Larisa Olesova, Ph.D., a Clinical Assistant Professor of Educational Technology. Previously, she worked as a Senior Instructional Designer, George Mason University. She received Ph.D. in Education in 1999 (Yakutsk State University, Russia) and in Learning Design and Technology in 2011 (Purdue University, USA).
Teaching and learning in higher education have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.... more Teaching and learning in higher education have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health crisis has forced faculty to experiment with virtual teaching in a short amount of time, and students were compelled to learn online. While online instruction during COVID-19 is considered contingent-based virtual instruction, it would be most likely that online courses would be part of the instruction modalities in the post-COVID era. In this article, we document the process of creating an asynchronous online course swiftly, guided by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. It sheds light on the value of the UDL to expedite the scale-up of online professional learning while sustaining student interaction and engagement.
Innovations in teaching & learning conference proceedings, Aug 1, 2019
Location: JC Room D Case-based approach as an approach proved to support students' learning i... more Location: JC Room D Case-based approach as an approach proved to support students' learning in and out of the course. It also gives them an opportunity to share their voices while discussing possible solutions. Moreover, case-based instruction in asynchronous online courses has become one of the most effective instructional strategies to support students in their learning how to solve real-world problems. However, this approach could bring more issues and challenges when it is integrated in large enrollment courses and, specifically, in asynchronous online learning environment. This panel discussion will overview techniques and tips to support student's learning through case-based approach for large enrollment online courses for undergraduate students. Two introductory online courses in Psychology Online Program will serve as examples of how faculty facilitated cases at different levels of complexity. Particularly, an introductory online course PSYC 100 "Basic Concepts in Psychology" with enrollment of 150 students will serve as a practical example of structuring students' group work when they discussed and solved different types of cases. Students worked in groups of 20 students with assigned summarizes roles throughout the fall semester. At the end of each collaborative work the group summaries were posted on class discussion board that all students could view and read other groups' work. This approach increased students' engagement and interaction throughout the week. They were able to create online community during semester while working in their own private groups. The course instructor will share recommendations how case discussions can be facilitated for 150 students and when instructional feedback should be provided. In this specific course, the course instructor provided different types of feedback including text-based feedback and video feedback. Finally, the course instructor will overview assessment of large enrollment course with case-based approach. Specifically, the course instructor will sha [...]
This study explored students’ perceived metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) in rela... more This study explored students’ perceived metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) in relation to the online presence within the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in an online case-based instruction (CBI) course. Forty-seven online graduate students enrolled in an instructional design course participated in the study. Data were collected through CoI survey instrument and shared metacognition questionnaire online survey.The findings revealed that students perceived cognitive presence is higher and less variable among three online presences and metacognition in online CBI. The correlation between two interdependent dimensions of metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) was significantly high. Also, co-regulation showed stronger relationships with the three online presences (social, teaching, and cognitive) than self-regulation. Additionally, social presence demonstrated the strongest association with both self-regulation and co-regulation, followed by cognitive pres...
Applications of CALL Theory in ESL and EFL Environments
Researchers and practitioners' interest in finding more effective ways to provide instruction... more Researchers and practitioners' interest in finding more effective ways to provide instructional feedback in order to help second language learners in online environments has increased. The majority of studies found evidence about effectiveness of written and oral feedback to improve student's writing in a target language when they enroll in online courses taught in English. However, some studies also found limitations of both types of feedback when they provided for second language learners. Therefore, researchers and practitioners investigated benefits of other types of feedback and among them is audio feedback. The purpose of this chapter is to overview instructional capabilities of written, oral and audio feedback and how they can support ESL and EFL students in asynchronous online courses. This chapter also discusses when and how to provide different types of feedback when ESL and EFL students are enrolled in online courses taught in English.
8th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'22)
This systematic review synthesizes research on strategies used to promote cognitive presence in o... more This systematic review synthesizes research on strategies used to promote cognitive presence in online courses to identify trends from two decades (2000 to 2020) of scholarship. From initial search of 181 studies, a total of 14 articles published in peer-reviewed journals were reviewed. Results show that all of the studies were carried out in higher education with majority in the United States within the field of Education. Case-based and debate strategies were used the most to promote cognitive presence followed by structured, problem-based, and roles. For the patterns of students’ cognitive presence, the majority of student discussions fell into exploration and integration phases with a small percentage within triggering and resolution phases. The study concludes that instructional strategies combined with effective instructional design elements can help learners engage in purposeful collaborative inquiry while progressing through all four phases of cognitive presence to achieve h...
