OLC Innovate 2021 Virtual Conference Program
We are pleased to announce the virtual program for the OLC Innovate 2021 event, to be held March 15-19, 2021.
We are pleased to announce the virtual program for the OLC Innovate 2021 event, to be held March 15-19, 2021.
All Sessions are 45 minutes in length unless otherwise noted.
All sessions are listed in US Central Time Zone.
ALL SESSION TIMES ARE LISTED IN US CENTRAL TIME
Pre-conference Workshops: Friday, March 12, 2021
Innovate 2021 Conference: March 15-19, 2021
All sessions will be webcast via Zoom. Exceptions are Discovery sessions and certain Exposition Foundry Sessions, which will be presented asynchronously via VoiceThread throughout the conference. You will not see dates/times for asynchronous sessions.
Please join us for a wide variety of networking events throughout the conference in the 30 minute breaks between most concurrent sessions. These include OLC Live sessions, virtual speed networking lounge activities, and networking coffee talks with our sponsors. Also look for our special evening social events in the schedule.
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This workshop will focus on Maslow Before Bloom, a humanization of the online learning experience to increase student efficacy and instructional practices. Our workshop is for those new(er) to online teaching and learning as well as those looking to sharpen their current skill set.
During the workshop we will examine how the integration and application of humanistic educational theory and effective practices promotes and strengthens learning and success. Participants will engage in reflection on how using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in dominance over and in conjunction with Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning in digital learning environments increases efficacy in humanizing learning. The workshop will engage participants in discussion and activities to create connections and community through learning conversations. Additionally, participants will produce a new strategy, objective, and/or asset based on the synthesis of the information to then apply in their service to others.
Virtual pre-conference workshops (Friday, March 12) can be added to your conference registration at a price of $125 for one or $220 for a two workshop combo deal.
The 5th Annual Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) for HBCUs workshop will feature HBCU faculty, staff, and administrators sharing their practices for supporting faculty changing to no-cost and low-cost digital course materials, including OER, and saving students thousands of dollars. The workshop will include demonstrations and practice using MERLOT and SkillsCommons to support adopting no-cost course materials as well guidelines for planning your own AL$ program for your own campus.
Morning Session:
This pre-conference workshop is free for registered conference attendees interested in Affordable Learning Solutions for HBCUs. Access will be granted through the conference platform on Friday, March 12, 2021 fifteen minutes prior to the session start time.
In collaboration with the Online Learning Consortium, MERLOT and AnnotatED, the community for annotation in education, Hypothesis is convening a free workshop on collaborative annotation at OLC Innovate 2021. Register now to join us 10am–12pm CT Friday 12 March 2021.
The workshop will start with a quick orientation to collaborative annotation for social reading: What is it, and how are people using it to enrich online learning?
Then we'll shift to a hands-on activity to explore, discuss, and augment readings selected by our special guest educators, focused on topics related to their OLC Innovate presentation on connecting with students through intentional instructor presence. We'll practice reading together to see firsthand how social annotation can build understanding, connections, and community with Rebecca Cottrell, Ann Obermann, Adjoa Robinson, and Lee Scriggins from the Department of Social Work, and Meredith Jeffers from the Department of Modern Languages at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Our conversation will be anchored in text — literally — and spread out to engage other texts, ideas, and people beyond the workshop itself.
The second half of the workshop will combine with a special edition of Liquid Margins, the show where we gather to talk about collaborative annotation, social learning, and other ways we make knowledge together. You'll join episode 20, "Making Sense of Science With Social Annotation," to meet up with educators using social annotation to help students read, interpret, and comment on scientific texts — and share their “findings” with each other. Hypothesis scholar in residence Remi Kalir will moderate a conversation with Erin McKenney, Assistant Professor of Applied Ecology, and Carlos Goller, Associate Teaching Professor, both from North Carolina State University; and Melissa McCartney, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Florida International University and the Director of Research at Science in the Classroom, an AAAS program that helps students learn to read real-world scientific literature.
Read more about the AnnotatED Workshop in the Hypothes.is blog.
To participate in this free workshop, please register online.
