Online Learning Support

To date, online learning reaches millions of K-12 learners, with its continued growth inevitably leading to dramatic changes in the educational landscape. While online learning holds great promise, there is a paucity of research addressing the pedagogical implications for students with disabilities. Researchers urgently need to conduct investigations that demonstrate how online instruction should be designed and delivered to improve student outcomes.  The Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities addresses learner variability by conducting research to make online learning more accessible, engaging, and effective for students with disabilities, for whom traditional forms of education have been only moderately successful and the precipitous growth in online instruction threatens to exclude.

As a joint effort with KU's Information and Telecommunication Technology Center, the e-Learning Research Collaborative explores new uses of technology to enhance learning environments that meet the educational and training needs of society.  This involves the study, development, and research of new designs, principle, practices, tools and policies that contribute to the pedagogy of eLearning.

Blended Instructional Design

Researchers at the Center for Research on Learning are investigating Flipped & Blended Instructional Strategies including designing a professional development course to help teachers effectively and efficiently transform their classroom to a Blended Learning Model. Funding from the Oak Foundation has enabled them to conduct observations, as well as interviews with students, teachers, and administrators to better inform this development.

The Blended Instructional Design (BID) is a course to personalize learning for ALL students. The course is organized to provide efficient professional development in three domains: 1) Identify, 2) Design, and 3) Implement.  Teachers are provided with short 2-3 minutes instructional videos providing descriptions, and models to identify critical content, vocabulary, concepts, virtual and physical materials, assessments, as well as, identify specific student learning needs to personalize instruction and practice/application activities and projects.  Once the information is gathered in the identify phase, teachers immediately apply the information to design their virtual, digital and physical instruction and activities/projects.  Finally, the BID course provides descriptive models of how to transition to a blended learning classroom environment.  Here teachers are informed on self-coaching, developing and maintaining partnerships with parents and support personnel. A variety of resources for locating pre-made instructional videos and tools for creating instructional videos, digital tools that support content practice, and supporting documents to use with the online course are provided to enhance the individual learning needs of teachers.