Lessons Learned from 6 Years of Boosted Learning – a strategy for promoting engagement and connections between semesters
Concurrent Session 1
Brief Abstract
In 2017, an engineering university launched its “Boosted Learning” initiative to enhance student engagement and increasing learning effectiveness. This involved sending students email quizzes in the weeks after each semester. After being run for six years and over 550 classes, find out how this first-of-its kind effort has fared.
Presenters
Extended Abstract
In order to address the dual challenges of enhancing student engagement and increasing learning effectiveness, an engineering university launched a “boosted learning” initiative. This involved sending students a series of emails in the weeks and months following their courses. Each email contained a single question addressing a core concept of the class. Answers were electronically recorded to help analyze student engagement and retention of knowledge. This was a voluntary activity, with students being given the option to opt out of the project at any time during the trials.
Background
Numerous studies have noted how online learners at off-campus locations often feel disconnected from the university experience. This feeling of isolation is perhaps most pronounced between semesters, when student contact with the university may be limited to a reminder to register for the following semester – or worse, just a bill for tuition. After the intensity of final exams, the university is simply out of sight, and out of mind. Meanwhile, faculty members note different sort of disengagement. For example, during a series of faculty development meetings sponsored by the university’s Center for Faculty & Engagement (CFEA), a frequent observation by several professors was that they often had to spend time at the beginning of each semester reviewing material that students presumably covered in previous classes.
This parallels the observations from corporate training divisions, which according to some estimates collectively spent $92.3 billion dollars in 2021 on employee training programs. Despite these expenditures, the retention of knowledge by trainees was found to be very low. What both corporate trainers and college professors have been witnessing has been called the “Forgetting Curve,” a theory which purports to show the relationship between time and the loss of memories (in this case, knowledge from instruction) in the absence of a conscious effort to maintain them.
The Boosted Learning technique was created counteract the forgetting curve. It works by essentially reminding employees about training course content through simple quiz questions – after the course has been completed. This approach, designed to stimulate recall and renew interest in specific topics, supports the Kirkpatrick Model for analyzing and evaluating corporate training programs. (The Kirkpatrick Model consists of four levels: student reaction, student learning, student behavior, and student results. Boosted Learning addresses the student learning level most directly -- Level II -- while indirectly impacting the other levels.) Early research suggests that employees who receive “booster” emails after completing a training class will remember the core content that was taught. After learning about the Boosted Learning concept, the university implemented a pilot project using a web-based system (aptly called “Boosterlearn”) to address both student engagement and student knowledge retention. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first university to attempt to use boosted learning as an extension of academic programs.
The Boosted Learning Initiative
The university began implementing its own version of Boosted Learning campaigns after the Fall 2017 semester. Participating instructors were briefed on the goals and objectives of the initiative and identified 6-10 questions that addressed the core concepts in their classes. Most of the questions were in “multiple choice” format, though the final question in most campaigns used an open-ended “thought question” format similar to discussion postings. The questions were designed to be answered in 1-3 minutes. In the six years since the Boosted Learning initiative was rolled out, over 12,000 students across 545 individual class sections (both online and on campus) were given the option to participate.
The specific goals of boosted learning campaigns were outlined as follows:
• Increase student retention of knowledge
o Improve performance in subsequent classes
o Improve job performance
• Add value to the student experience
o Increase student engagement, particularly for remote learners
o Promote a more student-faculty interaction
• Enhance the university’s assessment activities
o Give instructors additional data for continuous improvement activities and course upgrades
o Provide additional data points for accreditation reports
Methods: In the weeks and months following each semester, weekly emails containing a single course-related question were sent to students. Answers were recorded in a web-based dashboard, which indicated an overall response rate of approximately 20%. Student feedback was generally positive, paving the way for a more widespread adoption at the academic program level.
Session outline
This session will cover an analysis of students who participated in the Boosted Learning initiative and those who did not. This analysis will include an exploration of correlations between end-of-course satisfaction scores and subsequent Boosted Learning data. Follow-up survey information will reveal the extent to which participating students felt that Boosted Learning helped them remember core course concepts. In addition, the extent that Boosted Learning data has been used for accreditation purposes will be reviewed. Finally, attendees of this session will see the Boosted Learning system in action and will participate in a sample Boosted Learning campaign.
References: Brown, P., Roediger, H., III,, & McDaniel, M. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.