Orientation
is paramount to student success, especially in online education. Students beginning a new program delivered in
a new format, such as online education, must understand what they will be
doing, how they will be doing it, and complete some preparation tasks in order
to be successful. Without this knowledge,
common problems that arise will impede student progress and most often result
in failure. This seems to be the case for
elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students. Below are three article summaries which
contain further information.
Nordine
(2016) states, “On average, students’ online course scores are higher in
schools where students complete the online orientation course.” In her article titled, “Online Student
Orientation Course Completion Leads to Successful Performance,” she discusses
the orientation program used at Wisconsin Virtual School, an online middle and
high school supplemental course provider.
Students and parents receive a welcome letter and quick start
guide. They are assigned a liaison who oversees
their progress in the orientation course and works with them to ensure
understanding of how to use the online course tools, get a schedule set up, and
intervene if necessary. A study was
conducted to determine the effectiveness of orientation. It found, “High rates of Online Student
Orientation Course completion are associated with stronger student performance
in online academic courses.” This is an important finding for online educators
and institutions. If we do not provide
orientation to students, we are setting them up for failure.
Lynch
(2001) completed a study which indicated, “The attrition rate of online
students was reduced to an average of 15%, and re-enrollment increased to 90%” after
they completed an online orientation class.
The study was conducted at a “small, private, urban university” to determine
how to address low success rates, low re-registration and high dropout
rates. The author identified issues and
concerns previous students had had and designed an orientation to meet those
needs. The author makes several
recommendations for the online orientation:
it should be required, taught entirely online, introduce the technology
students will be using, help students determine their “fitness” for learning
online, allow plenty of time for student reflection, give many opportunities
for communication with instructors and peers online, and introduce students to
adult learning theory. This study is
important because it provides educators with a list of important content they
should include in orientations for their courses.
Taylor,
Dunn, & Winn (2015) addressed needs of beginning online students by
designing and providing “voice-over videos with interactive elements that
address the most common technology frustrations” in a small number of online
courses at Excelsior College, a not-for-profit online institution. They intended to improve course completion
rates by providing this assistance to students.
Although the authors recommend a wider study to ensure the results are
valid, they state that, “the results seem to indicate that a video orientation
with interactive elements can improve desired outcomes when inserted into
online courses that are frequented by novice online learners, have high
withdrawal rates, and have broad grade distributions.” The implications of this study deal
specifically with those students who are technology newbies. In my opinion, all students should be given
access to these types of training videos in order to ensure that those who need
them will get them.
References
McVay Lynch, M. (2001, November/December). Effective
Student Preparation for Online Learning. Retrieved from The Technology
Source Archives at University of North Carolina:
http://technologysource.org/article/effective_student_preparation_for_online_learning/
Nordine, D. (2016, June 21). Online Student Orientation
Course Completion Leads to Successful Performance. Retrieved from Virtual
School Leadership Alliance:
http://www.virtualschoolalliance.org/online-student-orientation-course-completion-leads-to-successful-performance/
Taylor, J. M., Dunn, M., & Winn, S. K. (2015).
Innovative Orientation Leads to Improved Success in Online Courses. Online
Learning, 19(4). Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079576.pdf
