The OLI courses, course components and delivery environment are under development. The feature examples in this section will continuously change to highlight new features and components as they are developed and delivered.

Guiding Principle of OLI Course Design:

To develop the first iteration of the course based on well-confirmed cognitive theory “Cognitively-informed Education” then engage in a process of “Data-driven Iteration” to improve learning outcomes.

Successful learning requires the encoding of declarative knowledge (e.g., facts and principles), the application of procedural knowledge to achieve goals in problem solving effectively and efficiently, and the integration of contextual knowledge to transfer the learning to contexts outside the teaching environment.

Learning Environments that Engage the Student in Active Learning Practice with Frequent Opportunities for Feedback

The declarative instruction components of OLI courses are a combination of declarative text, self-assessments and applets with which students interact to learn facts and principles.

This is a sample of a declarative instruction component in the OLI Causal and Statistical Reasoning course. Declarative content is interspersed with applets and short self-assessments that give students both practice and immediate feedback.

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This screen shot shows the declarative text presenting the concept of interacting causes.

The student is given a definition of the concept. “In some cases two or more causes must act in concert to produce an effect. When the influence of one cause depends upon the state of another cause, then we say the causes interact.” The definition is followed by an interactive activity through which the student can practice to see the concept of interacting causes demonstrated.

In this applet, the student can click on the red battery to toggle between charged (solid red battery) and uncharged (broken line through the battery), and click the switch to on or off. By conducting the experiment and watching the result, the student will see that both the state of the battery and the state of the switch are causes of the light going on. Flipping the switch to "on" will turn on the light if the batteries are charged, but won't do anything if the batteries are uncharged.

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This screen shot shows a sample of a short self-assessment in which the student can conduct an experiment that illustrates a concept, answer a question about the concept and receive immediate feedback on whether or not they understand a concept. This assessment allows the student to experiment with the concept of interacting causes. The influence of Switch 2 on the garage light is the same no matter how the student sets Switch 1. So Switch 1 and Switch 2 do not interact. When the student responds to the question incorrectly, he or she receives immediate and explanatory feedback.

Mental Scaffolding Supports Students’ Knowledge as it is Constructed Through Practice.

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The procedural instruction components of OLI course are labs or tutors that provide scaffolding to support students as they construct the procedural knowledge through practice. Most importantly the tutors and labs are constructed so that the scaffolding can be gradually removed as the students demonstrate understanding of the procedure.

This is an example of a procedural instruction component in the OLI Statistics course. The StatTutor supports students as they solve data-analysis problems while conveying the “Big Picture” (the key concepts and processes in the statistics course.) It provides scaffolding in choosing appropriate analysis. Each of the procedural steps can be faded to gradually remove the scaffolding as the students demonstrate understanding of the procedure. The final problems are presented without any scaffolding. . It helps students both develop a critical approach to study designs, data, & results and “Get” what statistics is all about.

In this screen shot, the student is on step 3 of an analysis problem. The StatTutor asks them the specific questions that they should be asking themselves at this point in the process and reinforces what they have done in earlier steps. All of the scaffolding is present on the screen.

The Student is a Participant as Well as an Observer in Experiments that Teach Economic Principles

In the economics course students experience the principles of economics firsthand. They are active participants with their fellow on-line class-mates in online experiments, attempting to make deals with other traders in a market.

After each experiment, the data the class generates is stored and students complete an online workbook. Each workbook is unique (though, all students answer the same basic questions). The workbook guides the student through the analysis and much of the economic theory needed to understand the experiment. If economic theories have uncovered basic truths, then they should be able to predict and illuminate what happened in the student market.

One nice feature about these experiments is that the student can be a participant as well as an observer. As a participant students will be able to experience firsthand the issues that all economic agents must confront. Students often report that they learn nearly as much about economic principles from their experience as a participant as they do from their analysis of the experiment as an observer.

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In this screen shot, the student is participating in a Supply and Demand Experiment. In this market the student is trading textbooks.

When a demander acquires a book on the market, he earns his Buyer Value, so a demander's profit will equal his Buyer Value minus the price he pays. (If the demander can not buy a book he will earn $0.)

Suppliers of textbooks can produce a book by paying their Seller Cost. Thus, a supplier's profit will equal the price she receives minus her Seller Cost. (If a supplier can not sell a book she will earn $0.)

The screen shows one student’s current offers and the record their transactions so far in this experiment.

Tools that allow Instructors to Create Interactive Student Activities to Support Varied Practice

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The Virtual Lab is a tool that enables instructors and others without programming expertise to create simulation-based learning activities. Including these types of tools in OLI courses gives instructors greater flexibility in customizing the courses to meet the needs of their students and gives students the opportunity for varied practice.

In this screen shot a student is using the virtual lab to conduct an experiment. The lab shows multiple representations of solution contents, including aspects that would not be visible in the physical lab.

OLI courses are delivered through a Learning Management System that supports flexibility of course design and delivery in the higher education context.

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Instructors can deliver a course using a standard syllabus, select modules and change sequences to create a tailored syllabus or combine modules and components from different courses to create a new custom course.

Questions for quizzes can be randomly selected out of question pools to allow students to take a quiz on the same content area multiple times.

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The gradebook shows the instructor each student's score on each quiz attempt.

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Data-driven Iteration

OLI courses are instrumented to collect student use data. OLI researchers collect and analyze the data about student interaction with the courses and use this data to improve course design and learning outcomes.