Note: You do not need to be a registered attendee of OLC Innovate 2021 to participate in this workshop. Hypothesis will send registrants Zoom connection information prior to the workshop. Registered OLC Innovate attendees will, however, also be able to access the workshop through the OLC Innovate 2021 virtual conference venue.
Searching for a fun way to end your week and launch your OLC Innovate experience? Look no further! Whether you're new to the OLC or been with us for years, join us for light networking and insider tips into how to get the most out of your online conference experience. We'll show you tips and tricks for engaging with Zoom, and crowdsource ideas for how you might run virtual networking in your own contexts. And of course, you'll leave with new connections and friends to navigate your OLC Innovate experience with.
In this DIY-style workshop, you’ll explore the deep connections that digital learning has to design theory. Much more than a sit-and-get session, presenters will introduce open-source (free!) tools and the collective genius in the room to reimagine and redesign learning materials, processes, experiences and even systems. Come explore fundamental design considerations you can use to create engaging learning experiences, and get a treasure trove of resources and tools to take home!
Virtual pre-conference workshops (Friday, March 12) can be added to your conference registration at a price of $125 for one or $220 for a two workshop combo deal.
In this interactive preconference workshop, participants will experiment with active learning strategies that are suitable for face-to-face environments, remote synchronous interactions, as well as for asynchronous interactions. They will also explore common challenges to active learning and collaboratively develop solutions for their learning contexts. Participants will walk away with concrete ideas and techniques that can be implemented immediately in their hybrid and online courses.
Virtual pre-conference workshops (Friday, March 12) can be added to your conference registration at a price of $125 for one or $220 for a two workshop combo deal.
The 5th Annual Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) for HBCUs workshop will feature HBCU faculty, staff, and administrators sharing their practices for supporting faculty changing to no-cost and low-cost digital course materials, including OER, and saving students thousands of dollars. The workshop will include demonstrations and practice using MERLOT and SkillsCommons to support adopting no-cost course materials as well guidelines for planning your own AL$ program for your own campus.
Outline of Activities
Afternoon Session:
This pre-conference workshop is free for registered conference attendees interested in Affordable Learning Solutions for HBCUs. Access will be granted through the conference platform on Friday, March 12, 2021 fifteen minutes prior to the session start time.
Large professional development opportunities like conferences can be difficult to plan for, particularly in today's climate when most of us are attending alongside or in between work committments (as opposed to having the flexibility to travel for and focus on the event itself). With this in mind, we've designed this session to help you make the most of your conference experience. Join members of the OLC team and our amazing group of volunteers for an engaging preview of the conference. Get a sense of what all the conference has to offer, hear from others who've attended before about the things you shouldn't miss, and importantly kick off your OLC Innovate experience with fun community building.
Come join other conference attendees online and create an OLC Accelerate game plan. During this power hour you’ll have the chance to organize your conference schedule and select presentations and activities you want to attend. The OLC Field Guides will be present to suggest interesting presentations and activities, train you on the use of the OLC site/mobile app, and show you Engagement Maps. We’ll also discuss ways to participate virtually - including Slack and Twitter! Meet old friends, make new acquaintances, and plan your schedule. We can't wait to see you there!
Make the most out of your conference experience by joining OLC Live! hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr in a kickoff discussion with engagement chairs about specially designed opportunities to engage with fellow attendees virtually at the conference!
Creation of new faculty development programs can be a lengthy process and may be limited to small enrollment. However, circumstances such as the recent pandemic presented the need to quickly prepare large amounts of faculty to teach online. This presentation will explore a model used to quickly create a quality faculty development course focused on the essentials of online teaching, which can be scaled based on individual institutional needs.
Online discussions can provide an ideal opportunity to support develop of critical 21st-century-skills.
This presentation will help participants:
Students seem to use their phones for everything even their online classes. But what impact might this have on their engagement? The answer might surprise you. This session presents the findings of research on the impact of mobile learning use on student engagement in fully online courses. Mobile learning matters!
Looking for easy ways to put caring for students at the center of your teaching and design efforts? Join us as we bring together experienced educators to share their stories, tips, and tricks for promoting care and connection in courses.
PSI’s human-first approach to intelligent Online Proctoring assures students that their personal information is secure and their privacy respected during every phase of their testing experience.
