proper tools to recruit, orient and support these faculty must be implemented."
(Schaffhauser, 2015, p. 2).
Other Educational consultants have taken a more radical view on the lack of focus on technology training at institutions for adjunct instructors. In his article called:
Adjuncts, LMSs and lack of training: an accident waiting to happen?, Research
Consultant, Tony Bates, makes the claim that we should: “stop asking why we have such poor use of technology in higher education. We won’t get better use until training is mandatory, and for all instructors, not just adjuncts, and since it is an essential requirement, institutions will need to pay adjuncts for training. If not the institution shouldn’t be accredited” (Bates, 2011, ¶8).
Technology Training for Adjunct Instructors
In the Peer Reviewed Journal Article, Faculty Perceptions and Use of a Learning
Management System at an Urban, Research Institution, the researchers carried out a survey of faculty specific to the use of the Learning Management System, at the
‘birthplace’ of the original ANGEL Learning system, Indiana University- Purdue
University Indianapolis (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012). The goal of the survey was to discover the faculty’s feelings and perceptions about the LMS, which they needed to learn to implement into their pedagogy. The faculty answered questions on their use of the LMS, which tools they used the most often, use of the LMS grade book, and other items related to the use of the system (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012).
One section of the survey contained questions regarding the training they received on the use of the LMS from their institution. When faculty were asked whether
32 they had been supported by their school in using the LMS. Fifty four percent stated
‘Yes’, 38% felt supported ‘in certain areas’, and 8% stated ‘No’. Then, the faculty answered the question on whether or not the institution did give sufficient assistance with the LMS when they requested help. To this question, 72% stated ‘Yes’, 26% said
‘Yes –in certain areas’, while 2% who said ‘No’ (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012).
The researchers found as a result that the faculty did not seem to be looking for general training on the LMS as a whole, as this did seem to be provided by the institution. Instead, they were seeking ‘specialized and specific training’ (Little-Wiles, J, et al, 2012). As part of their conclusions, the researchers found that, “The majority of faculty indicated that they would like some sort of training on the LMS, and often specifically with various tools or advanced development” (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012, p.
11).
Summary
US based Institutions of Higher Education have had two major shifts over the last
40 years. The first shift was the long-term trend of institutions’ increased hiring adjunct instructors rather than tenure track professors, a trend in hiring that continuously increased from 1975 to 2015. The second shift was the invention and widespread adoption of Learning Management Systems, (LMS) that started during the initial rapid expansion of the World Wide Web in society in the mid to late 1990’s. The advent of
LMS systems and history of the growth of the technology follows the launch and development of several different companies and their competing LMS products, including Blackboard, Web CT, Sakai, Moodle, and Canvas.
33 This literature review highlighted that there is an important need for technology training for Adjunct instructors, specifically on Learning Management Systems, as both
Adjuncts and LMS have become central to Higher Education. However, adjunct professors are often hired to teach classes in a ‘last minute’ time frame, spend significant time driving from one college to another, or hold day jobs in other industries.
At the same time, much of the technology training offered by institutions still takes place as live, in-person trainings during standard morning or afternoon time frames, when most adjuncts cannot attend. Researchers have found that college faculty do seek technology training in general, but often just need training on certain, specific features and functions that they need to effectively teach their courses.
34 CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this project was to create ‘Jump Into Canvas’, an eLearning training module. The training was comprised of three video based lessons on specific features of the Canvas Learning Management System (Canvas). The modules were created using Adobe Captivate, with the learning outcome goal of teaching an adjunct instructor three basic lessons on using Canvas. The desired learning outcomes were for the instructor to learn some basic skills in how to get a Canvas Shell set up properly, and how to use a few essential features they will need in Canvas, in order to teach their class. The designer’s goal in the creation of ‘Jump Into Canvas’ was to closely follow
Richard E. Mayer’s Multimedia Learning Principles (Mayer, 2009), with the goal of lowering all excess cognitive processing, and containing regular summaries to help the learner track what they have learned.
ADDIE Model
The ‘Jump Into Canvas’ eLearning Module was designed and tested based on the
ADDIE Model of Design (McGriff, 2000). The ADDIE Model is referred to as a way of approaching the creation of learning materials or activities, which is systematic and follows a set process. Each step in the process uses the information gained in the previous step and builds from it while moving forward (McGriff, 2000).
The five (5) phases of the ADDIE Model are:
35 Analysis Phase (A): Define what is to be learned, and who your learners are (McGriff, 2000).
Design Phase (D): Using what you learned from Analysis, plan the specifics of how you will teach your learners (McGriff, 2000).
Development Phase (D): Based on what you learned in the previous steps, you begin to work to actually create your learning module (McGriff, 2000).
Implementation Phase (I): This phase includes the actual testing of your learning module or materials with the actual learners (McGriff, 2000).
Evaluation Phase (E): This final phase involves measuring how effective your instructional module was in helping the learners achieve their learning objectives. However, evaluation should also take place along all phases of the ADDIE process (McGriff, 2000).
Content Development
The Content Development covers the first two phases of ADDIE: Analysis Phase and Design Phase.
Analysis Phase: Needs Assessment Survey
A Needs Assessment survey (See Appendix A) was carried out by the designer with the Adjunct Instructors of the institution in February 2019. The purpose of the survey was to gain a general idea of the experience levels of the learners with Learning
Management Systems, specific experience with the Canvas LMS, and a few questions about how they most often access the internet (i.e. desktop computer, laptop, mobile
36 device, etc). Needs Assessment Survey questions and responses are located in Appendix
A.
Important Findings - The first important finding from the survey was that most of the respondents had never used Canvas prior to coming to teach at this particular institution. Instead, they had previously used either Blackboard or Moodle at other institutions. Therefore, even though Canvas as an LMS has been in use in higher education for almost 10 years, it was still new to these respondents until arriving to teach at this institution. The survey also found a variety of different reactions when reporting how they felt when they first tried to learn to use Canvas. Participants’ responses ranged from ‘comfortable and confident’ to ‘I hated it’. Some reported that they learned to navigate within Canvas ‘in just a few minutes’, while others felt
‘overwhelmed and confused’.
However, a most significant finding was that majority of the participants stated they learned to use Canvas by a self-directed search. In other words, they described themselves as ‘self-taught’ on Canvas. Also notable was that over half the respondents, when they found they did not know how to accomplish a certain task in Canvas, by- passed the institution and instead went directly to the manufacturer of the software, to learn how to carry out that function. This could suggest that the adjuncts are either finding no information from the institution on how to use the LMS, or, simply feel that the institution they are currently teaching at is not providing information on how to use the LMS. This is significant, because while the institution fully expects the adjunct to use the LMS to teach classes, in the experience and perception of most of the participants,
37 there was no training or guidance from the institution on how to use the LMS. Instead, they found more training and support from the producer of the software than the educational institution.
Of those participants that went to the institution to learn to use Canvas, the majority stated they only did so when they needed immediate assistance. Therefore, rather than going through an organized training on the LMS ahead of time through the institution, they simply began teaching the course. Then, once the course was in session, and they realized they did not know how to do something in Canvas, they had to place unexpected, ‘emergency’ phone calls to College Administrative staff members for help.
Only thirty percent of respondents stated that they had carried out some sort of scheduled training with one specific administrative college staff member, but these were one-on-one live web conference trainings that were arranged specifically by special request of the adjunct to take place after normal working hours.
Final questions from the survey asked the participants what functions in Canvas they were interested to learn to use. A list of various Canvas functions were provided for them to select from. The participants were given a large number of different Canvas features that they wanted to learn about.
A significant percentage of respondents stated that they wanted to know how to:
• Update a syllabus • Set due dates for assignments • Show students how to have class announcements sent to their cell phones as text messages
The designer chose the above three topics as the subject of three lessons covered in
‘Jump Into Canvas’.
