Patrick R. Lowenthal

Boise State University | BSU · Department of Educational Technology

Scholars across many disciplines have grappled with questions of what it means for a person to be and interact online. Who are we when we go online? How do others know we are there and how do they perceive us? Within the context of online learning, scholarly questions tend to reflect more specific concerns focused on how well people can learn in a...

Learner engagement in online courses is impacted by a wide variety of factors. The purpose of this study was to understand to what extent course community support and personal community support influence learner engagement. Students who had recently completed an online course in a small art and design school were surveyed on their level of engageme...

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant gaps in institutions' ability to maintain education under crisis conditions, which is now commonly referred to as Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). A critical analysis of the literature reveals that ERT is a label that does not differentiate adequately between the different ways ERT manifested worldwide and...

Humans have been learning at a distance for millennia. Modern information and communications technology has enabled formal distance education to be conducted online, though significant variation exists in purpose, course format, delivery methods, etc. Under duress of COVID-19, educators and students alike have been forced to engage in their courses...

Online learning can potentially meet increasingly diverse students' needs in higher education, including disabled students. However, institutions have historically struggled in providing accessible and inclusive online learning. Higher education online learning leaders, those who manage instructional designers, are in a unique position to help inst...

The history of distance education in many ways is a history about the evolution of synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies. Distance education, and online learning in particular, has primarily relied on asynchronous communication technologies over the years. However, COVID-19 has sparked a new interest in using synchronous tools for...

In the Republic of Korea, the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the start of the 2020 academic year and saw Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) emerge as a way of maintaining educational continuity for millions of students. While ERT was new and unplanned at the time, the practice became sustained over the semesters that followed, marking a shift from E...

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is a research society that "strives to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good" (2022). The association aims to encourage educational research studies and promote the...

Online educators regularly experiment with ways to create a sense of classroom community in the online courses they design and teach. They do this in part to battle feelings of isolation and loneliness but also to align with prevailing theories of learning (e.g., social constructivism) as well as to mimic idealized in-person face-to-face learning e...

Online learning can potentially meet increasingly diverse students’ needs in higher education, including disabled students. However, institutions have historically struggled in providing accessible and inclusive online learning. Higher education online learning leaders, those who manage instructional designers, are in a unique position to help inst...

Historically, online instructors have primarily, if not solely, used asynchronous text-based communication to interact and communicate with students in online courses. However, despite this use, online instructors and students have expressed concerns and limitations with asynchronous communication. Research suggests that synchronous communication t...

Online teaching and learning are rapidly increasing across all the educational segments and, specifically, in higher education. Doo et al. (2020) noted that higher education is experiencing three interconnected trends according to Brown et al. (2020) including: (a) increased student diversity, (b) alternative pathways to education, and (c) the sust...

Colleges and Universities have a more diverse student body than ever before-this includes a growing number of students with disabilities. Many of these students are attracted to the flexibility and anonymity of learning online. However, research suggests that students with disabilities often face barriers learning online. Given this, we set out to...

Research suggests that video can improve social presence in online courses. Video, though, is not a panacea; rather the success of video use depends in part on how and when it is used. Online instructors are increasingly using video in various ways, but questions remain on which types of videos students value most when it comes to establishing soci...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused universities worldwide to close campuses, forcing millions of teachers and students to resort to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) and learning. Though necessary, the sudden move to remote delivery marked a significant departure from the standards and norms in distance education. In Korea, the pandemic coincided with the...

Distance education over the years has been defined by the ability of students to learn at any time, from anywhere. Thus, it is not surprising that most online courses rely solely on asynchronous text-based online communication, such as email and discussion forums. However, the COVID- 19 pandemic and the rise of emergency remote teaching have sparke...

Discussion boards can provide a glimpse into the regular and substantive interaction required in online courses. Advances in technology and an increased interest in learning analytics now provides researchers with billions of data points about instructor and student interaction within a learning management system (LMS). This study used LMS data to...

Record numbers of diverse students are enrolling in online higher education. As a result, institutions find themselves challenged to meet the needs of students with disabilities, English language learners, non-traditional students, and those without consistent access to the technology needed to succeed online, like never before. Instructional desig...

