2020 West Regional Online Conference

Impact of QM Professional Development and Course Certification on Teaching Performance and Student Success

This session reports the professional development opportunities for Quality Assurance (QA) across a 23-campus system and the impact of Quality Matters (QM) training and course certification on online teaching outcomes at California State University. Quantitative and qualitative data gathered as part of the Student Quality Assurance Impact Research (SQuAIR) project at the system level are used to triangulate the relationship to student outcomes and satisfaction.

Students as OER Creators: The Ultimate Engagement Activity

This session introduces OER and describes the development and implementation of an OER project within an online course. A framework is provided to facilitate development of OER projects in other courses. This topic is timely as learner engagement declines and costs for textbooks increase. It will facilitate attendees to explore new and innovative strategies to overcome these barriers to learning and create affordable, interactive experiences geared toward learner engagement and student success.

Supporting Executive Functioning in College Courses with QM Standards

To succeed in college and beyond, students must learn to think critically, make the right decisions, and regulate their behavior. These aspects of cognition depend on executive functioning (EF) - central processes executed in the frontal lobe of the brain. Together we will explore how to use Quality Matters (QM) Standards to create courses that effectively support EF. ­­You will learn about strategies and technology tools that can support EF in face-to-face or online college courses.

Designing to Promote Interaction in Online Learning

While online learning is convenient as it gives the students the opportunity of being flexible, many learners suffer from feeling isolated or disconnected from the community. To promote interaction in online learning, we add a new feature to the traditional system, Tele-Instruction, which enables students to interact with the instructor at their convenience. The system provides the possibility of peer and content interaction and can use machine learning algorithms to improve lecture quality.

Lights Camera Action: What Happens to Accessibility When the Course Goes Live?

Students’ learning needs are not monolithic and have posited that inclusivity in online education should be multi-dimensional in order to break away from a one-size-fits-all model (Clow & Kolomitro, 2018).  Therefore, we need to rethink the QM rubric to be inclusive of the course delivery component vs only looking at the design. Moreover, Hollingshead and Carr-Chellman (2019) argued that as a result of the change in student demographics, there is an amplified need to create opportunities for student engagement through instruction and instructional design utilizing UDL.

Great Expectations: The Process of Developing a Course Prototype Prior to a Final Quality Review

With a higher expectation of quality in online courses, our department has found great success in implementing a standard prototype phase into the course development process. This allows developers to conceptualize and build a small portion of the course and conduct a review using the QM Rubric to catch potential quality issues/concerns before continuing development of the course. This session explores the prototype development, prototype review its impact on the quality of our online courses.