38 Target Audience Analysis - The target audience for this project was adjunct instructors at a small, private, Liberal Arts institution headquartered in Southern California. The participants were mainly adjuncts who had taught Human Development courses Online,
Hybrid, and/or face-to-face courses over the past 2 years,. The genders of the learners consisted of thirty six females, and nine males. The ethnicity of the learners consisted of
African American, Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian American. The age range of the learners was 25-74.
Extant Data Analysis - In analyzing extant data, the designer related to personal experience of having worked for five years as an employee for the Human Development program, at the college where the field testing took place. The designer witnessed first hand much of the work that was carried out by the Instructional Systems Department to train professors on use of the Canvas LMS, from 2015 to 2020.
Due to this experience, the designer was familiar with many resources and training modes carried out at the college with the goal of training adjuncts on the use of the Canvas LMS. These included printed Canvas Guides being provided to adjuncts, live teleconference trainings conducted by the Program Manager with a typical number of attendees of one or two adjuncts at a time, in the form of live, one on one, and face to face canvas trainings with adjuncts in the computer lab of the college, and comprehensive trainings built into Canvas application software that were generically created for all faculty training by the Director of Educational Technology of the institution’s parent company.
39 Technology Analysis - Data gathered from the Needs Assessment survey revealed that seventy percent of participants used their own laptop computer to access the LMS system, while sixty percent used a desktop computer at home to access the system.
Design Phase
Based on data retrieved from the Needs Assessment Survey, the designer chose three topics to be addressed in ‘Jump Into Canvas’ project. These three lessons were
‘Syllabus’, ‘Assignments’, and ‘Announcements to Texts’.
For each lesson, the designer produced a ‘Review’ section at the beginning of the lesson, that would briefly cover the learning objectives for the lesson. At the end of the lesson, the learning objectives that had been covered were repeated in a brief ‘Final
Review’ section, to serve as a recap of the covered objectives.
‘Syllabus’ Lesson - For the ‘Syllabus’ lesson, the learning objectives were for participants to identify the Syllabus Tab location in Canvas, be able to enter ‘Edit Mode’ for the syllabus, be able to use the Canvas files menu, be able to upload a new syllabus into the files menu, be able to create a hyperlink to the new syllabus in the correct location, and finally be able to create a new hyperlink.
Additional learning objectives for this lesson were for the participants to be able to download a syllabus that already has a hyperlink, to update syllabus with instructor’s own name and contact information, and then to re-upload the newly updated syllabus back into Canvas and create a new hyperlink.
To teach these learning objectives for the ‘Syllabus’ lesson, the designer used video-based lessons. The videos were screen capture footages of carrying out step-by-
40 step process of uploading and/or updating a syllabus in Canvas LMS. The audio was the designer’s voice narration, recorded by the designer using an external digital recorder and lapel microphone, and then digitally imported into the videos. To highlight visuals on screen features such as red boxes, animated arrows, and digital screen zoom in actions, and brief ‘Quick Analogy’ video animations were used to illustrate the thought process behind certain software functions of the LMS, to help the user make a better sense of the function.
The interactive feature of the ‘Syllabus’ lesson was the inclusion of two ‘mini quiz’ segments, which were hotspot quizzes, designed for the learner to self assess their knowledge of how to use the LMS to carry out the process of updating the syllabus.
‘Assignments’ Lesson - For the ‘Assignments’ lesson, the learning objectives were for participants to identify the location of the Assignments Tab in Canvas, be able to enter
‘Edit Mode’ for an assignment, being able to access the ‘Assign’ control panel, to be able to set due dates for assignments, to be able to set ‘Available from’ and ‘Available to’ dates, and a review of other parameters that can be set for assignments in Canvas, using the ‘Assign’ control panel.
To teach these learning objectives for the ‘Assignments’ lesson, the designer used video-based lessons. The videos were screen capture footage of the use of Canvas in carrying out the step-by-step process of updating an assignment in Canvas LMS. The audios were the designer’s voice narration, recorded by the designer using an external digital recorder and lapel microphone, and then digitally imported into the video. To highlight items on screen, tools like red boxes, and animated arrows were used.
41 Additional features added were the use of visual aids, like the appearance of a calendar on screen, to highlight the importance of setting due dates for assignments based on the syllabus and academic calendar.
The interactive feature of the ‘Assignments’ lesson was the inclusion of two ‘mini quiz’ segments, which were hotspot quizzes, designed for the learner to self assess their knowledge of using the LMS to carry out the process of setting due dates and/or
‘Available from’ dates for assignments.
‘Announcements to Texts’ Lesson - For the ‘Announcements to Texts’ lesson, a learning objective was that participants be able to set a parameter in Canvas so that when the instructor posts a class announcement in Canvas, the text of the announcement would automatically be forwarded to the student’s mobile phone device as a text message.
Learning objectives for the participants were to locate the Announcements tab, to create a new announcement, to teach students how to open the ‘Edit Profile’ feature, and enter their cell phone number as a mode of contact for the Canvas system, and to update the ‘Preferences’ control panel to choose whether to receive class announcements as Text Messages.
To teach these learning objectives for the ‘Announcements to Texts’ lesson, the designer used video-based lessons. The videos were screen capture footage of the use of Canvas in carrying out the step-by-step process of creating class announcements and using ‘Update Profile’ and ‘Preferences’ control panel features in the Canvas LMS. The audio was voice narration, recorded by the designer using an external digital recorder
42 and lapel microphone, and then digitally imported into the video. Additional video features were the use of red boxes, and animated arrows, to highlight visuals on screen.
Additional multimedia features of this lesson included images of various items, like a student looking at a clock, a student using a laptop computer, or a classroom of students with a professor, to illustrate certain points related to students’ experience with Canvas.
Additional multimedia animations or live action footage served as a narrative example of when it would be important for a professor’s class announcement to be sent to students as text messages. In this example, a professor’s car breaks down on way to teach a class for the evening, and the professor uses their cell phone to post an announcement in Canvas, to announce to students that class is cancelled. The designer used a photo of a frustrated driver behind the wheel and added animated ‘smoke’ coming from the engine to illustrate the car breakdown. In a later segment of the lesson, the designer filmed his own hand turning on and off a light switch, to illustrate how the “Preferences” feature works in Canvas, where students can ‘turn on’ or ‘turn off’ choices to have certain features working in Canvas, such as receiving class announcements in their phone as text messages.
The interactive feature of the ‘Announcement to Texts’ lesson was the inclusion of one ‘mini quiz’ segment, a hotspot quiz, designed for the learner to self assess their knowledge of how a student would add their cell phone number as a contact in Canvas.
43 Program Development
The Program Development covers the Development Phase of ADDIE.
Development Phase
The project was created in Adobe Captivate 2019, on an Apple iMac. Captivate was the central eLearning authoring tool used to create the framework of the project.
Video editing was done with Adobe Premiere CC. This included all of the titles, animations, and close ups. The voice narration was added into Premiere by using iTunes as an intermediary program to load the recordings to Premiere. The screen capture software used to capture the images of the Canvas LMS was the Screenshot tool in Mac
OS X Mojave. The Screenshot tool was used to capture both still shots as well as video capture.
One of the first decisions made was to give all of the videos, and the slides on
Captivate, a uniform background color of white. This was a decision made based on analyzing the general design of the Google and Amazon websites. Both of these sites have a standard white background on all pages of their sites. After reviewing other similar modern websites, the designer felt that white backgrounds are more representative of a design that is ‘modern’, as opposed to the general ‘Web 1.0’ look of colored fonts on a black background.
However, in Adobe Premiere, the ‘default color’ of the background is black. In
Premiere, during editing, any part of the screen that does not have a video image or still image will simply appear as black. While this might have added a strong contrast, which is a recommended part of good graphic design, the project needed a more up-to-date
44 and current look. Therefore, the designer manually installed a white background onto all of the videos created, using the ‘shapes’ tool in Premiere to create a full screen rectangle of the color white to be the official background for the videos themselves.
