We are pleased to announce the program for OLC Accelerate 2019!

The Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills (DAACS) is a suite of open source, online assessments and supports (both technological and social) designed to optimize student learning. A study conducted at two online colleges suggest that DAACS is associated with increased student performance and accuracy of predictive student success.

An ambitious plan to review all the courses in a new HPE program within 18 months is being piloted at my university. This presentation discusses the customization of OSCQR, getting faculty buy in for course reviews, and setting up a program wide dashboard to track alignment with the rubric.

Presenters will guide a discussion on designing and implementing a communication strategy that centers on establishing social presence in virtual advising teams for online students grounded in CAEL’s ‘Ten Principles for Effectively Serving Adults’ to foster student success (improved engagement, persistence and student satisfaction).

Two instructional designers, two learning paradigms, one learning journey: how did we get from learning styles to learning science? Based on our journey to support effective learning, we suggest ways to move from learning styles in course and activity design to inclusive practices that support research-based approaches to learning.

Do online, collegiate learners perceive that video-based strategies facilitate elements of the Community of Inquiry Framework? Online faculty presenters will engage participants in considering instructional strategies and findings from a study which strategically incorporated video for announcements, screencast tutorials, feedback critiques of major assignments, and synchronous and asynchronous discussions.

Can student learning be improved with the use of digital storytelling and technology? A newly developed course captured personal stories of people associated with adoption. Using the art of storytelling students reflected through discussions, reaction papers, and presentations. The presenters will discuss the concept, development process, and students’ feedback.

In this presentation, we will discuss our journey to create a framework for incorporating learning analytics into our instructional design processes. While our final goal is big, we started small and employed bottom-up approach by identifying a few courses and recruiting interested faculty for the pilot. We will share what we’ve learned during the first six months of this journey and where we are heading next.

Virtual reality is expected to have a 92% increase in 2019, with 28% to 39% of the growth coming from the education, government, and media industries. To prepare leaders and educators for the predicted technology growth, this presentation will highlight research connected to VR in education and provide ways to increase the perceived ease of use of the tool to help leaders prepare for the future of VR in education.

It is no novel notion that our professional development should model the very best of practices that we would like faculty to engage in when teaching online. But how do we get there? Come join in a critical analysis of the way we offer Professional Development to our online faculty. 

Faculty skilled at teaching in a traditional face-to-face environment often struggle to shift to a blended learning model. A blended learning certification helped faculty to be successful with this transition. Join me for an interactive presentation and discussion on the design and implementation of the certification.

In the past ten years, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education has scaled from 6 to over 500 courses taught via web conference annually.  Our students from around the world remain engaged while enrollments have increased. We’ll explain how through training and support, we maintain high satisfaction among faculty and students.

When our team started developing an online course template for a graduate professional program, we discovered that evidence-based principles, published standards, and best-practices were not enough: students wanted more. We set out to discover new ways to make our course design even more useable & more useful.

This presentation will begin with a description of the state of personalized learning, definitions of personalized learning, and conceptual frameworks of schooling. Then tthe presenters will offer a collaborative activity for analyzing and sorting models of personalized learning including models that employ online learning in K-12 and higher education. Participants will develop a holistic perspective of personalized learning as a paradigm shift away from the factory model of schooling and be able to align models of personalized learning to their institutional missions.

QM Standard 7 asks us to think about how students learn to access resources like accessibility support, technology help, and tutoring. See how  building portable, open access course resources can help faculty bring support services directly into the classroom - even if they are not pursuing QM certification.

Digital storytelling can powerfully convey difficult concepts.  However, individual assets can’t provide the entire story.  Combined with the right “container” and expert text and animation, these assets have been used successfully to teach A&P courses.  Our containers include ibooks and SoftChalk™, which both allow for interactive, multi-touch student experiences.

How do you ensure quality in online courses in the absence of a centralized quality assurance system? What are strategies and challenges in supporting faculty and students with limited institutional resources? Should institutions adopt centralized or decentralized standards and processes? This interactive session will tackle these questions and more.

Is your institution considering partnering with an online program management (OPM) provider? Learn from the experience of Northern Illinois University in choosing to partner with an OPM and steps taken to launch expanded online support services for promoting online education growth.