Peer assessment is an effective way to help students learn and save instructor time spent grading... more Peer assessment is an effective way to help students learn and save instructor time spent grading written work. Two instructors will share their experience of how they designed, implemented, and facilitated the self-regulated learning by using the tool called Self and Peer Assessment in Blackboard.
The number of students who take online courses continues to grow at Mason and nationally. Researc... more The number of students who take online courses continues to grow at Mason and nationally. Research indicates that student-to-student interaction has a positive impact on performance, engagement and learning satisfaction in online courses. Peer interactions allow students to feel like they are part of a learning community and give them the opportunity to develop important career-readiness skills such as collaboration and communication. However, it can be a challenge to create and assess meaningful peer interactions in fully online, asynchronous courses. In this workshop, instructors who have developed courses for the Online BS in Psychology will share their experiences in designing and implementing assignments that involve extensive peer interaction and/or feedback. The session attendees will first engage in a discussion of possible avenues for peer interaction, using different types of courses (lectures, labs, and seminars) as "case studies". Presenters will then share the...
Integrating Engineering Education and Humanities for Global Intercultural Perspectives, 2020
Attending Yakut TESOL conferences can provide a good opportunity for professional development for... more Attending Yakut TESOL conferences can provide a good opportunity for professional development for English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. This paper aims to explore the opinions how teachers evaluate contribution given by lecturers at international conference in Yakutia, what seminars or workshops they liked or disliked while attending and how they would like to cooperate with Yakut TESOL in the near future. The survey of teachers was conducted in three consecutive years in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The questionnaire answers disclosed what topics covered at the conferences are of great interest for teachers, what materials they would apply in their classrooms and what expectations EFL teachers have from Yakut TESOL conferences. It is revealed that teachers attending the conference come from different levels of education and have different needs being under different institutional requirements. Meeting the needs of all teachers attending a TESOL conference is a big challenge for conference organizers. In conclusion, the article offers some ideas to attract more EFL teachers to the conference and to intensify their cooperation with Yakut TESOL and other TESOL organizations worldwide.
Students’ interaction is one of the most important elements when teaching, particularly for an on... more Students’ interaction is one of the most important elements when teaching, particularly for an online course. However, not all courses are designed in a way to impact students’ interactions with peers and content. This poster will demonstrate, share, and discuss how one faculty and one instructional designer collaborated to design and redesign an online undergraduate course based on students’ weekly feedback. It is known that the majority of asynchronous online courses are designed and developed in advance based on the principles of best practices of teaching online. As such, some activities and pre-designed assignments in online courses are usually difficult to change while teaching the course. Course instructors usually prefer to redesign the course based on the end-of-semester feedback which becomes available at the end of the course. However, it is hard to modify the course when it has been already taught, which may lead to negative impacts on the course quality. In this session...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will share results from a 2016-2017 GMU study investigati... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will share results from a 2016-2017 GMU study investigating students' cognitive skills development through participation in an asynchronous online course that utilizes discussions. Presenters will use the results from this study to discuss how to effectively utilize online discussions in the design of a course to increase student engagement and collaboration. ________________________________________________________________ FULL ABSTRACT: What do online course discussions mean for student learning? How do we leverage students’ online collaboration to boost cognitive development? How can we, as faculty and instructional designers, improve the online learning experience, in general? This session aims to facilitate discussion of these important questions via results from a 2016-2017 GMU study aimed understanding students’ cognitive skills development when they participate in an asynchronous online course and, specifically, asynchronous online ...
International Journal of Engineering Education, 2019
This study examined how cognitive learning was expressed by graduate engineering students (n = 20... more This study examined how cognitive learning was expressed by graduate engineering students (n = 20) in a blended course consistingof a face-to-face (n = 12) and online synchronous sections (n = 8), and students’ perceptions (n = 41) toward the blended course.Specifically, this study examined (1) how cognitive learning was expressed by students when they worked in face-to-face groups,mixed groups (combination of online and face-to-face students), and individually in a blended engineering course, and (2) potentialdifferences between face-to-face and online students’ perceptions of the blended learning course. The participants were graduatestudents at a large public university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA who enrolled in a sixteen-week blended SystemEngineering Design course. There were three face-to-face groups with two students per group (n = 6) and four mixed groups withthree students per group (n = 12). Two students worked individually. The findings revealed that when stude...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This panel discussion will focus on practical examples of how to enhan... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This panel discussion will focus on practical examples of how to enhance student engagement and interaction when students work in collaborative learning environments in asynchronous online courses and technology-enhanced face-to-face classes. Participants will also have an opportunity to share their discipline specific strategies for managing team-based assignments. Participants will take away practical tips how to implement roles assignments, peer work, technology-integrated group work, and collaborative writing in their own classes. ________________________________________________________________ FULL ABSTRACT: The purpose of this panel is to share, demonstrate and discuss examples of how instructors at George Mason University facilitate student interaction and engagement when they teach online courses. Student engagement is defined as âthe studentâs psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, or mastering the kno...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:Learn how to successfully embed library services to an online course by... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:Learn how to successfully embed library services to an online course by exploring different stratetiges for embedding library services for undergraduate and graduate courses. This session will demonstrate how faculty at George Mason have successfully applied these strategies and discuss different librarian-instructor models for different disciplines and courses.________________________________________________________________FULL ABSTRACT:Since the early 1990A¢â¬â¢s university libraries have shifted their services from bibliographic instruction to information literacy. However, collaboration between a course librarian and a course instructor still emphasizes one-shot instruction. This session will show how to successfully embed library services to an online course and what type of collaborative strategies should be considered before embedding library services. This panel discussion will share how university librarians and faculty at George Mason University...