A main font was chosen for the project, ‘Typo Regular’. Rather than using a very standard font, (Arial, Calibri, etc.) the ‘Typo’ font, with rounded shaped letters, would help in a small way to make the project feel more inviting. Rounded shapes have been described by visual designer Bruce Block as having a visual motif that implies a safe, organic, and fun feel (Block, 2008). Therefore, with the goal of lending the safe, fun feel to the project, the designer used this font throughout all aspects of the project. This uniformity in font also employed the graphic design principle of repetition (Williams,
2015).
Production of the Video Clips - The Mac OS X screen capture feature was used to create all of the Canvas LMS screen footage that was edited into the videos. This screen footage was captured as both still images and motion video images. The video footage displayed cursor movements, clicking on links on the Canvas screen, etc.
One important point learned in this action was to reduce the original screen size of Canvas prior to screen captures, either as a still image or video. By doing this, the image would appear sharper in the final video, versus having the image larger, carrying out a screen capture, and then trying to ‘shrink down’ the image. The designer started off this way, assuming that a larger image would look more clear when reduced in size, but instead, learned that would produce a more pixelated, and therefore less clear image. The capturing of moving computer images on screen and the resizing of these
45 images was an important trial and error learning process early on in creating the project.
Adobe Premiere was used to create all of the ‘zoom in’s’, ‘zoom out’s’, screen
‘freezes’ and other video effects throughout the project. This included using the ‘titles’ feature of Premiere, to create all of the on screen cues that would appear, like red boxes and underlines. Meantime, the blue pointing arrows on screen were imported in.
These items all served to meet the Signaling Principle (Mayer, 2009).
All of the animations for the Quick Analogy scenes were created with Adobe
Premiere as well, including the syllabus going into the file cabinet drawer, the ‘suction cup arrow’ firing with a chain linking to the screen to serve as an analogy for ‘making a hyperlink’, and other such scenes. In a few instances, the researcher did some basic editing of some of these images first, using Adobe Photoshop.
Creating the eLearning Module - While the creation of the three training videos was a central goal of the project, the designer next housed the videos in segments, with each segment being on one individual slide in the Captivate project. A series of slides overall comprised one lesson in a sequence in the eLearning Module format. First, this was needed to meet Mayer’s Segmenting Principle (Mayer, 2009), as the videos needed to be divided up into smaller, two to three minute sequences. However, users also needed to have a way to not only see the videos, but also navigate through them, and have interactive quizzes installed throughout each lesson, as a quick self-assessment tool.
This was done to make sure that the videos were not just ‘movies’ that users would
46 watch, but would become integral parts of a self-directed learning module with interactive quizzes, that users would be able to control.
To do this, the designer’s first big decision was choosing Adobe Captivate as the eLearning software to create the project. Because the designer was new to Captivate, his first action upon purchasing the software was to carry out an entire Lynda.Com (now
‘LinkedIn Learning’) tutorial on the use of the software. The module, ‘Adobe Captivate
Essential Training’, by David Rivers, was a helpful tool to gain familiarity with how
Captivate 2019 worked and what features it had.
User Controls - ‘Jump Into Canvas’ was designed with the idea that it needed to function like a combination of a website and a traditional ‘CD’ player. Users needed the ability to click buttons, to control the pace of the video, and be able to pause, start, and stop the videos in the same way that users of YouTube are able to do at any time. This was an important part of the best practices of Demonstration-Based Training, ‘Pace’, and ‘User Control’, as covered in the research (Brar & Van Der Meij, 2017).
To achieve this, the designer built a custom designed Master Slide in Captivate, to become the controls for the ‘Player’ for users to utilize to interact with the project.
Not unlike the classic ‘Windows Media Player’, the goal of the designer was that the videos would play on a large ‘screen’ that would take up as much of the viewing area as possible, with buttons added for the user to be able to control the video being played.
The user would have the option of making the videos full screen if they chose to do so.
The Master Slide had icon style buttons created at the bottom of the screen for user to use at any time to either return to the Home Screen, or jump to another lesson
47 topic immediately. The buttons were designed as icons that could be clicked, rather than standard rectangular on screen buttons with text labels typed on to them to signify their function. The icons were imported as premade free icons from FlatIcon.Com.
However, to get these icons to function as buttons, the designer had to create
‘invisible buttons’ in Captivate, which were then placed over the top of each icon, since
Captivate does not allow an imported image to be used as a button. Therefore, this feature was designed so that when the user clicked the icon, the invisible button would take the user directly to the first video segment of each lesson matching where the user clicked.
Text was added to describe each icon button, using a Captivate ‘rollover feature’, for the text to appear when the user rolled the cursor over each button, which would tell the user what the topic of the lesson was that they would be taken to when they clicked that icon -‘Syllabus’, ‘Assignments’, or ‘Announcements’.
Additional buttons were added for ‘Forward’ or ‘Back’ controllers at the extreme right and left side of the video viewing screen. Much like the traditional ‘forward and backward’ controls for classic ‘CD players’, these buttons had the exact appearance of the classic ‘CD player’ buttons that most people are familiar with. These buttons would help the viewer jump forward to the next segment, or go back to a previous segment.
Just in case the User was not sure of the function of the buttons, the designer added
‘Rollover’ text of ‘Back’ or ‘Forward’ to appear when the user’s cursor rolled over the corresponding button.
48 If the user wanted to pause or go backwards while inside a specific segment, the user could then just use the video controls built into the video player itself, which were very much like the standard, familiar ‘YouTube-style’ controls of ‘Pause’, ‘Play’, ‘Go
Back’, ‘Go Forward’, etc.
The combination of icons at the bottom of the screen to jump to the beginning of each lesson, ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ buttons to jump to segments within each lesson, which were accessible to the user at all times, and video controls which were built into the video segments themselves, worked together to allow the User the maximum controllability of the pace of the learning. This met two of the guidelines of
Demonstration-Based Training as defined by research, ‘Pace’ and ‘User Control’ (Brar &
Van Der Meij, 2017).
Importing Video Segments as Slides
The designer then started the process of importing the first completed video, which was the ‘Syllabus’ lesson, into Captivate. The designer’s goal was to use that first video as the trial run, on how to divide up the other videos into segments. The designer would take the completed lesson, and then, using Adobe Premiere, would edit each lesson into segments. The designer would then export those segments one by one as separate video units. The video segments had to be first converted from QuickTime Mov into MP4 format, using Adobe Media Encoder, since Captivate only works with MP4 videos.
The designer then imported in each segment, sequentially, into Captivate slides.
Each video segment was set in Captivate to automatically play when the slide was
49 opened, therefore causing the video segments to play sequentially, but controlled by the user. This added the ability of users to control the pace of the video, and when to go forward each time to the next segment in the overall lesson.
Creating Hotspot Quizzes
Each time the user was about to go into a quiz section, the designer created a slide that let the user know they are about to take a short quiz, with a button that they would click to enter the quiz. These were titled ‘Mini Quiz #1’, or ‘Mini Quiz #2’. No more than 2 quizzes appeared in each lesson, with the ‘Announcements to Texts’ lesson only having one quiz.
The quizzes were created using the idea of all being visually created hotspot quizzes. These were created via the Mac screen capture tool. The designer would take screen shots of actual Canvas screens that matched the segment of the training that the user had just seen. Then a Text Box would be added to these screen capture images, containing instructions on what function the user would pretend to carry out in canvas, but using the hotspot screen image.
On each quiz, the designer would then create a series of invisible buttons over any part of the screen that would be a wrong area to click. The designer did decide to add a rollover feature, to have the stroke, or ‘outline’ of each button light up yellow if the user rolled the cursor over it, so the user would not click ‘blindly’ for too long.