The Global Pandemic has taken a toll on every aspect of our society and education is no exception. As leaders, we need to shift our mindset to provide a more agile structure for supporting our teams, our institutions, and most importantly, our students. Come learn about agile leadership, with heart.
This session will tell the story about the development of a two course research methods sequence and present a framework for teaching research methods fully online. The story of the design process will take attendees on a journey through the conceptualization, initial design, formative evaluation, and redesign of the courses.
The instructor-centered method adopted by the STEM field with its emphasis on Eurocentric values is not always conducive to addressing achievement barriers for diverse students in the online classroom. This session will focus on how integration strategies using Culturally Responsive Online Teaching in STEM will enhance engagement for diverse students.
Panelists from a large urban research university share their experiences participating in an innovative faculty professional development initiative in response to COVID-19. This initiative provided the opportunity for various groups across campus to come together and support faculty’s transition to online, hybrid, and blended instruction in preparation for the Fall 2020 semester.
This presentation describes actual IOT enhanced online chemistry labs where students in Zoom breakout rooms collaboratively designed experiments, gathered data and analyzed results while working in Google Docs and Sheets. We will demonstrate in real time an IOT-enhanced online lab, while going over multiple paradigms for their use in academia.
In this demonstration, we will present how hands-on science laboratories can be translated to an online environment, and how our Cloud platform supports student and faculty engagement and success.
Over the past year, most higher education courses were taught online, amplifying equity issues for a variety of learners. Kevin Kelly will share practical strategies for increasing learning equity in online course design and facilitation. Together we’ll reimagine a learning experience that supports success for students of all identities, cultures and backgrounds.
With COVID, were you scrambling to move programs online? Searching for best practices? Wondering if what you were doing was effective? In this session, the presenters will provide an evidence-based framework for building robust, sustainable online programs including faculty training, leadership, and quality rubrics.
Creating GIFs, or animated images, is a fun, creative, and effective way to introduce interactivity into your courses. These short snippets are ubiquitous on social media post and memes across the internet. In this session we will explore the SnagIt platform to demonstrate the principles and applications of classroom GIFs.
This panel session will feature leading researchers sharing their insights and research around key trends in digital, blended, and online learning.
Tired of change? Aren't we all. In this presentation we'll discuss the biggest challenges facing higher education in the next 3-5 years and what we collectively can do to prepare for success.
How can VR and AR support learning? We've played the games and scoured the literature. Join the authors of the "Learning Across Realities" report, Dan Roy (MIT) and Iulian Radu (Harvard), in a panel discussion with Paul Martin (HP). Leave with guidelines for creators and curators of XR learning experiences.
The session showcases a series of summer online teaching workshops developed and delivered collaboratively among faculty, Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, Distance Education and the Undergraduate Education & Student Success division. Participants will participate in the discussion and activities covering student success, course design, UDL, assessment, communication, and technology.
Let's discuss the different ways we navigated teaching lab science courses in the online modality over the past year. Join other instructors, instructional designers, and administrators to share what worked well and not so well. What will you continue to do in the future?
Student-to-student collaboration in the classroom has immeasurable value. The rise in online classes and platforms has instructors investigating best practices and pedagogies that allow for students to collaborate asynchronously. This session will investigate asynchronous group dynamics, and pedagogies that are effective vehicles of collaboration.
Research, using OLC’s Online Student Services Scorecard, indicates that size and funding of an institution are indicators of service level. In the Covid-19 era, smaller institutions found creative ways to improve service. Join us to exchange ideas about better serving our students through this time and brainstorm for the future.
Have you ever wanted to design a research study, but didn’t know how to get started? This session will provide participants with the opportunity to brainstorm research questions they are interested in exploring and identify strategies they can leverage to find their answers!
Open Educational Resources need to be delivered within an engaging platform that enable faculty to remix and revise the educational content into blend coherently with the faculty’s goals, the students’ needs, and the institutional vision. The presentation will demonstrate how the ecoText platform and MERLOT’s OER can create customizable OER easily.
You’re busy and quickly become inundated by requests from students and administrators. So why not take advantage of the most powerful tool at your disposal – your LMS?
Join me as we walk through the incredible tools Brightspace offers to improve efficiencies and increase engagement, all while providing personalized learning experiences!