Creating Teacher Immediacy in Online Learning Environments
Due to a growing number of online courses and programs, educators' interest in using audio an... more Due to a growing number of online courses and programs, educators' interest in using audio and video feedback in asynchronous online environment has increased. Studies have found evidence that the use of audio and video feedback in asynchronous online courses can increase instructor presence and enhance online community interactions. The purpose of this chapter is to share research findings on audio and video feedback and to overview qualities of effective feedback. The chapter also presents potential benefits and limitations of audio and video feedback in online environments. Researchers and practitioners interested in implementing both types of feedback in online courses will find solutions, recommendations and possible future research directions.
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2020
While research has established the importance of questions as a key strategy used to facilitate s... more While research has established the importance of questions as a key strategy used to facilitate student interaction in online discussions, there is a need to explore how the structure of questions influence students’ interactions. Using learning analytics, we explored the relationship between student-student interaction and the structure of initial questions with and without the Practical Inquiry Model (PIM). Degree centrality was used as the method to analyse the number of responses each student sent (out-degree centrality) and the number of responses each student received (in-degree centrality). Findings showed that the number of responses each student sent and received was higher in the discussions initiated by the PIM-question prompts. In addition, analysis revealed a positive relationship between students’ interaction and the discussions structured with PIM and non-PIM questions. Finally, there was a significant difference in out-degree centrality but no significant difference ...
Teaching and learning in higher education have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.... more Teaching and learning in higher education have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health crisis has forced faculty to experiment with virtual teaching in a short amount of time, and students were compelled to learn online. While online instruction during COVID-19 is considered contingent-based virtual instruction, it would be most likely that online courses would be part of the instruction modalities in the post-COVID era. In this article, we document the process of creating an asynchronous online course swiftly, guided by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. It sheds light on the value of the UDL to expedite the scale-up of online professional learning while sustaining student interaction and engagement.
Innovations in teaching & learning conference proceedings, Aug 1, 2019
Location: JC Room D Case-based approach as an approach proved to support students' learning i... more Location: JC Room D Case-based approach as an approach proved to support students' learning in and out of the course. It also gives them an opportunity to share their voices while discussing possible solutions. Moreover, case-based instruction in asynchronous online courses has become one of the most effective instructional strategies to support students in their learning how to solve real-world problems. However, this approach could bring more issues and challenges when it is integrated in large enrollment courses and, specifically, in asynchronous online learning environment. This panel discussion will overview techniques and tips to support student's learning through case-based approach for large enrollment online courses for undergraduate students. Two introductory online courses in Psychology Online Program will serve as examples of how faculty facilitated cases at different levels of complexity. Particularly, an introductory online course PSYC 100 "Basic Concepts in Psychology" with enrollment of 150 students will serve as a practical example of structuring students' group work when they discussed and solved different types of cases. Students worked in groups of 20 students with assigned summarizes roles throughout the fall semester. At the end of each collaborative work the group summaries were posted on class discussion board that all students could view and read other groups' work. This approach increased students' engagement and interaction throughout the week. They were able to create online community during semester while working in their own private groups. The course instructor will share recommendations how case discussions can be facilitated for 150 students and when instructional feedback should be provided. In this specific course, the course instructor provided different types of feedback including text-based feedback and video feedback. Finally, the course instructor will overview assessment of large enrollment course with case-based approach. Specifically, the course instructor will sha [...]