Each time that wrong location was clicked, the user would immediately be taken to another screen with only One button, which read ‘Wrong Answer- Click here to return to quiz and try again’. The user would keep clicking varied locations on the screen
50 until they clicked the correct location. The correct ‘click’ would take the user to a
‘success’ screen with a short musical note, to reward the user for the correct answer.
The correct screen would also explain to the user a brief statement on why that was the correct answer.
One specific choice made on the quizzes was that there would be no navigation buttons found on those screens. The user, once clicking the “start the quiz”, had to solve the quiz correctly before being given a button that stated “click here to continue’
Only by clicking that arrow shaped button would the user move on to the next video segment slide, and then the navigation buttons would all be back again to use.
The goal in all of this was to not give the user an option of having any navigation controls to just click past, or ‘skip’, the quizzes. I wanted the users to have no choice but to participate in every quiz, and to have to gain a correct answer before moving on.
Another decision arrived upon by the designer was to choose not to use the pre- existing ‘hot spot quiz’ feature in Captivate. This is because the version included with
Captivate had, as its functionality, a ‘sparkling icon’ type graphic, that would appear on screen where the user would click, and would stay there while the user then had to click a separate ‘submit’ button to see if their answer was right or wrong.
The designer did not feel this exact style of hotspot quiz was particularly favorable or enjoyable to use, as the quiz itself almost needed instructions on how to use it. The perception was that the designer did not want the users to have to expend any more cognitive energy in figuring out how the hotspot quiz worked. The designer therefore created custom quizzes, essentially from ‘scratch’.
51 By deciding to create custom hot spot quizzes, the designer was unable to take advantage of the analytic features that are built into quizzes in Captivate. These analytic features record data like how many wrong answers a user clicked before they chose the right one, percentages of number of clicks a user needed to solve a quiz, and other related features. The designer realized that, by creating custom designed quizzes, the eModule would not have these analytic features.
However, the designer ultimately opted to use custom-built quizzes, to give the users a very direct replica of the actual LMS experience they would have. In the real
Canvas LMS, users do not have sparkling icons that stay where you click and then you must hit a ‘submit’ key to see if that is the correct choice. Instead, in the LMS, clicking a button on screen effectively ‘does something’. Clicking a button in any software application will give the user either the function they want, or another function they may not have wanted to select. The goal was for the users to see a screen image that is the exact screen they will be using in the actual LMS when they teach a class, and therefore the users needed to recall what they had seen in the video lesson to accurately click the right selection.
About this Project Section
The one section of ‘Jump Into Canvas’ that did not contain any video footage or audio narration was the ‘About this project’ section. This was linked to by a standard
‘shape’ button from Captivate, that appeared on the bottom right of the Home screen.
This takes users to a somewhat more ‘classic’ slide show experience, as the text was simply words on screen.
52 This section was a quick overview of the purpose of the project, how the control buttons worked, and the general sequence followed in the video segments. The section concluded with a quick reference to the research theories used, and then leads the viewer back to the home page. This section was designed this way in part to add some contrast to the video/narration segments, in that it was silent with no video or voice narration. This section is still guided the user, but timing is motivated via the Timeline features of Captivate. This feature was used to time events such as when arrows would appear, when words would appear on screen, and when to highlight the ‘next’ button, to guide the user through that section.
The final button added to the Home Screen was a ‘word bubble’ shaped button, labeled “Feedback Survey’. Clicking this button would take the user directly to the feedback survey, hosted on Google Forms.
The completed project, ‘Jump Into Canvas’ was successfully uploaded to the Cal
Poly Pomona student server, https://www.cpp.edu/~jlcapogrossi/ on February 19,
2020.
Field Testing Procedure
Field Testing Procedure covered the last two phases of ADDIE: Implementation
Phase and Evaluation Phase.
Implementation Phase
The implementation phase began with final review of the ‘Jump Into Canvas’ eLearning module, to ensure that all navigation features were working properly for users, prior to the start of field testing. To do this, the designer carried out testing on his
53 personal computer, used to produce the project. This activity was done by continuously exporting the project as an HTML5 document. That allowed the designer to test the features as they appear to the participants. From this ‘export and test’ process, the designer did catch certain ‘bugs’, such as the need to adjust screen size for the videos, or with certain rollover features of the buttons that would not work correctly due to overlap of the buttons. The designer worked to continuously troubleshoot and update, and then ‘re-export’ and ‘re-test’, to finalize the project.
An additional troubleshooting activity was for the designer to request the
Information Technology department of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, to increase the allotted server space, to allow for the project to successfully upload.
Following this, after the project was uploaded, the designer discovered that one of the navigation buttons was not correctly routing. The designer was able to fix this in
Adobe Captivate, export the final project, and return to the campus of California State
Polytechnic University Pomona to upload the corrected HTML5 document to the server space. This final upload and review took place on February 19, 2020, at the student
Educational Multimedia Lab at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. During that Lab visit, the designer re-uploaded the final version of the project as a completed
HTML5 project. The designer, still at the Educational Multimedia Lab location, carried out a final complete test of all functions of the project from its internet-based location, as this was the same location where participants would access the project. It was determined that all video segments, sounds, navigation buttons, and links were working correctly for the project, and that it was ready for field testing. This verification was
54 therefore successfully completed on February 19, 2020, and the designer was able to conclude that the project was ready for Field Testing.
Evaluation Phase
The evaluation phase focused on the process of field testing the ‘Jump Into
Canvas’ eLearning module. The following step-by-step activities were conducted to field test the project.
This process began with gaining approval of the academic leadership of the institution where the field test took place, to carry out the field testing of this Project.
After speaking with both the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Dean of the
Human Development department, both gave their verbal consent to the test (see
Appendix F). This was then passed to the Chairperson of the IRB for the college. The IRB
Chair signed the Field Test Authorization Request form on February 28, 2020, to grant permission to the designer on behalf of the college to allow carrying out the field testing of the project (see Appendix B). Approval from the IRB at California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona was granted on March 25, 2020 (see Appendix C).
Immediately upon receiving IRB approval, an email flyer was sent to 45 adjunct faculty members of the college where the field test occurred (see Appendix D). This flyer served as an announcement/recruitment to the Adjunct Instructors of the Human
Development program, regarding this Thesis project, and seeking their voluntary participation. It contained a description of the project and included the link to the informed consent form. Upon clicking the link, participants were taken directly to the form.
55 The informed consent form (see Appendix E) was then reviewed by each participant. Once participants clicked the link to agree with voluntarily participating in the field testing of the project, they were taken directly into the ‘Jump Into Canvas’ eLearning Module. The expectation was that they would visit and go through all three of the lessons, and complete each of the mini quizzes to get through each lesson. The participant would then review ‘about this project’, and finally they would go to the field testing survey (see Appendix F).
The survey itself was completely anonymous. It contained 15 questions, divided up between Likert Scale response, short answer, and multiple choice questions. The evaluation survey was designed based on Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level training
Evaluation Model (Petrone, 2017).
The four levels are as follows:
Level 1- Reaction - This level describes how the users feel about the training, and their reactions to the training or eLearning module. Some questions here might include whether they liked the training, the style and timing of it, was it easy and comfortable to use, and if they feel it was practical (CT.gov, n.d.)
Level 2 – Learning - This level assesses how much the participant learned from the training. Some questions might include how much more they understood the content of the training, etc. (CT.gov, n.d.).
Level 3 – Behavior - This level measures if the training has influenced the general behavior of the participants, and whether, as a result, this has changed their way of conducting the tasks. Questions might include whether they put their learning into
56 effect during their work, and would they be able to teach their newly acquired skills to someone else (CT.gov, n.d.).
Level 4 – Results - This level measures the effects on the general business environment as a result of the training. It measures the level of impact the training made on the overall work environment for the users, due to the number of persons that have increased their skills in the area of the training. This level is much more focused on quantitative data on increased knowledge, which will not necessarily be measured in this study. However, a question could focus on any improved sense of feelings towards the LMS after the training, reduced anxiety, more relaxed and confident towards the use of the LMS, etc. (CT.GOV, n.d.).
