Best Practices in Quality Online Teaching and Course Evaluation

Eric Kunnen

Senior Director, IT Innovation and Research

Kelley E.B. Senkowski

Instructional Technology Project Specialist, eLearning

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Grand Valley State University

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OVERVIEW

• Four types of Participation and Interaction

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• Opportunities for participation in an online course

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• Recommendations and ideas to design into your online courses

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• Development and implementation at an institution - our story

Participation and Interaction

5 Key Steps in Course Design

Today we talk about this one

Social Presence

Why?

• Builds your presence / humanizes the course
• Increases likelihood of students reaching out to you

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• Research based (HLC alignment)
• Offers learning and reinforcement opportunities
• Increased student engagement and success

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• Context guidance

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• Share your stories!
• YOU are the value of learning at GVSU

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Example - Empty room

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* Social Presence * Community of Inquiry

How?

4 Types of Participation and Interaction in a course

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1. Faculty - Student (Intentional Social Presence)

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• Student - Student

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3. Student - Community

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4. Student - Content

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Participation/Interaction

Found in 2 of the 3 components in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework

Faculty - Student Interaction

• Emails -

Recommendations:

• Respond! and Timely
• Weekly Announcements
• Non-participation check ins
• Relevant tips, conferences, resources

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• Feedback on every assignment

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• Online, Synchronous Chats

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• Participating in all discussion forums

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• Video - Feedback and Discussion responses

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• Weekly announcement video

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• Overview video introduction of each week module

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Be present in your course!

Interaction is Intentional!

Engage.

Student - Student Interaction

• Peer review assignments

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• Online, Synchronous Chats (not instructional) ...

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• Group posts - ie., In partners or groups, take a photo of people groups, nature, jobs, and post how it relates to class content

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• Partner and Group work / activities - projects, weekly activities

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• Interview a classmate

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• Video Discussion responses

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• Role play in discussion board

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• Scenario discussion boards - choose the best scenario and state why

Design Student to Student Activities - Build it into the course

Student - Community

Relevance!

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Learning from outside the class

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• Outside sources that compliment classroom content can lead students to make higher level connections and synthesize new content

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• Involve the community, outside world or expert in the field and bring it into your course. This shows students how knowledge gained in the course relates to their future career and job roles (relevancy)

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• Relevance leads to increased student engagement, participation and interaction

Design to Increase Engagement

Try a new activity in your online course

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• Scenarios from the field of study - share your experiences!

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• Game-based learning - (360 image of a future work environment with pinpoints of text or video, etc.)

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• Virtual Reality classrooms - (gather.town to get started)

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• Give students choices of assignments to show content mastery

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• Join a students’ online group meeting … pop in to see if any questions

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• Guest speakers in synchronous online sessions

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• Interview someone in the field

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• Find a job post online requiring something covered in the course

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• Search social media for a company or organization in the field

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• Take a picture of something out in the world and post in the discussion board with how it relates to the week’s course content

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Implement a Rubric/Checklist

Development at an Institution

Building a peer review instrument to focus on quality online courses at GVSU

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• Online Education Administration, Leadership, & Support
• Office of Provost, FTLC, University Libraries, eLearning
• OEMC - Online Education and Microcredential Council (Faculty Governance)

Development at an Institution

Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC) Guidelines

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• Institutions of higher education must develop clear, purposeful oversight to ensure that quality standards exist for hybrid, online, and distance education programming. (C-RAC Guidelines 3 and 4)
• Implementation of systematic, university-wide processes for the development, delivery, oversight, and evaluation of online and distance education programs, as well as ongoing faculty development are required. (C-RAC Guideline 5)

Development at an Institution

Timeline

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• OEMC Charge, 2015
• Literature Review and OEMC Evaluation Instrument Pilot
• Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric abbreviated and full version (Maryland Online, 2011)
• Penn State Peer Review Guide (The Pennsylvania University, 2017), Grand Rapids Community College Online Class Observation Report (2015)
• OEMC GVSU Peer Review Rubric Development
• Quality Matters, Penn State Peer Review Guide, GRCC Online Class Observation Report, Blackboard Exemplary Course Award Rubric, 7 Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education

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• Draft Instrument Pilot
• Select Faculty
• Expanded Draft Instrument Pilot
• Faculty, Deans, Unit Heads, Online & Hybrid Faculty Learning Communities
• Approved by University Academic Senate, 2017
• Deployed
• Standard online/hybrid course peer evaluation instrument for pre-tenure, tenure, and promotion.
• Faculty awareness provided in Foundations of Online and Hybrid Course Development certification and Online/Hybrid Faculty Learning Communities.

Development at an Institution

Lessons Learned & Benefits

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• Holistic cross university approach ensures collaborative effort.
• Leveraging shared faculty governance provides collective feedback, common understanding.
• Common peer review rubric provides uniform framework and shared quality principles.
• Increased awareness of accessibility and UDL.

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• Prompts conversations with faculty about strategies to enhance their courses, and identifies campus support.
• Encourages quality design, development, and delivery standards for distance education.

Implementation at an Institution

How does an Institution implement this for quality online courses?

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• FTLC - Used in PD for online teaching required course
• LEADS - Used for course design for the fully online accelerated degree finishing program
• eLearning -
• Use to course review and give recommendations to faculty for their online courses (faculty initiated)
• Used in the online teaching required course

GVSU Peer Evaluation Checklist

Reflection

Based on what you heard today, what strategies would you like to add to your courses or institution?

Questions?

Questions?

Eric Kunnen: kunnene@gvsu.edu

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Kelley E.B. Senkowski senkowke@gvsu.edu

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Grand Valley State University