This study explored students’ perceived metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) in rela... more This study explored students’ perceived metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) in relation to the online presence within the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in an online case-based instruction (CBI) course. Forty-seven online graduate students enrolled in an instructional design course participated in the study. Data were collected through CoI survey instrument and shared metacognition questionnaire online survey.The findings revealed that students perceived cognitive presence is higher and less variable among three online presences and metacognition in online CBI. The correlation between two interdependent dimensions of metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) was significantly high. Also, co-regulation showed stronger relationships with the three online presences (social, teaching, and cognitive) than self-regulation. Additionally, social presence demonstrated the strongest association with both self-regulation and co-regulation, followed by cognitive pres...
Applications of CALL Theory in ESL and EFL Environments
Researchers and practitioners' interest in finding more effective ways to provide instruction... more Researchers and practitioners' interest in finding more effective ways to provide instructional feedback in order to help second language learners in online environments has increased. The majority of studies found evidence about effectiveness of written and oral feedback to improve student's writing in a target language when they enroll in online courses taught in English. However, some studies also found limitations of both types of feedback when they provided for second language learners. Therefore, researchers and practitioners investigated benefits of other types of feedback and among them is audio feedback. The purpose of this chapter is to overview instructional capabilities of written, oral and audio feedback and how they can support ESL and EFL students in asynchronous online courses. This chapter also discusses when and how to provide different types of feedback when ESL and EFL students are enrolled in online courses taught in English.
8th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'22)
This systematic review synthesizes research on strategies used to promote cognitive presence in o... more This systematic review synthesizes research on strategies used to promote cognitive presence in online courses to identify trends from two decades (2000 to 2020) of scholarship. From initial search of 181 studies, a total of 14 articles published in peer-reviewed journals were reviewed. Results show that all of the studies were carried out in higher education with majority in the United States within the field of Education. Case-based and debate strategies were used the most to promote cognitive presence followed by structured, problem-based, and roles. For the patterns of students’ cognitive presence, the majority of student discussions fell into exploration and integration phases with a small percentage within triggering and resolution phases. The study concludes that instructional strategies combined with effective instructional design elements can help learners engage in purposeful collaborative inquiry while progressing through all four phases of cognitive presence to achieve h...
Peer assessment is an effective way to help students learn and save instructor time spent grading... more Peer assessment is an effective way to help students learn and save instructor time spent grading written work. Two instructors will share their experience of how they designed, implemented, and facilitated the self-regulated learning by using the tool called Self and Peer Assessment in Blackboard.
The number of students who take online courses continues to grow at Mason and nationally. Researc... more The number of students who take online courses continues to grow at Mason and nationally. Research indicates that student-to-student interaction has a positive impact on performance, engagement and learning satisfaction in online courses. Peer interactions allow students to feel like they are part of a learning community and give them the opportunity to develop important career-readiness skills such as collaboration and communication. However, it can be a challenge to create and assess meaningful peer interactions in fully online, asynchronous courses. In this workshop, instructors who have developed courses for the Online BS in Psychology will share their experiences in designing and implementing assignments that involve extensive peer interaction and/or feedback. The session attendees will first engage in a discussion of possible avenues for peer interaction, using different types of courses (lectures, labs, and seminars) as "case studies". Presenters will then share the...
Integrating Engineering Education and Humanities for Global Intercultural Perspectives, 2020
Attending Yakut TESOL conferences can provide a good opportunity for professional development for... more Attending Yakut TESOL conferences can provide a good opportunity for professional development for English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. This paper aims to explore the opinions how teachers evaluate contribution given by lecturers at international conference in Yakutia, what seminars or workshops they liked or disliked while attending and how they would like to cooperate with Yakut TESOL in the near future. The survey of teachers was conducted in three consecutive years in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The questionnaire answers disclosed what topics covered at the conferences are of great interest for teachers, what materials they would apply in their classrooms and what expectations EFL teachers have from Yakut TESOL conferences. It is revealed that teachers attending the conference come from different levels of education and have different needs being under different institutional requirements. Meeting the needs of all teachers attending a TESOL conference is a big challenge for conference organizers. In conclusion, the article offers some ideas to attract more EFL teachers to the conference and to intensify their cooperation with Yakut TESOL and other TESOL organizations worldwide.