The following step-by-step procedure was conducted for field testing this project:
• Receiving approval from the college IRB Chair (see Appendix B)
• Receiving approval from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona IRB
committee (see Appendix C)
• Sending consent invitation email flyer to adjunct instructors (see Appendix D)
• Field testing to take place from March 25th to April 7th
• Collecting data from the field testing survey (see Appendix F)
57 CHAPTER FOUR
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary Higher Education in the United States has had two major trends effecting how teaching and learning is administered to students. The first trend is an increase in the hiring of Adjunct Instructors that has steadily increased since the mid 1970’s until today
(Pew Research Center, 2014). The other major trend is the move towards having all college classes taught and administered through digital software frameworks known as
Learning Management Systems (LMS). The creation and use of these systems began to emerge in institutions of higher education in the mid 1990’s (Dahlstrom, Brooks &
Bichsel, 2014). The development of these new digital applications and frameworks coincided with the same mid to late 1990’s timeframe which saw the expansion of the
World Wide Web into general society (Pew Research Center, 2014). This included the original introduction of the (then new) modality of Online education into institutions of higher education (Pew Research Center, 2014).
The literature shows that institutions of higher education rely heavily on adjunct instructors to teach courses (Edmonds, 2015; NCES, n.d.), and also rely heavily on LMS as the central framework to structure, teach, and deliver those courses (Coates, James,
& Baldwin, 2005). The literature states that institutions do not always adequately provide training to adjunct instructors on technology, including LMS systems (Bates,
2011).
58 Due to the short time frame often available for adjuncts to prepare to teach
(Street, Maisto, Merves & Rhoades, 2012), and, simultaneously, the importance of the
LMS as a central framework where modern college courses, effectively, ‘happen’
(Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005), it is evident that a specialized, shortened, and tailored on-demand technology training must be developed for adjunct faculty (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012), in order to support the adjuncts requirement to successfully launch a course by the start of the term.
The National Center for Education Statistics data shows that the ratio of to
Adjunct Faculty to Full time Faculty had increased approximately by 5% each 10 year span between 1975 and 1995 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). But, this rate of hiring adjuncts jumped to 7% from 1995-2005 (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2016). This 10-year time frame coincides with the original expansion of the
World Wide Web into society in general (Pew Research Center, 2014), and, more specifically, the introduction and expansion of Online College courses as a modality in
Higher Education (Pew Research Center, 2014).
Adjuncts, who are part-time instructors, face a particular set of working conditions, that necessitate adopting a general employment ‘lifestyle’ to maintain sufficient pay levels (Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012). However, the literature maintains that this same lifestyle makes it challenging for adjuncts to gain technology training (Bower, 2001). These working conditions include being hired to teach fairly close to the start of a semester, in what’s referred to as ‘just in time’ hiring practices
(Street, Maisto, Merves, & Rhoades, 2012), teaching at a number of different
59 institutions during the same semester (Hose & Ford, 2014), or, having full time employment during traditional daytime office hours, which is when most institutions hold trainings (Magda, Poulin, & Clinefelter, 2015).
The main educational technology that an adjunct interacts with is the LMS. LMS is an integrated, internet based software system, that provides an organized framework of pedagogical and course administration tools for educational institutions (Coates,
James, & Baldwin, 2005). LMS is the framework through which an entire college class is administered by the instructor, whether the class takes place online or in a more traditional face-to-face mode (Anderson & Dron, 2018). The history of the development of these systems, which originated as simple web-based software tools on college campuses before expanding to become more corporatized educational products
(Leibovich, 1999, UBC News Archive, 2015) is in many ways parallel to the history of the expansion of the internet in society (Leibovich, 1999).
Adjuncts must often learn to use new LMS’s when they are hired to teach for an institution for the first time. Different institutions will often have different LMS systems that they adopt and partner with (Severence, 2012). As a result, adjuncts do not get a choice of what LMS they will use when they come to an institution to teach (Little-Wiles, et.al, 2012). Adjuncts must ‘rush’ to learn any unfamiliar LMS when they are hired at a new institution (Little-Wiles, et.al, 2012). This can cause a challenging emotional state that has been described as ‘Technostress’ (Brod, 1984).
60 However, research specific to training faculty to use an LMS system reveals that the participants state that they were most interested in LMS training that was
‘specialized and specific’ (Little-Wiles, et al, 2012).
The purpose of this research project was to create ‘Jump Into Canvas’, a multimedia web-based eLearning module with short video lessons, designed for adjunct instructors, on how to use three features of the Canvas system. The designer followed the ADDIE Model of Design (McGriff, 2000), which contains the sequential process of
Analysis Phase, Design Phase, Development Phase, Implementation Phase, and
Evaluation Phase
The designer started with a Needs Assessment survey of the target group of participants to determine their experiences with the Canvas LMS and what they needed to learn about the software program. Data was gathered about the prospective participants and their reported experiences through a needs assessment survey. From the feedback received, the designer selected ‘Syllabus’, ‘Assignments’, and
‘Announcements to Texts’ as the lesson topics for the project.
The designer started the production process of the video part of the project by selecting main, central design choices for the project, including central themes like the background color and font style for the look of the video. The screen capture videos of
Canvas were captured using the Mac screen capture function, and were then edited into the video segments. The designer recorded his voice narration that was added to the videos. Additional multimedia features, like circles, arrows, and animations, were added to the production of each video to direct the attention of the users to specific
61 parts.
The videos were then separated into segments and each segment was then imported into one slide of a sequence in Adobe Captivate. The project in captivate was designed similarly to Windows media player or similar tools, with buttons to advance forward to the next slide, go back to the previous slide, etc. Once the Project was completed, it was successfully uploaded to the designer’s student server space of
California Polytechnic State University Pomona, and was ready for field testing.
Once permissions and approvals were obtained from the necessary departments and Institutional Review Boards (IRB) of both institutions, the researcher invited forty five adjunct professors of the human development program at the college to participate via an emailed recruitment flyer (see Appendix D). The flyer explained the background and purpose of the study, and supplied the link to the Informed Consent form (see
Appendix E). By clicking on the link in the Informed Consent form, participants agreed to voluntarily participate in the study, and were then taken to the learning module. At the end of the module, participants were given a link to a short, anonymous survey (see
Appendix F).
The survey followed Kirkpatrick’s four-level approach to training. The model was originally created by Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick in 1955. It suggests a progressive sequence approach to rating the effectiveness of training. The four levels of training outcomes are: Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results (CT.gov, n.d.).The survey focused only on
‘Level one-Reaction’. This level just focuses on the participants’ initial emotional
62 responses to the quality or the relevance of the training (CT.gov, n.d.).
Forty five adjunct instructors were invited to take part in this study. Of those instructors, 11 participated in the module and completed the questionnaire. The survey was comprised of a total of fifteen questions
Conclusions
The first seven questions on the survey were five point Likert Scale questions.
The participants were to choose their level of agreement, with each statement:
1. Strongly Disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neutral
4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
Question #1: I liked/enjoyed the Jump Into Canvas eLearning Module, overall.
Nine participants (81%) out of eleven responded ‘Strongly Agree’, two participants (18%) responded ‘Agree’, and Zero participants (0%) responded as ‘Neutral’,
‘Disagree’, or ‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure 4.1).
63 Figure 4.1. Enjoyed eLearning Module overall
Question #2- The module addressed my needs as an Adjunct Instructor, on how to use
Canvas features/functions.
Eight participants (72%) out of eleven responded ‘Strongly Agree’, three responses (27%) responded ‘Agree’, and zero participants (0%) ‘Neutral’, ‘Disagree’, or
‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure 4.2).
64 Figure 4.2. Module addressed needs on how to use Canvas
Question #3- I feel this training is very practical and relevant to me as an Adjunct instructor.