Digital literacy is essential for individuals entering college and the workplace. Students with disabilities experience a greater challenge in acquiring the skills necessary to succeed. This chapter explores the disability digital divide, success factors for acquiring digital skills, and the implications of a digital literacy curriculum developed f...

Images can improve learning and performance. However, research suggests that many online educators and instructional designers lack the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively create and use images when designing online courses and instructional materials. Given this problem, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of images used within...

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 2.7 million K12 students in the United States were enrolled in a virtual school. However, as a result of COVID-19 more than ten times that amount are now completing their education in some type of remote, blended, or online learning format. Teachers, unfortunately, were not trained or prepared to handle...

Online learning has traditionally relied on asynchronous text-based communication. The COVID-19 pandemic, though, has provided many faculty members with new and/or additional experience using synchronous video-based communication. Questions remain, though, about how this experience will shape online teaching and learning in the future. We conducted...

This overview chapter provides an introduction to instructional theories, strategies, and technologies that can guide teachers new to teaching mathematics (both content and methods) online in a formal online classroom setting. We begin by discussing different types of online learning environments, including synchronous, asynchronous, bichronous, an...

Feedback is an essential part of the learning process. Asynchronous online courses are marked by an abundance of text-based feedback. Yet, video feedback in asynchronous online courses is a nascent field of inquiry. This study investigated student perceptions of screencasting style of video feedback in online courses. During this course, students r...

Competency‐based education (CBE) is essentially an approach to teaching and learning featuring flexible pacing, robust competencies, and an emphasis on student completion. CBE differs from traditional education that focuses instead more on seat time and credit hours. Though CBE has existed on college campuses in many forms, faculty are often inexpe...

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 2.7 million K12 students in the United States were enrolled in a virtual school. However, as a result of COVID-19 more than ten times that amount are now completing their education in some type of remote, blended, or online learning format. Teachers, unfortunately, were not trained or prepared to handle...

The use of video has become commonplace in education today. Educators are engaging students with video communication technology more frequently than ever before, given COVID-19. However, questions remain on how instructors use video as a communication and teaching tool in online and blended courses. The purpose of this literature review was to synt...

The purpose of this study was to explore new online students’ perceptions of self-efficacy and satisfaction with institutional resources. A mixed methods approach was used to better understand online students’ perceptions. During the first phase of the study, 155 new online graduate students were surveyed about the importance and their satisfaction...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools worldwide to suddenly transition to remote learning. The change forced students, who might not choose to take distance education courses, to adjust to a new way of completing their coursework. Further, this impacted certain student groups like exchange students more adversely since distance courses complicated a...

COVID-19 caused universities around the world to transition overnight to some type of remote learning or online format. The way this occurred, though necessary, was a departure from the standards and norms of traditional distance education and was a drastic change for the majority of faculty and students who had no prior experience with remote, ble...

Community and connectedness are important concepts in online higher education. However, researchers debate how they are defined, operationalized, or enacted in practice. A scoping study was conducted to review the research literature on the extent, range, and nature of research in community and connectedness in online higher education. A total of 6...

Video can be a powerful tool, with a long history of use in teacher education. Despite the increased popularity of using video in teacher education over the years, questions remain about effective ways to create and use video in online video-based instructional modules. Given this, in this paper we describe some lessons learned creating videos for...

This article contributes to understanding the phenomenon of online harassment of scholars with a focus on examining the effectiveness of support for coping with online harassment. We collected data from 182 participants of an online survey examining scholars’ experiences with online harassment. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model was used to examine...

A growing body of research reveals that some scholars face online harassment and that such harassment leads to a wide variety of adverse impacts. Drawing on data collected from an online survey of 182 scholars, we report on the factors and triggers involved in scholars’ experiences of online harassment; the environments where said experiences take...

There is an abundant amount of literature on visual design principles, graphic design theory, and media theory. Yet very little is discussed, at least in a systematic way, about the process of making online courses aesthetically pleasing. A major obstacle to gaining such knowledge is the lack of understanding of applied definitions, conceptual idea...

Interest in accessibility has grown recently. Despite this, we have found that most people focus too much on compliance and often on the fundamental elements of creating compliant online courses. Instructional designers and online educators often turn to popular quality assurance frameworks to help them design and develop quality online courses. Ho...

