Conference Presentations

In this roundtable session we review our college's evolution from individual faculty implementation of DL courses to college-wide development of policies for DL course design assessment. We highlight key points from our policies and some of the challenges we encountered.  Participants discuss ideas for their own colleges, in cluding the integration of QM standards in college policies and implications for related faculty development programs.  The Pdfs included here are the handout for the session as well as the Scribe Sheet that recorded participant commentary.    

Providing academic support services to students in 100% online degree programs can be difficult. Add to the mix a large multi-campus institution with students taking courses across these campuses and it becomes perplexing. Come learn how Indiana University offers academic support in writing and math directly to online students.

While there appears to be an abundance of literature on whether online narrated presentations are effective (i.e., lead to positive learning outcomes such as increased attendance and achievement) as compared to traditional lectures, there is not as much literature on what makes online narrated presentations effective. Perhaps that is due to the expectation that what is done in the traditional lecture is simply to be replicated in the online environment or to the assumption that what makes the traditional lecture successful will be the same as what makes the online presentation successful.

Discover a tool that streamlines curriculum development while also ensuring QM alignment. Use it with your team to create, update, analyze, and make informed decisions about curricula that meet QM Standards. Bring a laptop and your curriculum components to apply the tool or watch an example.

This introduction to easily implemented, accessible design strategies will help you meet the needs of students with disabilities and improve the user experience for all students by making smart decisions about headings, font style and size, white space, and contrast.

Participants examine resistance to online teaching, quality assurance, and course development; learn effective ways to address perceived barriers; and identify approaches to engage diverse faculty in a campus-wide QM Community of Practice on their campuses.

The Perfect Module 

Presented by Jim Marteney, Certified Etudes Trainer

Key class content is placed in modules. Is this information organized in a stimulating manner, just randomly offered, or, as some say, "thrown against the wall"? This session looks at a course that incorporates key elements of the Quality Matters Rubric by using a variety of strategies to create an organized module that is informative, engaging, interactive, and something students will want to visit.

Low retention rates at the course and program level for online learners have dogged many institutions. By bringing together advising, IT, and institutional research / analytics professionals, The American Women's College has launched a variety of projects to achieve wrap-around supports that contribute to retention and graduation rates 20% above national averages. Attendees will brainstorm how such teamwork could transpire at their institutions to promote increased student success.

How do you institute optimal quality assurance on a budget? The conversation revolves around creative and innovative ways of ensuring quality through the use of available institutional resources. We share a four tier review process and discuss ways to manage the process.

This is a "conversation that matters" session and as such will involve group discussions.

Implementing critical thinking to courses helps students become more efficient in their studying and develop skills, abilities, and values crucial to success in everyday life. 
The instructor has a chance to foster deeper, more substantive thinking by engaging students in activities.  This session will share the techniques implemented in my classes and free resources pages.  Attendees can use the techniques and resources to design exciting new activities for their students.

The Online Campus at California State University East Bay has increasingly built a culture of quality assurance for effective online teaching and learning. This session will look at the data analysis in relation to its QM implementation and the positive student outcomes that are correlated with the use of QM.

Do you struggle with student engagement in your online synchronous classes? Do you wish your online class could use more active learning techniques, but you do not know where to start? During this session, simple, practical strategies will be shared that can be used to foster student engagement in synchronous online classes (and asynchronous too). The presenter has taught online large classes synchronously and asynchronously for more than a decade, and will share the class-tested strategies she uses to energize online classes.

Participants will examine the advantages of a mentee-mentor relationship and how the QM framework formed a bridge between a small and medium-sized institution. Participants will gain strategies for using QM to form successful inter-institutional partnerships that are mutually beneficial.

Quality Matters certification ensures high standards for online courses.  However, what if the institution is unable to financially afford certification for all online courses?  This panel will share the story of how one college created an internal review process based on QM.

Quality Matters certification ensures high standards for online courses. However, what if the institution is unable to financially afford certification for all online courses? The panel shares the story of how one college created an internal review process based on QM.

This session will share ways in which the California State University system has developed a mature and robust QM-based-program for assessing and recognizing blended-online courses, as well as a repository of objectives-indexed exemplars for adoption by other faculty or for modeling by instructional support staff. Resulting resources will be shared with participants via open access. Discussion of how best to implement and accomplish these campus-system outcomes will be encouraged and facilitated and participants will certainly have much to offer.

In this presentation, we identify cultural aspects that affect course design, we discuss best design practices based on our experience relative to issues of gender, diversity, and inclusion, and we debate some of the pitfalls during the course design process that can arise due to cultural misconceptions.

In a continually shifting climate of higher education, academic drift is a common and often potentially insidious challenge. Without program faculty (or university administration) even noticing, the focus of activities, assessments, and even courses applied to an academic degree program can gradually shift away from the intended outcomes.

In a continually shifting climate of higher education, academic drift is a common and often potentially insidious challenge. Without program faculty (or university administration) even noticing, the focus of activities, assessments, and even courses applied to an academic degree program can gradually shift away from the intended outcomes.