Conference Presentations

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Streaming to Zooming: Research-Based Practices for Today's Synchronous Learning

Although emergency remote teaching pushed the synchronous modality back into the academic spotlight, synchronous learning was actually a popular online modality many decades ago, and is embedded within the rich and lengthy history of distance education. This session will focus on merging our foundational knowledge of synchronous learning with our modern-day technologies and teaching strategies, ending with some great takeaways for research-supported best practices for synchronous design and teaching.

Striving for Quality - A Community College’s Journey (back) to Common Assessment

This session will discuss a midsize community college's journey to incorporate common assessment across multi-section courses. We will cover the rationale and research behind using common assessments, the Communication Department's pilot project, and lessons learned from the school-wide roll-out. We will also discuss the logistics of documenting assessment data, tracking common assessment results, project examples, unforeseen benefits, achieving faculty buy-in, and frequently asked questions.

Struggling in Silence: Students' Mental Health and Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Throughout pandemic, as a result of stress, some undergraduate students have indicated that they feel disengaged with online coursework while others struggle in silence. Mental health concerns and best practices focused on social emotional learning (SEL) for a healthy, engaged classroom will be examined and discussed. In this interactive session, participants will be able to learn about strategies that can be immediately implemented in their teaching practice.

Student Centered Online Program

From recruiting and onboarding to enrollment, there are definite steps that lead to an online program that is student-centered and focused on success. This highly engaging session will focus on setting the stage for student success and retention in online programs, and resources for the session will be both synchronous and asynchronous so that participants can share and access materials long after the conference has concluded.

Student Perceptions of the Impact of QM-Certified Online Courses on Their Learning and Engagement

Quality Matters (QM) is one of the most widely adopted sets of standards for best practices in online courses to promote student learning. In this study, we examined student perceptions of the impact of QM-certified courses on students’ learning and engagement. Fifty graduate students enrolled in online courses completed a survey developed based on the QM Rubric items. The QM framework includes 43 individual standards clustered into eight general categories.

Student Stories: Understanding Hidden Student Perspectives in Online Courses

This poster describes a multi-year study about student perceptions of the importance of online course design elements revealing areas of challenge and opportunity for online learners. Students indicated three areas of high importance to their online course experience including course organization, communication, and grading/feedback, elements promoting fair and equal access to quality education. Takeaways include: two survey designs, top three important online design elements to students.

Student Success Starts Before the First Day of Class!

Although many institutions offer their learners orientations to online learning, not all instructors offer a specific orientation to their course. Both orientations are beneficial to the online learning environment and to the course, but they accomplish different objectives. Providing a Course Orientation allows learners to familiarize themselves with the information and expectations that are critical to each course they are taking.

Student-Driven Quality Matters Practices: Centering Student Advisors in Design Innovation

All too often, online course quality is determined by a course’s compliance with industry standards rather than consultation with actual students. In this presentation, we share a case study of student-driven quality assurance practices recently developed in a University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology.  Attendees will leave the session inspired to create their own student-driven quality assurance practices at their respective institutions.

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.

Stumbling Made Me a Better Online Instructor

The QM model is designed to infuse quality into the online classroom. This model is almost foolproof. The word “almost” is important. The instructor plays an important role in completing the quality assurance of the online course. At any time during the semester, the instructor can metaphorically derail students’ learning experiences. The following is a case study of how one instructor inadvertently lost track of the quality of her online students.

Supplemental Standards and Annotations

To meet local priorities and emphasis, a group of instructional designers organized a checklist of course quality items using QM and other related course-quality standards. These were then applied to the QM standards as annotations, and a few additional standards were added. This presentation will share the annotations and additional standards, and describe the process of getting there.

Supply Meets Demand in a DL Course

Our job is to meet or exceed consumer demand. To provide learners a well-designed product that supplies "more bang for their buck." We must aim our focus toward the learner. Learners today expect more than they did a few years ago. There weren't as many options in the past. The demands of learners and course design are continually changing. If we do not meet learners' needs, they will be lost -- to competition or to complacency. This session examines innovative ways to improve these areas of demand: Course Navigation, Interaction, Content, Calendar, Support.