Well-designed learning games present challenging problems and motivate players to collaborate with peers, take calculated risks, and reflect on the learning process. UMBC successfully adapted OLC’s Iron Chef conference activity for the last two years. Join us to learn about the game-based faculty development with a pedagogical twist.

In this session, we will demonstrate Adobe Illustrator basics, advantages of vector images, and how anyone can design custom icons and graphics for their projects by translating existing skills. Attendees will gain an understanding of how vector images can be edited, combined, and branded to create a cohesive course design.

Based on one state’s dual (college/university) system approach to designating “quality” online courses, this session will address practical needs of instructional designers vis-a-vis facilitating faculty adoption of and engagement with “continuous improvement” quality assurance efforts for online course design.

This presentation focuses on quality indicators of institutional support services for faculty in online education. Based on a scoping review of existing international frameworks, benchmarks, and guidelines for quality in online learning, we will share quality indicators in four categories of faculty support with attendees and discuss their application in various contexts.

In an effort to improve student success in high-enrollment courses, the University of Central Florida has developed a faculty development program to support instructors who desire to build and deliver adaptive coursework. In this session, participants will learn about the program framework and how to implement it at their institutions.

This session examines how one institution developed an in-house Certification Program for online “Jedi” faculty. The program provides instructors with advanced LMS training, overviews of best practices in teaching online, and consultations with instructional designers as the faculty develop their own online course and move away from “The Dark Side”!

Neuro, cognitive, and learning sciences research has validated human learning principles and dispelled neuromyths to help educators create optimal learning experiences. This presentation will demonstrate how the presenters incorporated suggestions from this research into their scalable course design process, based on an instructional designer/faculty partnership model.

Moving college classes into community spaces provides benefits in terms of learning practical knowledge and learning professional dispositions.  Effectively utilize flipped classroom strategies and blended course design by categorizing learning outcomes by identifying if they need to be learned in a specific order and their relation to practical experiences.

This presentation shares the strategies and processes used in the University System of Maryland and, more specifically, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to participate in a Lumina-funded national project to develop pilots for the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) in partnership with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) and NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education).

WGU creates innovative paths with technology and student support that has never been seen.  The panel will engage attendees with tools such as customized online proctored testing and a secure webcrawler to locate assessment items.  Participants will find hidden evidence of plagiarism and collaborate to build a culture of integrity.

A collaborative peer review program for online courses can cultivate expertise across campus and support a culture of quality online teaching. Learn to utilize a collaborative course review program as a source of professional development and to promote faculty leadership. Program structure, scalability, incentives, and recruitment strategies will be discussed.

In this session, we will discuss how to implement and spread the adoption of specific evidence-based teaching strategies in courses utilizing an LMS.  Evidence-based teaching strategies are backed by research studies indicating their effectiveness at improving student learning, engagement, attitudes, or other factors related to academic success.  

In the past, creating games for online courses was a challenge if an instructional designer or faculty member did not have programming experience. Escape Rooms are a new trend in the physical classroom.  Can they be used online? In this interactive session, participants will explore the topic and begin planning their own digital escape rooms!

“Waltz across Texas with Me!” This session provides an interactive overview of statewide research on OER adoption and use at Texas institutions of higher education. Attendees will participate in some Texas trivia to set the landscape and will also have the opportunity to share initiatives in their own states. 

 Many adult learners suffer from math anxiety, which affects their performance in quantitative business coursework.  Our study suggests that using supplemental instruction delivered in a servant leadership instructional style significantly reduces math anxiety.  Learn about the instructional techniques, ideas, and methods used to reduce math anxiety in the online modality.

Digital platforms transform the classroom into a blended learning environment. How do we choose what web 2.0 tools works best for blended learning? Join us for a discussion of Microsoft Teams, which offers a unique alternative to traditional LMS platforms for expanding our classroom beyond its four walls!

Online Education at the community colleges has many unique issues and opportunities. Come to the 'unconference' session to participate in a discussion about this segment where access, student success, equity, and innovation are changing and transforming lives daily.  

What do you know about attention – and what do your students know? This session presents findings from Attention Matters!, a project aimed at developing student metacognition. Participants will test their knowledge of attention and memory, challenge common misconceptions, and formulate plans for applying these concepts at their own institutions.