Asynchronous video-based discussions have affordances that can address some of the constraints of asynchronous text-based discussions. However, very little research has been conducted on the use of asynchronous video-based discussions in online courses. As a result, the purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate students' perceptions of u...

It is easier than ever to provide video feedback. Research has shown that video feedback, among other things, can help increase conversational and affective communication. However, research also suggests that despite its benefits, instructors and students might prefer text-based feedback. The following paper responds to research by Borup, West, and...

Researchers have been investigating social presence in online learning for decades. However, despite this continued research, questions remain about the nature and development of social presence. The purpose of this mixed-method exploratory case study was to investigate how social presence is established in online discussion forums in an asynchrono...

EDITORIAL FOR SPECIAL ISSUE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION. Web-based learning technologies have greatly expanded open, flexible, and distance educational environments. Alongside this growth, efforts need to be made to meet the needs of diverse learners and increase our capacity for diversity, in all of its forms. While it might be tempting to think that on...

Technology has changed higher education; yet, many faculty are still hesitant to teach with technology. Faculty development might help change this, but questions remain on the best ways to help faculty teach with technology. Given this problem, we conducted a review of the literature to identify some best practices on how to develop faculty to teac...

Digital literacy is essential for individuals entering college and the workplace. Students with disabilities experience a greater challenge in acquiring the skills necessary to succeed. This chapter explores the disability digital divide, success factors for acquiring digital skills, and the implications of a digital literacy curriculum developed f...

An increasing number of online instructors find themselves teaching online courses that they did not design and in which they might have little ability to edit and update. However, there are still many ways that online instructors in situations like this can influence and improve the online learning experience for students in their courses. Based o...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced colleges and universities to move all in-person courses to a remote or online learning format. As a result, many faculty, including teacher educators , opted to transition their courses to live synchronous web meetings using web conferencing tools like Zoom. Despite benefits of synchronous communication, there are const...

As enrollments in postsecondary online programs have grown, many institutions have pursued a more centralized business model that consolidates their online programming under a single executive leader, a statewide system office, or a coalition of institutions that have merged operations and assets. In this study, the researchers used an exploratory...

Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP) may provide the afloat community of the USCG greater opportunities for learning and professional development. The affordances of virtual engagement, including increased access to learning and peer feedback may enhance interaction and opportunities for the development and refinement of professional expertise. A...

The VCAST learning modules are a direct response to calls for teacher preparation programs to improve the mathematical preparation of future secondary teachers and to provide teacher candidates experience with anticipating the different ways that students make sense of mathematics. Using an iterative design-based approach, we developed four video-b...

The purpose of this special themed issue is to provide a venue for scholars, researchers, instructional designers, and classroom teachers to engage with critical theories and diversity in open, flexible and technology-mediated distance learning environments. To provide the most opportunity for inclusion, we invite submissions that consider a wide v...

Class size has been a popular topic for decades. There is renewed interest in this topic now with the growth of online learning. Online courses can accommodate hundreds, if not thousands, of students in a single course. Very little research, though, has been conducted recently on class size in online courses and the research that has been conducted...

Digital literacy is important, particularly for young people as they prepare for college and a career in modern society. From computer-based tests used to measure student progress on college applications and online job applications, the transition to college and career requires the use of technology. Individuals must have digital literacy skills to...

Class size has been a popular topic for decades. There is renewed interest in this topic now with the growth of online learning. Online courses can accommodate hundreds, if not thousands, of students in a single course. Very little research, though, has been conducted recently on class size in online courses and the research that has been conducted...

Blending learning environments are being adopted by an increasing number of educational institutions in order to offer flexibility to students. Although, blended synchronous learning environments have been around since early 2000s, there has been little research conducted on students' experiences in these environments, specifically in terms of inst...

There is an increased demand for online courses and programs. As a result, institutions are experimenting with different ways to train and support faculty to teach online. There is very little recent literature, though, describing the various ways that institutions actually train faculty to teach online. In this article, we report on the results of...

The higher education market space has become increasingly competitive during the past few years. For instance, there are now hundreds of fully online master's programs in educational technology. Given this increased competition, it is more important than ever for those working in graduate education to understand what students, and specifically thos...

The higher education market space has become increasingly competitive during the past few years. For instance, there are now hundreds of fully online master’s programs in educational technology. Given this increased competition, it is more important than ever for those working in graduate education to understand what students, and specifically thos...