Students’ interaction is one of the most important elements when teaching, particularly for an on... more Students’ interaction is one of the most important elements when teaching, particularly for an online course. However, not all courses are designed in a way to impact students’ interactions with peers and content. This poster will demonstrate, share, and discuss how one faculty and one instructional designer collaborated to design and redesign an online undergraduate course based on students’ weekly feedback. It is known that the majority of asynchronous online courses are designed and developed in advance based on the principles of best practices of teaching online. As such, some activities and pre-designed assignments in online courses are usually difficult to change while teaching the course. Course instructors usually prefer to redesign the course based on the end-of-semester feedback which becomes available at the end of the course. However, it is hard to modify the course when it has been already taught, which may lead to negative impacts on the course quality. In this session...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will share results from a 2016-2017 GMU study investigati... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will share results from a 2016-2017 GMU study investigating students' cognitive skills development through participation in an asynchronous online course that utilizes discussions. Presenters will use the results from this study to discuss how to effectively utilize online discussions in the design of a course to increase student engagement and collaboration. ________________________________________________________________ FULL ABSTRACT: What do online course discussions mean for student learning? How do we leverage students’ online collaboration to boost cognitive development? How can we, as faculty and instructional designers, improve the online learning experience, in general? This session aims to facilitate discussion of these important questions via results from a 2016-2017 GMU study aimed understanding students’ cognitive skills development when they participate in an asynchronous online course and, specifically, asynchronous online ...
International Journal of Engineering Education, 2019
This study examined how cognitive learning was expressed by graduate engineering students (n = 20... more This study examined how cognitive learning was expressed by graduate engineering students (n = 20) in a blended course consistingof a face-to-face (n = 12) and online synchronous sections (n = 8), and students’ perceptions (n = 41) toward the blended course.Specifically, this study examined (1) how cognitive learning was expressed by students when they worked in face-to-face groups,mixed groups (combination of online and face-to-face students), and individually in a blended engineering course, and (2) potentialdifferences between face-to-face and online students’ perceptions of the blended learning course. The participants were graduatestudents at a large public university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA who enrolled in a sixteen-week blended SystemEngineering Design course. There were three face-to-face groups with two students per group (n = 6) and four mixed groups withthree students per group (n = 12). Two students worked individually. The findings revealed that when stude...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This panel discussion will focus on practical examples of how to enhan... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This panel discussion will focus on practical examples of how to enhance student engagement and interaction when students work in collaborative learning environments in asynchronous online courses and technology-enhanced face-to-face classes. Participants will also have an opportunity to share their discipline specific strategies for managing team-based assignments. Participants will take away practical tips how to implement roles assignments, peer work, technology-integrated group work, and collaborative writing in their own classes. ________________________________________________________________ FULL ABSTRACT: The purpose of this panel is to share, demonstrate and discuss examples of how instructors at George Mason University facilitate student interaction and engagement when they teach online courses. Student engagement is defined as âthe studentâs psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, or mastering the kno...
BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:Learn how to successfully embed library services to an online course by... more BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:Learn how to successfully embed library services to an online course by exploring different stratetiges for embedding library services for undergraduate and graduate courses. This session will demonstrate how faculty at George Mason have successfully applied these strategies and discuss different librarian-instructor models for different disciplines and courses.________________________________________________________________FULL ABSTRACT:Since the early 1990A¢â¬â¢s university libraries have shifted their services from bibliographic instruction to information literacy. However, collaboration between a course librarian and a course instructor still emphasizes one-shot instruction. This session will show how to successfully embed library services to an online course and what type of collaborative strategies should be considered before embedding library services. This panel discussion will share how university librarians and faculty at George Mason University...
Creating Teacher Immediacy in Online Learning Environments
Due to a growing number of online courses and programs, educators' interest in using audio an... more Due to a growing number of online courses and programs, educators' interest in using audio and video feedback in asynchronous online environment has increased. Studies have found evidence that the use of audio and video feedback in asynchronous online courses can increase instructor presence and enhance online community interactions. The purpose of this chapter is to share research findings on audio and video feedback and to overview qualities of effective feedback. The chapter also presents potential benefits and limitations of audio and video feedback in online environments. Researchers and practitioners interested in implementing both types of feedback in online courses will find solutions, recommendations and possible future research directions.
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2020
While research has established the importance of questions as a key strategy used to facilitate s... more While research has established the importance of questions as a key strategy used to facilitate student interaction in online discussions, there is a need to explore how the structure of questions influence students’ interactions. Using learning analytics, we explored the relationship between student-student interaction and the structure of initial questions with and without the Practical Inquiry Model (PIM). Degree centrality was used as the method to analyse the number of responses each student sent (out-degree centrality) and the number of responses each student received (in-degree centrality). Findings showed that the number of responses each student sent and received was higher in the discussions initiated by the PIM-question prompts. In addition, analysis revealed a positive relationship between students’ interaction and the discussions structured with PIM and non-PIM questions. Finally, there was a significant difference in out-degree centrality but no significant difference ...
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Papers by Larisa Olesova