Educators often struggle with creating meaningful peer-to-peer learning for online students. Findings regarding developing and implementing peer-based learning networks in online/hybrid programs will be presented. Experiential themes provide a model for developing PLNs in hybrid/online programming. Attendees will reflect on ways to create PLNs at their institutions.

We present results of our collaborative research comparing the efficacy of two possible predictive analytics domains using data inherent in an adaptive learning platform.

What ingredients mix together to make great blended learning experiences? Expensive equipment? Tech-savvy faculty? Discover how blending Flipgrid into three different graduate nursing education courses has freely and easily increased student interaction while providing risk-free opportunities for digital communication practice.

Learn about the planning, execution, evaluation, and the continuous improvement process of the Affordable Course Transformation, a blended faculty development program on adaption and authoring of open education resources.

Learn to exchange valuable formative feedback through peer observation of online courses. Explore the benefits and challenges of peer observation in an online course, then engage in small group activities to consider the implications for process and to determine a substantive focus for the observation.

To motivate students to do the work outside the classroom has been a constant challenge when flipping a course.  In this session, the presenter will showcase how to flip a laboratory science course effectively by weaving active learning with the combined use of several web tools and technologies.

Students working in online environments often feel disconnected from the community, and adult students desire connection a great deal. In this presentation, hear and see what adult online learners have to say about many of the common tools instructors and designers use to engage them in community-building and engaging experiences. 

Course design directly influences the level of engagement between faculty and students. Unlike traditional development, online course development requires the participation of instructional support staff. This session explores how the Provost of LIM College shifted the online course development model and thereby achieved greater faculty and student engagement.

A moderated panel of administrators from key institutions across the country will share their stories of transformation. They will explain how they have been able to create equity at scale by blending intelligent adaptive learning systems with new methods of teaching.

Are your online students receiving the support they need both inside and outside the classroom, to insure success? Join Angela Gibson and Sharon Goldstein (Berkeley College) as we spotlight and explore various ways to bolster virtual support.   Leave with a portfolio of ideas you can implement immediately!

In this session, participants will learn about the effectiveness of Echo360 (an online active learning and lecture capture platform) for enhancing students’ learning outcomes in a hybrid format introductory Mandarin Chinese course. Join us in a lively discussion on students’ experiences with the technology based on the results from a phenomenological study.

Our study on student achievement revealed that student grades, course progression, and end-of-course ratings are correlated and significantly higher for full-time rather than part-time faculty. After statistically controlling for grade bias, we found that students place a high value on faculty participation, fostering critical thinking, expertise, high expectations, and constructive feedback.  

How do you know if you have a quality online learning program? What steps do you need to take to create an effective environment?  If you don’t know the answers to these questions, do you know where you can go for help? In 2018, OLC released the latest update to the Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Programs. In this session, you will learn how this scorecard can help you understand what steps you need to take to build quality into your program through the use of current best practices.

Artificial Intelligence enables new and powerful tools with the potential to positively impact the student experience. During this session, leaders from Penn State’s Nittany AI Alliance will describe their innovation series and highlight tested strategies to spark and sustain Ai innovation, engage a diverse university community, and work hand-in-hand with industry.

Having trouble planting the seeds of adaptive at your university?  Try out an adaptive module, then learn about how we are engaging with faculty to weed out challenges in their courses. We’ll discuss our design approach and share ideas about how to grow an organic adaptive initiative at your university!

Help students make the connection between the knowledge taught in class and real-world issues, experiments, applications, and problems by designing and incorporating authentic learning in your online classroom.  This active engagement session paints a picture of what authentic learning looks like in the online environment, design elements, and ways to effectively incorporate this strategy into your teaching.

There is a gap among the instructors, the Instructional Designers, and the learners’ perceptions of a quality online course, especially when considering the minimum or essential elements to a quality online course that students actually appreciate. This study presents the results of a survey on the key elements to a quality online course from students’ perspectives.

This presentation will discuss how the Office of Distributed Learning is working with faculty to create engaging immersive teaching environments in online courses using virtual reality and 360° video.

This presentation examines innovative ways asynchronous discussions are used in two online courses to enhance connection to a learning community and engage students in critical thinking and application of course content. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, it will demonstrate improvement over previous uses of discussion boards in these courses.

An experienced video producer will share 10 key ways to make your education videos look and sound professional. We will cover topics ranging from audio and framing to delivery and storytelling. You will analyze these tips and discover how they can be applied within your own context.