Online MBA programs have undergone significant growth in recent years. However, quality assurance measures have not kept pace with this growth. The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize aspects of quality assurance specific to AACSB-accredited online MBA programs. The Delphi methodology was used to facilitate a group conversation bet...

In the WBID Model, design and development activities are completed concurrently. The design planning, which results in the WBI Strategy Worksheet, is the basis for developing the prototypes and online instruction. Additionally, message and visual design principles help guide the development, assembly, and organization of the instruction and LMS/web...

The Implementation Stage of the WBID Model brings the results of previous stages to fruition. After concurrent activities are completed, implementation procedures begin. The major focus of implementation is creating the learning community however it is designed. For implementation to be a success, each member of the learning community must understa...

Online instruction is used by a variety of organizations, including business and industry, military and government, higher education, and PK-12 schools to provide learners with training and educational opportunities. Types of online learning communities can vary greatly from one end of a continuum being highly independent forms of learning, in whic...

Analysis is the initial stage of the WBID Model. At the beginning of this stage, problems are investigated and potential solutions are identified. If online instruction is considered the viable solution to the problem, the second phase is to analyze the four main instructional components within the situation: the instructional goal, instructional c...

In the evaluation planning stage (refer to Chap. 5), the preliminary plans for the summative evaluation were developed. These plans provide a framework to prepare for and carry out the summative evaluation. Research can also be conducted during the final stage. Summative evaluation occurs at a predetermined point in the WBID life cycle, usually whe...

Once the objectives are clustered, the next set of essential design tasks in the concurrent design stage is to determine the instructional and motivational strategies for online instruction. Formative evaluation continues as the instructional strategies take form. To promote a sense of continuity, the designer uses a conceptual framework for descri...

The remaining four foundational areas of the Web-Based Instructional Design (WBID) Model are learning theories, systems theories, communication theories, and instructional design (ID) models. Principles within each of the learning paradigms provide the theoretical basis for the integrated, multi-theoretical approach to learning used in the WBID Mod...

The designer’s attention turns to design at this stage in the WBID Model. Essential design tasks move the design and development process from analysis through development. At this point in the WBID Model, project plans are developed, tasks assigned to personnel, and tasks such as writing objectives, creating assessments, and establishing timelines...

There are two types of evaluation, formative and summative. At this stage of the WBID Model, formative evaluation plans are fully developed and summative evaluation plans are developed to a preliminary state. The formative evaluation facilitates the revision of the prototype and its website as they are developed. This evaluation is enacted once the...

Instructional content is the last part of the second phase of analysis. During the instructional content analysis, the designer delineates the major steps and subordinate skills (subskills) that learners perform in order to reach the instructional goal. These steps and subskills are illustrated in a learning task map (LTM) containing a line that di...

p class="3">Very little research has been conducted about what it is like to teach a MOOC. Given this, a mixed methods study, involving a survey of 186 MOOC instructors and 15 follow-up interviews, was conducted to explore the motivation, experiences, and perceptions of instructors who have taught massive open online courses. Findings indicate that...

Scholars, educators, and students are increasingly encouraged to participate in online spaces. While the current literature highlights the potential positive outcomes of such participation, little research exists on the sentiment that these individuals may face online and on the factors that may lead some people to face different types of sentiment...

Example comments and replies at varying sentiment levels. (DOCX)

Social presence is a popular construct used to describe how people socially interact in online courses. Online educators continue to try different ways to establish and maintain social presence in online courses. However, research to date has not identified which strategies, or types of strategies, are best for establishing social presence. We inve...

There is an abundant amount of literature on visual design principles, graphic design theory, and media theory. Yet very little is discussed, at least in a systematic way, about the process of making online courses aesthetically pleasing. A major obstacle to gaining such knowledge is the lack of understanding of applied definitions, conceptual idea...

Over the years, online educators have learned a great deal about what works and doesn’t work when designing and facilitating online courses. During the past few years, we have used crowdsourcing to invite experienced online educators to share their recommendations for teaching online. In this article, we describe our use of crowdsourcing to curate...

Digital literacy is important, particularly for young people as they prepare for college and a career in modern society. From computer-based tests used to measure student progress on college applications and online job applications, the transition to college and career requires the use of technology. Individuals must have digital literacy skills to...