DICE and standards
Conclusion
7 Principles of Good Practice
The principles behind good educational practices has been identified in
numerous studies about education research. Studies summarizing effective
theories of learning have gone back several decades \cite{Posner_1982} and underpin how we construct understanding of effective education
practices.
One great example is from Chickering & Gamson (1987) \cite{chickering1987seven}, which highlights
7 principles of good practice in undergraduate classes. They argue that
the most effective undergraduate classes include the following
principals:
- Good Practice Encourages Student-Faculty Contact
- Good Practice Encourages Cooperation Among Students
- Good Practice Encourages Cooperation Among Students
- Good Practice Encourages Active Learning
- Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
- Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
- Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
- Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
While these principals were designed around undergraduate courses, many
of these principals are accepted as good practice across all age-levels,
including K-12 (NGSS, 2012). However, it is important to note that these
have been designed with traditional, in-person courses in mind.
To build on this work, Graham et al. (2000) reviewed four university
distance education courses, mapping Chickering & Gamson’s (1987)
principles of good practice against what was observed in these online
courses. They argue that these 7 principles can and should also be
applied in online courses. By way of the technology hat was available at
the time, these courses were generally taught asynchronously, so while
each principle exists in distance education courses, their manifestation
will be different. This means that, when done appropriately, both
in-person and online courses are equally effective. This has been
confirmed through a review of literature comparing traditional with
distance education courses by Bernard et al. (2004). One of their main
conclusions was that in-person and online courses provide different
opportunities and experiences that can be harnessed to maximize student
learning, particularly where synchronous and asynchronous instruction is
involved.
With the advancement of technology, versions of online education and
instruction has become much more accessible and is explored in all areas
of education: from pre-k to adult learning, from public to private
school, and from formal to informal education. It is reasonable to
expect that one could find opportunity for online education in just
about any facet of life, but the quality of online education can vary
widely. There are many examples of online courses that are essentially a
repository of information that the student has to work their way through
independently- some are even lacking any form of assessment (i.e., some
online “master classes”). Conversely, there are courses that include
in-depth correspondence with an instructor and classmates as well as a
variety of ways for the learner to engage with the material.