Nine participants (81%) out of eleven answers of ‘Strongly Agree’ , two answers out of eleven (18%) of ‘Agree’, and zero participants (0%) ‘Neutral, ‘Disagree’, or
‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure 4.3).
65 Figure 4.3. Training was practical and relevant
Question #4- The multimedia aspects of the module helped me understand the material better
Ten participants (91%) out of eleven responded ‘Strongly Agree’, one participant
(9%) ‘Agree’, and zero answers of ‘Neutral, ‘Disagree’, or ‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure
4.4).
66 Figure 4.4. Multimedia helped with understanding
Question #5- Overall, this eLearning module was a good use of my time as an adjunct instructor
Ten participants (91%) out of eleven responded as ‘Strongly Agree’, one participant (9%) responding ‘Agree’, and zero responses of ‘Neutral, ‘Disagree’, or
‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure 4.5).
67 Figure 4.5. Module was a good use of my time
Question #6- The Quick Analogy animations were helpful during the lessons
Ten participants (91%) responded ‘Strongly Agree’, zero responded ‘Agree’, one response (9%) at ‘Neutral, and zero responses of ‘Disagree’, or ‘Strongly Disagree’ (see
Figure 4.6).
68 Figure 4.6. Quick Analogy animations were helpful
Question #7- The "Mini Quizzes" were helpful during the lessons
Seven participants (63%) responded ‘Strongly Agree’, three participants (27%) responded ‘Agree’, Zero responses of ‘Neutral’ and ‘Disagree’, and one response, at approximately nine percent, of ‘Strongly Disagree’ (see Figure 4.7).
69 Figure 4.7. Mini Quizzes were helpful
Question #8 Which lesson did you feel was the MOST relevant to you as an adjunct instructor?
Five participants (50%) of ten responded ‘Syllabus Lesson’, four participants
(40%) stated ‘Assignments Lesson’, and one participant (10%) responded
‘Announcements to Texts’ lesson (see Figure 4.8).
70 Figure 4.8. Which lesson was most relevant
Question #9 Which lesson did you feel was the LEAST relevant/valuable to you as an adjunct instructor?
Ten participants (91%) answered ‘Announcements to Texts’, one participant
(9%), responded that ‘Assignments’ was the least relevant, and zero participants said that the Syllabus lesson was the least relevant (see Figure 4.9).
Figure 4.9. Which lesson was least relevant
71 Question #10 How did you feel about the amount of material covered in each lesson?
Ten participants (91%) of eleven said ‘The amount of material covered was the right amount’, one participant (9%) said ‘I would have liked more to be covered in each lesson’, and zero participants said ‘Too much material was covered in each lesson’ (see
Figure 4.10).
Figure 4.10. Amount of material covered each lesson
Question #11 Do you feel the lessons were at the right proficiency level for you, as a user of Canvas?
Eight (73%) of eleven participants said ‘Yes, was at the right level’, three participants (27%) said ‘It was too beginner level/rudimentary’, and zero participants said ‘It was too advanced (see Figure 4.11).
72 Figure 4.11. Right proficiency for user
Question #12 How did you feel about the speed/pace of the training?
Ten participants (91%) out of eleven said ‘The training felt at the right speed/pace’, one participant (9%) said ‘The pace was too slow’, and zero participants,
(0%) said ‘The pace was too fast’ (see Figure 4.12)
Figure 4.12 Speed of training
73 Question #13 What were some of your LEAST favorite things about the module?
Seven out of eleven participants presented comments to this question. The participants gave mixed answers. Two participants did not like the navigation buttons.
Two participants had trouble with the videos, either that they were ‘choppy’ or that they were unsure how to make the image full screen. Two participants mentioned that they liked every part of the module and did not have any least favorite feature. One single comment was made regarding newer adjuncts possibly needing additional details
(see Table 4.1).
Table 4.1
Least Favorite Things about the Module
Least Favorite things about the module Frequency
Did not like aspects of the control buttons 2
Had issues with the videos 2
Liked everything about the module 2
Did not like aspects of the control buttons 1
74 Question #14 What were some of your MOST favorite things about the module?
Eight out of eleven participants presented comments to this question. The participants gave a variety of answers. Two participants liked the mini quizzes. Two participants liked the general graphics that were used. One participant liked the navigation controls. One participant liked the step by step processes. One participant felt the module met most learning styles. And, One participant stated that they felt all of the module was
‘fantastic’ (see Table 4.2).
Table 4.2
Most favorite things about the module
Most Favorite things about the module Frequency
Mini Quizzes 2
Graphics 2
Liked everything about the module 1
Step by step processes 1
Module met most learning styles 1
Question #15 What suggestions would you give to the designer of 'Jump Into Canvas', for subsequent, future eLearning programs they create?
Ten out of eleven participants presented comments to this question. The
75 participants gave a variety of answers. Two participants liked the entire module overall and had no suggestions. Two had additional topics they would like to see lessons created on, from Discussions to how adjuncts can add video links. Two participants wanted additional item added to ‘Jump Into Canvas’ including instructions on how to expand the screen to additional quizzes. One participant had instructional design related suggestions for the designer, suggesting that in future, similar eLearning modules, each lesson could be designed to flow and build a knowledge set from one lesson to the next. Finally, three participants had extensive comments stating that they would like to see, in general, more support for adjunct instructors, including giving adjuncts more feedback opportunity, adding additional topics of help to new adjuncts, and one very detailed answer from the final participant, giving advisement to the designer not only of how ‘Jump Into Canvas’ could be improved, but, overall, how colleges and universities could better provide training opportunities to adjunct instructors overall, to help adjuncts be more empowered in their use of the LMS overall (see Table 4.3).
76 Table 4.3
Suggestions for the Designer
Suggestions for the designer Frequency
Liked everything and have no suggestions 2
Requested additional trainings on other topics 2
More instructions on how to use the module 2
Instructional Design related suggestions 1
More overall support for adjunct instructors 3
Recommendations
The overall data seems to indicate that the overall assessment of the ‘Jump Into
Canvas’ was positive. With the exception of the question regarding the Mini Quiz feature, all Likert Scaled questions had an answer of ‘Strongly Agree’ that fell somewhere between seventy and ninety percent. Ninety percent of participants felt that the right amount of material was covered in the training, eighty percent felt it was at the right proficiency level, and ninety percent felt that the training was at the right pace.
What follows will be the recommendations of the designer of “Jump Into
77 Canvas’, upon reflections on the creation of this Thesis Project.
Challenge of Field Testing during Pandemic Crisis
The unexpected, rapid, and world wide disruption that occurred in the first three months of 2020, as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, led to rapid, protective social distancing measures that took place in Higher Education as a whole. This had, in significant ways, a profound effect on the field testing of ‘Jump Into Canvas’. The effect of social distancing was clearly impactful on a smaller scale on the private institution of higher education where the designer of this Thesis Project was an employee, and where all of the designer’s invited participants were adjunct professors.
To provide context, this section will provide a brief narrative summary of events in the following paragraphs. In this summary, the above-mentioned institution of higher education will be referenced as ‘the college’.
On March 13, the President of the college addressed the institution at an urgent all staff meeting, covering what would be its response to the viral pandemic. It was announced that, as a protective measure for students, all current traditional face-to- face classes would immediately stop meeting in person. Class activities would be paused March 16 to March 20, to provide professors of these face-to-face courses one week’s time to convert their courses to the virtual modality. Five days after this announcement, on March 18, the college’s physical campus was closed and locked down, to provide further social distancing for employees, and therefore all faculty and
78 staff began working from home. One day later, March 19, California Governor Gavin
Newsom issued California’s ‘Stay At Home’ Executive Order.
