The growth of online learning means that college students must manage their studies more independently than ever before, making students’ skills for navigating their own learning—such as finding sources of motivation, managing time and tasks, and reflecting on progress and changing course—increasingly critical to their success. Research has demonstrated the benefits of these self-directed learning skills and suggests that widely used technologies such as learning management systems and adaptive homework systems can support their development.
The Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative works with students, faculty, technology developers, and other researchers to improve our knowledge of how college and university instructors can effectively use technology to help students develop self-directed learning skills in online courses. The collaborative will analyze institutional policy and practice related to teaching with technology and conduct experiments to test how specific technology features affect students’ skill development in online foundational STEM courses.
The collaborative will also create an instructional model to guide the development and effective use of postsecondary technologies to improve outcomes for students in a wide range of higher education contexts, including broad-access and minority-serving institutions. It will lead engagement and capacity-building activities to help instructors successfully implement the instructional strategies. The goal is to strengthen teaching and learning, improve student outcomes, and reduce attainment gaps by race and economic status in broad-access institutions through the teaching of self-directed learning competencies.
The collaborative is led by CCRC and SRI Education in partnership with Achieving the Dream and nine broad-access public colleges and universities across the United States.
This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences through grant number R305C210003.