Join OLC Live hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr for a post-keynote discussion focused on open learning trends, strategies, and collaborative efforts.
In this session, we bring together a panel of leaders from across the field to guide participants in an exploration of the various dimensions of care. In the style of a fireside chat, the invited speakers will share prevalent challenges, cases of leading with care across the field, and meaningful calls to action. Participants will leave with new insights and opportunities for collaboration around reimagining our teaching and learning contexts as centered in care that can be sustained well beyond the pandemic.
Trying to engage your students more in your online discussions? Pulling them into the discussion multiple times each week is key to ensuring they are present and active in their class. Hear from Marcus Popetz and Jonathan Gallion, PhD, during this coffee talk as they discuss how multiple due dates each week not only increases the opportunity to engage with more of their fellow students, but how it can extend learning opportunities.
In this session, participants will learn how a librarian transitioned their in-person library instruction - online, in both synchronous and asynchronous formats, during the fall 2020 semester. Utilizing the campus learning management system Canvas and developing active learning workshops via Zoom, we will examine how instruction was moved virtually.
AAA099 - Active Learning Skills is a 1-credit hour course designed to orient students to the college experience with personalized review in both math and English, alongside the exploration of a variety of proven learning strategies. EdReady, an adaptive learning technology, was incorporated as a central component of this online course. We will learn how the course was designed to engage students and increase retention, and we will explore results and student and instructor feedback.
An evidence-based conversation that will explore through audience participation how moving to a proactive outreach approach in place of a traditional office hours model can increase student engagement and success.
You’ve reviewed the existing literature and landscape, you’ve designed your study, and you’re ready to get started with the research project. But - let’s pause for a moment. Before you dive in, let’s think about research and publication outcomes.
The paper analyzes the teaching and learning of computational thinking and data literacy as it impacts pres-service teachers, and provides two research-based instructional design strategies.
Institutional leaders are challenged with balancing the needs for quality in online learning and scaling programs. Strategic planning and change management are necessary to sustainably grow online programs. This presentation will review lessons learned by embracing OPX partners. The presenters will provide specific challenges and successes while transforming entrenched practices and culture regarding online education at the institution.
The OLC & MERLOT Awards Gala marks a time of ceremony and celebration as we spotlight the achievements, elevate the innovations, and honor the commitments of this year’s award recipients. We are privileged to have these leaders join us on the virtual stage as we thank them for their dedication to quality online, digital, and blended learning, and engage them in dialogue on their perspectives on what’s to come. In line with the celebratory nature of the session, we invite you to select your most festive Zoom background, prepare a celebratory beverage or snacks, and join us for an enlightening evening filled with accolades and new ideas, featuring some of the amazing individuals in our field!
Join us for some quiet time to decompress, reconnect mind and body, and practice some self-care as we turn our focus inward for a short while. Mindfulness has been defined as a practice of "bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occuring in the present moment" (Baer, 2003). Clark Shah-Nelson will lead this guided mindful meditation session geared toward centering ourselves on higher levels of consciousness so that we can experience OLC Innovate Virtual Conference in a healthy and present way together. Whether you are new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, all levels are welcome to join us for this session.
Baer, R.A. (2003). Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical psychology: Science and practice, 10(2), 125-143.
As more students elect to use mobile devices for courses not designed specifically for mobile learning, challenges faced by this group should not be overlooked. The focus of this session will be on current research in this area and how institutions may support this group toward an improved student experience.
This session will cover program management strategies and student success practices for the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) which is a fully asynchronous online professional master’s degree for working engineers. Faculty and student onboarding practices are discussed as well as strategies used in advising and building community in the program.
Universal design (UD) has emerged as a paradigm for addressing diversity and equity issues in the design of a broad range of applications in education. Learn about aspects of a UD framework that you can flesh out to develop inclusive online learning practices at your institution.
Student support, particularly in the current environment of COVID-19 and social unrest, encompasses a broad swath of challenges and considerations at HBCUs. In this session, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities for student support, ranging from students’ physical and financial ability to attend, equitable access to technology, their mental and physical health, and the provision of the rich cultural and experiential opportunities at an HBCU.