And, only six days later, March 25, the IRB of Cal Poly Pomona approved the designer’s project, ‘Jump Into Canvas’ for Field Testing. It might be an ‘understatement’ to say that ‘Jump Into Canvas’ field testing started during a very tumultuous time at the college, and in higher education overall.
One of the challenges to gaining participants for ‘Jump Into Canvas’s field testing was that a large amount of technology training had already been sent to the adjunct faculty during the ten days prior to the start of the designer’s field testing. This is because a top priority of the college was to assure that professors were ready to ‘go virtual’ by the week of March 23. Due to this institutional objective, between March 16 and March 25, a sizable number of informational training links were sent to the adjunct faculty of the college. The designer of ‘Jump Into Canvas’ counted sixty-five (65) separate informational links, all related to educational technology training of one form or another, that were emailed out to the entire adjunct faculty of the college via various daily emails over the span of ten working days.
This was understandable. The college wanted to show as much support for instructors as possible, many of whom would not describe themselves as ‘tech savvy’.
However, the sheer number of links and trainings and webinar invites that were sent to the faculty over ten working days may have resulted in a feeling of ‘tech-training overload’ with many of the adjuncts.
79 Therefore, on March 25, when the designer of ‘Jump Into Canvas’ sent his own email, asking the same group of faculty to please click ‘one more link’, to visit ‘Jump Into
Canvas’, this may have felt like ‘one Ed-Tech training too many’ to the adjunct instructors. It is probable that, simply due to the many trainings they were asked to carry out over the previous ten days, many simply were too fatigued to participate in any more trainings at that time. Ultimately, the vast majority of the adjunct faculty did successfully re-launch their face-to-face courses in the virtual modality, in the time frame needed, but the process to get there did cause unexpected limitations for the designer’s planned number of participants.
The Coronavirus Pandemic was a challenge to society overall, that no one in U.S. higher education could have known was going to happen prior to 2020. Therefore, the fact that the designer’s training was approved for field testing not only a in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, but, on a much smaller stage, in the midst of a veritable ‘tidal wave’ of Multimedia ‘Ed-Tech’ trainings aimed at the same target audience as the designer’s project, are factors that could not have been predicted. Therefore, part of the low number of participants to the ‘Jump Into Canvas’ field testing might just be due to
(unfortunately) bad timing.
Adobe Captivate Software Challenge
Another recommendation goes back to early 2019, which is the importance of networking to overcome a technology challenge.
80 When the designer got started with Adobe Captivate, at the outset, the program seemed to be running extremely slow. The entire program had an extremely delayed reaction to any mouse movements or words typed on screen, and was very ‘bogged down’ with an extremely slow, ‘sputtering’ speed that almost made the program unusable.
This was a big concern, as the designer had just purchased the software. The designer went to the message boards of Adobe Captivate, hosted by Adobe, as well as
Adobe’s Tech Support team, to gain answers. At one point, the designer filmed what was taking place, and posted a YouTube video to try to illustrate the issue. However, even a ‘remote takeover’ of the designer’s personal computer by the Adobe Tech
Support staff members could not discover what was causing this issue with Adobe
Captivate for Mac. This caused much frustration for the designer, as ‘the clock was ticking’ on getting started with the thesis process, and this technical ‘glitch’ was causing delays.
However, thankfully, after about one month of trying to solve this issue, a very astute user of Apple computers from Adobe’s message boards indicated that they had discovered the solution. The slowness experienced by Mac users was due to Captivate struggling to match the high resolution of the Apple iMac monitor. The solution presented was simply to lower the resolution setting on Captivate to the lowest functioning level. Upon carrying out this change, Captivate then began to run at a normal, fast speed. In addition to this very welcome solution, this update did not actually bring about any noted change in the appearance of the program’s visuals. The
81 designer was very thankful to that Mac user who found the solution to the issue, which was very helpful to not only just the designer, but a number of other users of Captivate for Mac.
The designer learned, through this tech issue, that software bugs and issues are not just challenges faced by graduate students trying to create Multimedia Thesis
Projects. These issues are also, very often, a part of the regular challenges experienced by professional Instructional Designers and Multimedia Developers, sometimes on a weekly basis. Being able to find a way around software issues, via trial and error, is an important skill. Rather than simply ‘throwing up one’s hands in frustration’, an important skill is seeking the assistance of a community of other users, who can exchange ideas and advice to one another about the software being utilized.
Troubleshooting and networking are both critical skills to develop in Multimedia development. Therefore, while trying to solve this software issue did cost the designer some time and effort, as well as a degree of frustration in getting started creating the project, it did bring about a valuable lesson about the importance of networking to an up and coming eLearning designer.
Playing to Strengths
One of the important decisions made by the designer was to use previous knowledge of video editing to create the project. Rather than try to create animations using Illustrator or Animate, the designer chose to use a program he was already familiar with, the video editing program, Adobe Premiere. The designer’s thought process was that since Captivate was already a new software that would need to be
82 learned to use in order to provide the eLearning framework to the project, to try to also tackle the learning curve of additional new software programs at the same time might be too steep a learning curve for one Thesis project. The designer found that, for this particular Thesis Project, to create and incorporate Illustrator created graphics, or to try to use Adobe Animate to demonstrate processes, was not automatically a strict requirement. In this instance, Premiere could carry these actions out as well.
It is worth noting that the designer of Jump Into Canvas does have a strong affinity for both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Animate, and does have a serious plan to gain strong skills in the use of these programs following the completion of the thesis process. However, mainly, the recommendation to anyone creating an eLearning module for the first time is to find a way to use any creative software tool that one is already the most familiar with, to help get through the process efficiently.
‘Quick Analogy’ animations
One multimedia learning tool that the designer felt was important to utilize was the production of brief animations to help learners understand and remember an action in using the LMS, that might either seem complicated or not seem readily apparent to a user. In these instances, the designer created ‘Quick Analogy’ segments. In these segments, the designer produced brief visual animations in Adobe Premiere, using still photos of real items moving, using some of the effect tools available in Adobe Premiere.
The designer then used these animations to illustrate a software function, as a form of visual analogy. However, to make sure that these brief segments had some visual cue of why they were on screen, the designer had a title reading ‘Quick Analogy’ on screen.
83 The Quick Analogy segments were mainly used in the ‘Syllabus’ lesson, as a few of the actions in that process seemed to need additional explanation. These included having an image of a file cabinet to explain the ‘Files’ menu, and the significance of putting an updated version of a syllabus ‘into the file cabinet’. The designer also used an image of a chain to explain hyperlinks, including an animation of an arrow with a chain attached to it, firing and hitting a target, with a ‘boom’ sound effect, to illustrate how the LMS required the user to find a location where a cursor was blinking, and that when the user clicked the button to upload, the location of the cursor was exactly where the
LMS created the hyperlink.
Using narrated animations to help explain and make sense of complex concepts or actions was a research proven tool of educational multimedia (Mayer, 2009). The literature supports guidelines on using animation as an educational tool, including suggested design parameters such as being sure that the animation is clear, concise, and simple to understand (Mallinson, 2017). The designer attempted to employ these guidelines when creating the animations, and felt these Quick Analogy animations were one feature of this Thesis Project that was somewhat unique, as, while animations are often used in multimedia lessons about science (Mayer, 2009) the designer had not seen many animated analogies used in the training of how to use a software program.
While ultimately, the reaction of the participants was slightly mixed on these animations, some cited them specifically as an enjoyable part of the process.
84 Concluding Remarks
The creation of ‘Jump Into Canvas’ was a journey taken by the designer, to combine creativity and research-proven principles, to create an educational multimedia project. The designer is thankful for the results, and looks forward to the future, to continue to create educational tools that benefit not just adjunct professors, but full time faculty, college students, K-12, corporate training, and learners across the world.
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UBC News Digest. (2004, Oct 15). Computer Scientist Wins $100,000 Award for Popular Course Software. Retrieved from https://archive.news.ubc.ca/ubcnewsdigest/2004/04oct15.html#4
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Watson, W. (2007). An Argument for Clarity: What are Learning Management Systems, What are They Not, and What Should They Become? TechTrends, 51(2), 28-34.
