In early 2019, the Center for Academic Innovation hosted a forum where online students were invited to come to campus to discuss their experiences with and thoughts about online courses. A variety of online faculty members were also invited to lead the discussions on topics that ranged from course design, course interaction, student resources, and other general thoughts on online education.
Two of the faculty members who participated in the online student forum, Jill Rupert and Matt Davies, joined us to talk about their experience and what they learned from the students they talked with. We asked them if anything the students shared was particularly surprising, if any of their suggestions were something they could apply to their own courses, and much more.
Talked About This Episode
Soundbooth
We have a soundproof room with a computer, microphone and webcam to aid you in creating screencasts and audio recordings. You can reserve the soundbooth by getting in touch with one of our staff or faculty.
QOI Review Process
The Quality Online Instruction (QOI) program ensures that Chemeketa’s online courses meet quality standards. QOI is both a rubric of standards and a peer review process for online courses. Reviewed courses that meet standards receive Chemeketa’s QOI certification. The standards include course organization and design, instructor presence and facilitation, and student services and access/accessibility.
Adopt a Course
Just like Adopt-a-Highway, except for your online course. The TechHub provides a means for instructors to update and simplify their courses in eLearn. It is our goal to simplify the instructional lives of our online faculty as well as ease of course navigation for students. Our Adopt-a-Course program offers a course tune-up with these outcomes in mind:
- Update workflow methods
- Update courses in eLearn and make them easier to navigate and provide consistent look and feel
- Increase student satisfaction and foster improved learning
- Infuse instructional design techniques
Five Key Takeaways from Matt and Jill
- Send a Weekly email to students with an overview of the the coming week’s course activities.
- Provide a variety of course content. Videos and narrated lectures help break up the reading and can keep students engaged.
- Provide timely grading feedback. Students do read it and want to know how they are progressing.
- Provide an FAQ section for the course or an open discussion forum for questions .
- Be clear with directions and what students need to complete each week. What might make sense to us as instructors might not be clear to students.