For some instructors, the jolt and sudden switch to online teaching has created an imbalance in routines, priorities, and habits of self-care. Instructors may find themselves buried under grading and content creation, all while managing multiple other personal and professional priorities. Join us to discuss self-care strategies for the pandemic-induced online instructor.
When facilitating group evaluation or peer feedback activities within online environments, teachers often have to juggle between maintaining effective feedback and avoiding several issues like free-riding or disengagement. This session tackles these challenges by discussing the implementation of our tools - Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation, and how they help enhance student engagement and collaborative learning.
Despite significant technological advancements, there will always be a need for human interaction when it comes to high-quality online proctoring. Jarrod Morgan, Chief Strategy Officer and Founder of ProctorU, will lead a discussion about how institutions can combine complex technology with the human element. Bring your questions and experience to this explorative topic.
How can we effectively engage faculty at all levels when the nature of pedagogy requires specific knowledge and support? How can we collaborate with faculty who would normally be unwilling or unable to teach online? This presentation will discuss and have participants collaborate on strategies and solutions.
Stay a while, and listen to our tale across multiple gameful projects as we share where our stories intersect and what we’ve learned from our journey. From simulations in undergraduate courses to role-playing in professional development, we wish to inform and inspire others looking for the call to adventure.
This research presentation shares results from an interview-based study of 33 faculty with 10 or more years of online teaching experience. Faculty reported their motivations for teaching online, important skills for online instructors, advice for new online instructors, and discussed the future of online education.
HBCUs make up approximately 3 percent of public and private higher education institutions in the United States, and graduate 17 percent of Black undergraduate students, particularly in STEM fields (ACE, 2019). However, they remain underfunded compared to primarily white institutions. Panelists and participants in this session will discuss three primary sources of funding: legislative funding, partnerships, and fundraising.
Join Dr. Matthew Wise, Director of Chemistry Instruction at The University of Colorado Boulder and Carolina Distance Learning as we discuss how the Boulder campus used Lab kits to navigate the recent pandemic.
Dive deeper into the conference experience with OLC Live! Hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr as they lead focused conversations with presenters and participants focused on this year’s conference themes:
The adoption of open, freely available instructional materials has gained interest and merit in recent years, making education more affordable to students. This presentation provides faculty, chairs, and administrators with guidelines for reviewing and selecting affordable, high-quality learning materials for individual classes and guidance on more effectively supporting Open Ed programs.
This facilitated roundtable discussion explores the challenge around career advancement for instructional designers and related positions. We’ll discuss challenges around defining the role of instructional designers, identifying skill sets for instructional design positions, and how to establish a level framework for growth.
Join us to learn how we excelled (despite Covid-19 challenges) by employing recent research and online best practices. Our Fall 2020 journey of CCF’s primarily online courses and PBA’s return to primarily in person courses (with live online elements) including the planning, successes and opportunities for improvement will be shared.
Providing academic, technical/access/device, and social support for students, as well as course design and delivery and technical/access/device support for faculty emerge as universal challenges. Participants in this session will discuss operations, including infrastructure, logistics and implementation, and student and faculty support as key areas impacted by the pandemic.
Concerns about privacy remain at the forefront of the national discourse. The IMS Global Learning Consortium released its LTI® Proctoring Services standard, a specification recognizing cutting-edge innovation in test security and integrity. How can it be implemented at your institution? This session provides an overview from a higher education perspective.
Twitter Chats (as seen by #edtechchat and #UDLchat) are great ways to reflect as a community, share resources, crowdsource ideas and strategies, and connect with new colleagues. At this year's OLC Innovate, we'll be leaning into this model to gather as a community virtually with the goal of not only deepening the dialogues we have at the conference, but additionally beginning to imagine together what it might look like to sustain them beyond the live event. Not on Twitter or unsure what a Twitter Chat is? No worries, this session is designed with that in mind and will include ways for you to participate regardless of your previous Twitter experience. Follow us at @OLCToday and using the hashtag #OLCInnovateChat to access the chat prompts in preparation or simply join the live Zoom session and await further instructions on how to join in on the fun!
Are you interested in strategies and proven methods for expanding your leadership capabilities? Are you looking for a cross-institutional peer network to broaden your perspective and help you solve local challenges? Then this is the session for you!