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92 APPENDIX A
Needs Assessment Survey
Question 1 :
Did you ever use Canvas as a STUDENT, prior to your Adjunct Teaching position at Pacific Oaks College?
Question 2 :
Did you ever use Canvas as an INSTRUCTOR, prior to teaching at Pacific Oaks College?
Question 3 :
What other Learning Management Systems (or, "LMS's") have you used in your Higher
Education teaching experience, BESIDES Canvas?
Question 4:
was ‘How comfortable do you feel using Canvas to teach at this time?’, 1 being ‘Not
Comfortable at all’ to 5 being ‘Very Comfortable’ . Results were 80% at 5, 10% at 4 and
10% at 3.
Question 5 was ‘How knowledgeable do you feel about Canvas and it's functions at this time?’, with a scale of 1 being “Not Knowledgeable at All” to 5 being “Very knowledgeable”. Answers to Question 5 were slightly more spread, with 40% at 5, 40% at 4, and 10% at 3 and 2 respectively.
Question 6 was listed as ‘Optional’, but all respondents chose to submit answers. It read
‘How did you feel the first time you used Canvas to teach a class at Pacific Oaks
College?’
Answers to this question included:
• I hated it
93 • It took me a few minutes to navigate by myself and then quickly became comfortable with using it. • Comfortable and confident • Very comfortable. I've been working with Canvas since it's beginning and worked as an online instructor with a school that tested out Canvas before it truly rolled out to the public. • Overwhelmed and confused • Comfortable because I read the manual and went to a meeting. • I felt fairly comfortable, but knew there were still plenty of options I was not aware of yet. • Lost. I was able to use a few features. • I found it to be very user friendly. It was enjoyable from the start. • Nervous and anxious
Question 7 : ‘Please check any areas of Canvas usage that you would like to learn about’.
Results from this question are shown below:
• How students can link their cell phones to Canvas to receive announcements 66.7% • How to put the class assignments in order of when they are due 33.3% • How to post Final Grades for the course 33.3% • How the class calendar works 33.3% • How to upload a new or updated syllabus 16.7% • How to post announcements 16.7% • How to create discussion post questions for students 16.7% • How to grade students’ assignments 16.7% • How to add or correct due dates to assignments 0% • How to respond to a student’s discussion post 0%
Question 8 :“Regarding ANY features/functions in Canvas that you currently DO know how to use...How did you gain the training/knowledge to use those Canvas features?”
I allowed the respondents to click any/all that applied.
The answers were provided, in this order of the number of times they were
selected…
94 • ‘SELF TAUGHT’...Explored features a.k.a. "played around/experimented" in Canvas on my own until I figured out how to use them = 80% • Went to the website of the Canvas Organization (Instructure, Inc) to try to find information or tutorials = 60% • Carried out "troubleshooting" phone calls and/or emails with the Human Development Program Manager (J.Capogrossi) to get Canvas issues resolved = 40% • Did a face to face training class at Pacific Oaks at a previous "New Adjunct Hire Orientation" meeting= 30% • Attended a live training Webinar with the Dean of Instructional Systems at Pacific Oaks= 30% • Went onto the "general internet" (Google, YouTube, etc) to find pre-existing tutorial videos on How to Use Canvas = 30% • Attended a live Webinar Training on GoToMeeting hosted by the Online Program's Program Manager = 20% • Viewed TCS Education's eLearning Modules that were sent to me as links from the Human Development Program Manager = 20% • Learned from previous usage of Canvas as an instructor at another institution = 20% • Learned from a fellow Adjunct Professor at Pacific Oaks College on how to use Canvas features = 10% • Used an Online self paced eLearning Website like Lynda.Com, Udacity, Udamy, etc = 0%
Questions 9 and 10:
Computer Usage-What computer or device do you use to access/engage with Canvas as an Instructor?
Internet Connection- What type of Internet Connection do you use?
All respondents seemed to use a variety of devices, but the top 2 answers were “Laptop Computer” “Desktop Computer”
Final questions included:
Have you used Interactive Web Based eLearning Modules before? Your thoughts about past eLearning Modules/Training that you have done?
70 % of respondents said “Yes” they had used Interactive Web Based eLearning
Modules.
95 Comments about what they liked about past eModule Trainings included:
• They were helpful to go back and learn from • There is always room to learn more. As Canvas grows, new technology advances and I do like to stay up to date with these developments through trainings. • I can self pace and review many times • New ideas. • interactive videos with some form of human connection. screening shoots or screen sharing so you can have real examples
Comments about what they disliked about past eModule Trainings included:
• They took a long time to finish • Not getting answers quickly. • The times offered are not always convenient. • Slides without a human face...I think even a picture brings an element of connection
96 APPENDIX B
Field Test Authorization Form
97 APPENDIX C
Institutional Review Board Approval
98 APPENDIX D
Invitation Flyer
99 APPENDIX E
Informed Consent Form
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Informed Consent Form for Research Involving Human Subjects
You are being invited to participate in a research study, which the Cal Poly Pomona Institutional Review Board (IRB) has reviewed and approved for conduct by the investigators named here. This form is designed to provide you - as a human subject/participant - with information about this study. The investigator or his/her representative will describe this study to you and answer any of your questions. You are entitled to an Experimental Research Subject’s Bill of Rights and a copy of this form. If you have any questions about your rights as a subject or participant, complaints about the informed consent process of this research study, or experience an adverse event (something goes wrong), please contact the Research Compliance Office within Cal Poly Pomona’s Office of Research at 909.869.4215. More information is available at the IRB website, http://www.cpp.edu/~research/irb/index.shtml
Project Title: “Jump Into Canvas”
Protocol Number: IRB-20-28
Principal Investigator: Jonathan Capogrossi, working with Dr Shahnaz Lotfipour 626-213-4844, or [email protected]
This study involves research into design of multimedia eLearning training modules. You will first be asked to visit an internet based, stand alone eLearning training Module, titled “Jump Into Canvas”, which contains 3 separate video based lessons. The lessons focus on aspects of using the Canvas Learning management System, as an instructor, in the teaching of a course. These short lessons focus on (a) syllabus uploading and updating, (b) assignment due date setting and points setting, and (c) use of the announcements feature in Canvas.
You will then be directed to a web based confidential, anonymous survey, where you will provide feedback on your initial thoughts and reactions to the training module. You may work at your own pace. Our experience has been that these procedures have taken people between 30 to 40 minutes to complete. We do not anticipate you experiencing any discomfort or other negative feelings when responding to items in this study.
100 Your participation in this study may help you understand more about the use of the Canvas Learning Management System. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. Should you decide to discontinue participation, you may do so without penalty. You may also skip any item you do not wish to complete. We are not asking you to place your name anywhere on the survey, so your participation is anonymous. None of your answers can be directly traced back to you. After you complete the survey, please click “Submit”
Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Shahnaz Lotfipour, a professor in the College of Education and Integrated Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. Her email address is [email protected].
CONSENT STATEMENT:
By clicking the link below, I hereby give my consent to participate in the research study entitled “Jump Into Canvas”
I have read the above information and am aware of the potential risks and complications. I fully understand that I may withdraw from this research project at any time or choose not to answer any specific item or items without penalty. I also understand that I am free to ask questions about techniques or procedures that will be undertaken. I am aware that there is no compensation for my participation. Finally, I understand that information obtained about me during the course of the study will be kept anonymous and cannot be traced back to me. Thank you. You may now click the following link to go to the eLearning Module, “Jump Into Canvas”… https://www.cpp.edu/~jlcapogrossi/J_CAPOGROSSI_ THESIS_PROJECT_CPP_2020/
101 APPENDIX F
Field Test Participant Survey
102 103 104 105 106