Successful Online Courses in California Community Colleges

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Successful Online Courses in

California Community Colleges

Hans Johnson, Marisol Cuellar-Mejia, and Kevin Cook

Supported with funding from the Donald Bren Foundation

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Outline

 Online learning in community colleges

 Identifying highly successful courses

 What makes an online course successful?

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Online enrollment at California’s community

colleges is enormous …

0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000 1,000,000 To ta l e nro llm en t i n on lin e cr ed it c ou rs es

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… and growing as a share of all enrollment

11.2% 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 Sh are o f e nro llm en t i n o nl in e cre di t co urs es (% )

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Course success rates are lower in online

courses

-7.4 -11.4 -14.0 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 No controls

Controls for students,

colleges, courses All controls

Pe rc en ta ge P oin ts

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Achievement gaps are exacerbated in the

online setting

-5 0 5 10 15 20

Female - male achievement gap Older- younger achievement gap White-Latino achievement gap White-African American achievement gap White-Asian achievement gap

Percentage points

Online courses Traditional courses

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Outline

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Our approach

 Analyzed course success rates in transfer courses

 Accounted for student mix and other factors

 Defined highly successful courses in three ways

– 70% of students earn a passing grade

– Online course success at least as high as traditional course – Students perform well in subsequent courses in same subject

 Interviewed online learning experts

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Traditional courses have higher passage rates

than online courses

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 P assa ge ra te in o nl in e f or m at

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Online students tend to perform well in

subsequent courses

46.0 18.2 35.9 28.8 33.3 38.0 31.3 24.8 43.9 33.6 26.0 40.4 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Better grade Worse grade The same grade

Perc

ent

Grade in the next course that the student took in the same subject area

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Wide variation in passage rates

Percent of sections with high passage rates

Number of times offered online in 2013-14 Accounting 120 76.2 42 English 105 61.4 70 Psychology 180 60.9 46 Economics 201 60.9 46 Economics 202 76.2 58 Sociology 110 34.8 112 Child Development 100 31.9 72 Business 110 22.1 68 Psychology 110 21.9 128 English 100 20.6 102 Accounting 110 13.6 66

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Students are more likely to pass new online

courses than old ones

66% 59% 52% 54% 56% 58% 60% 62% 64% 66% 68% 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15+ P as s ag e r a te

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Identifying highly successful courses

 Relatively few online courses meet our definition of highly

successful (11%)

 Success varied substantially within colleges, subjects, and

courses

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Outline

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How do we improve online courses?

 Course design

 Faculty support and development

 Student orientation and expectations

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A team approach to course design will help

 Individual approach rarely works well

 A team approach is better

– Instructional designers, media developers, programmers,

and faculty

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Faculty need training and support

 Significant differences in pedagogy between online and

traditional courses

 Technology is constantly evolving

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Managing student expectations is important

 Autonomy and time-management requirements are

challenging for students

 Students’ technological skills vary

 A systematic approach to teaching online learning skills

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Key to success:

Regular and effective interaction

 Online learning can be isolating

 Regular interaction helps to form a “learning community”

 Students who feel part of a community are more invested

and perform better

 Multiple avenues of communication increase likelihood of

interaction

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Outline

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Online learning offers potential advantages

 Improved knowledge of student engagement and ability

– Resources can be targeted to struggling students – Instructor time and attention can be maximized

 Personalized learning

– Students have more control over pace

– Course can be adapted to individual learning styles – Student progress can be monitored in real time

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Policy, funding, and costs

 Governor’s 2013 budget

– $31 million over 4 years to improve online learning in the

community college system

 Established the Online Education Initiative

 No empirical evidence that online learning lowers costs

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Implications for the future

 Ethnic and racial achievement gaps in online learning must

be addressed

 A more data-driven, integrated, systematic approach is

needed

 Online Education Initiative is an important step

 Lessons and technology from online learning can improve

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Successful Online Courses in

California Community Colleges

Hans Johnson, Marisol Cuellar-Mejia, and Kevin Cook

Supported with funding from the Donald Bren Foundation

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Notes on the use of these slides

These slides were created to accompany a presentation. They do not include full documentation of sources, data samples, methods, and interpretations. To avoid

misinterpretations, please contact:

Hans Johnson (johnson@ppic.org; 415-291-4460) Thank you for your interest in this work.

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Our approach in detail

 Restricted sample to:

– Transferable courses with a CI-D designation

– Taught both online and face-to-face in the academic year 2013-14

– With more than 25 students enrolled in each version of the course

 Predicted the probability of student success in specific

course sections controlling for student mix and other factors

 Defined highly successful courses in three ways:

– 70% of students earn a passing grade

– Online course success at least as high as traditional version – Students perform well in subsequent courses in same subject

 Interviewed online learning experts