Join several faculty from The OLC Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) and get a sneak-peak into this unique leadership development program. IELOL Co-Directors and faculty will discuss the program structure and outcomes, and alumni will share success stories. Designed to build healthy peer cohorts while developing projects to pitch to senior higher ed leaders, the program provides access to a prestigious cadre of faculty who bring a diverse wealth of knowledge about leadership in digital learning. In its 13th year, this premiere OLC program has prepared over 380 leaders representing diverse institutions of higher education from across the globe to position themselves to take the next big step in their careers. As higher education continues to evolve and change rapidly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our field needs more leaders who are prepared to address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of us.
OLC will develop and host the 2021 program in partnership with Arizona State University, named the Most Innovative University by the US News and World Report for six years in a row. ASU’s approach to digital education, unique programs like Starbucks College Achievement Plan, Uber educational benefit, and adaptive education have significantly contributed to the ranking.
The OLC Speed Networking Lounge is all about casual conversation and connecting with colleagues. What might that look like for OLC Innovate 2021? Join this kick-off session to help session co-chairs, Clea and Lara, shape upcoming Speed Networking sessions to meet your needs and interests.
In this session, we’ll discuss the design of a 1-day course for online and hybrid faculty. We’ll cover course elements and share feedback received from our target audience as well as anticipated course outcomes. By participating, you’ll walk away with practical ideas for implementing an efficient and engaging online faculty development experience.
(To the tune of The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle)
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from a virus,
that grew to epidemic.
It caused everything to close,
All schools had to go online
All faculty needed to be trained,
How would that fly?
Come hear how & why!
The case for OERs has largely focused on cost-effective benefits, which can result in students having greater access to -- and engagement with -- information. However, OERs have much greater impact when students can use generative learning strategies to act upon those OERs in personally meaningful ways and generate new information in the form of OERS. This session details how classroom teachers, librarians and students can collaborate to facilitate student-generated OERs.
An investment in building culturally responsive teaching environments requires structural changes to the curriculum. This session will introduce an adaptive version of NYU Steinhardt’s Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard as a tool for faculty to take a deep look into the content of the curriculum to critically analyze whose knowledge the texts’ privilege, and how different groups are being represented. The scorecard looks at a few dimensions of the curriculum including 1) Representation, 2) Social Justice and 3) Instructor’s Materials. Attendees will leave with an action plan that will include short and long-term changes that they can make to their curriculum that will validate their student’s cultural funds of knowledge and activate their culturally-bound prior knowledge. (edited)
Workshop using the latest Kahoot tools to formative assess intercultural sensitivity in the classroom.
Discussion of the fourth installment of a quarterly survey series concerning the state of digital learning. With samples of over 600 institutions across the country, both faculty and administrators have responded with their perspectives on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting today’s teaching and learning.
This session discusses the results and experiences of a successful faculty development program for the use of LMS with an innovative training approach using the TPACK model to build faculty technical skills and pedagogical knowledge while remaining contextually relevant to their discipline. The session goal is to showcase evidence-based approaches for improving instituionally mandated faculty development efforts.
You’ve heard of agile development. But what about agile course design? In this interactive session, you’ll learn how Salem University and LearningMate partnered to reduce development time and costs, create sustainable online learning experiences, leverage key course components for reuse, and establish an effective process for sustaining ongoing revisions.
Join us for this second session of three sessions at OLC’s Community College Summit, where we bring together educators and advocates of community colleges. This session will focus on creating and implementing online, blended and digital learning innovations within community colleges that can be sustained over time. Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) Online will highlight its virtual student union as an exemplar innovative practice. The NOVA Virtual Student Union (VSU) is a digital hub for students to connect with the college and each other without physically being on campus. When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, Student Life college-wide rallied to migrate all Student Life resources into the online campus’ portal, scaling up consistent support to its 75,000 students. This success and opportunity to engage diverse students across the college community will now be extended beyond the pandemic. Throughout this engagement hub, students have access to participate in Student Life activities, join discussion forums and connect with many educational resources, all online.
Institutions around the world were faced with the challenge of preserving the value of online programs and the integrity of their online assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn how Proctorio’s Learning Integrity Platform has provided institutions around the world with a reliable, scalable, and secure solution for remote integrity protection.
Open Educational Resources (OER) without Open Educational Practices (OEP) will not produce the educational transformations at the speed and scale that is possible. This session will provide models of how to institutionalize open educational practices with ePortfolios and help participants develop their own local strategies for supporting OEP with ePortfolios.
Join OLC Live hosts Chris Stubbs & Katrina Wehr for a discussion about compassion fatigue. Hear from the OLC community about how they've dealt with burnout and are supporting their institutions throughout the pandemic, and discuss strategies you can implement to make space for this real phenomenon.
Are you tired of receiving email after email asking you questions about material covered in the syllabus? Are you looking for a better way to direct students to the important information they need to be successful in your course? If so, then an interactive syllabus is the vaccine your syllabus needs to thrive in our new normal.
Even in the world of online, digital, and blended learning, not every organization, institution, or unit has figured out how to translate what they know about effective teaching and learning into the context of large community-wide professional development or convenings (like a conference). In this panel-style session, we will discuss a salon based discussion model called OLC Ideate that the organization has created to bring educators together in active collaboration.
Join us for this last session of three sessions at OLC’s Community College Summit, where we bring together educators and advocates of community colleges. This session will focus on promoting and supporting both student and faculty engagement in the time of COVID-19. As a result of the pandemic, student enrollment in community colleges across the country has taken a dramatic dip, with a significant decrease in students of color. There has never been a more critical time to focus on engagement as student engagement helps students persist and complete college programs. This session will explore the continued need to remove cultural barriers that impede successful engagement, and we’ll see how one college does this by leveraging the library, and how another college engages faculty.
This conversation explores how faculty burnout impacts faculty and organizations, by basing a discussion on key research findings and sharing ideas on how different institutions are, and can, prevent burnout. This space provides an opportunity to start a conversation on an important topic which is often neglected in the academy.
Supporting awareness of gender equality and creating environments committed to a more diverse future is essential to the future of Higher Ed – join us to learn why.
Join us for an evening of improvised, collaborative storytelling! We'll use the Dungeon World roleplaying game as a guide to drive our storytelling. What will you do as wizard in a strange land? Who will you save as a devoted cleric? What will you prize as a roguish thief? Come for adventure, stay for our awesome community! No prior experience required!
This session will highlight a course review process initiated by our Provost in the Spring of 2020 when the novel coronavirus necessitated a rapid shift to remote learning at MSU. A background will be shared along with what worked, what did not work, and planned revisions for the future.
How can you communicate care, compassion, and empathy to your online students? In the transactional culture of our day which seems only interested in "what can you do for me," how can we powerfully demonstrate our commitment to our students? It is actually easier than you would suppose. It starts with trust.
This session will compare how three institutions responded to the COVID-19 crisis in terms of faculty development, partnerships, and digital infrastructure (edtech, LMS, etc). Attendees will walk away with an understanding of what faculty development, partnerships and digital infrastructure projects were implemented with data on cost, impact, and recommendations.
This presentation will explore ways to use online journaling within a learning management system and instructor feedback based on Carl Rogers’ model of person-centered learning to enhance teaching presence and the relationship between instructors and students.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is central to the work we all do within online, blended, and digital learning. DEI is core to community building. In this panel-style session, we will discuss what we learned from OLC Ideate: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Digital Learning Environments, a discussion based convening that brought together over 1000 educators to craft a charter for more equitable digital learning environments.
First-year math classes are often the gateway to an undergraduate degree. Success instills confidence, and opens the door to degrees in any field, including STEM. And yet, failure rates for first-year math at many institutions can be above 50%, having significant, long-term impacts on a student’s educational trajectory. In this session, Juliet Greenwood, Vice Dean for Educational Initiatives at Arizona State University will share her experience using digital communities to scale personalized support and dramatically increase successful completion rates among ASU Online’s first-year math students. She'll also share how ASU plans to extend the community-based approach across the institution.
From designing innovative technologies to helping to establish sustainable infrastructure for professional and skills development, our industry partners play an important role in the field of Online, Digital, and Blended Learning.
This session will engage participants in a discussion on defining quality design practices for self-paced eLearning. We will discuss how self-paced fits into the eLearning landscape, examine theoretical assumptions to determine impactful design choices, and discuss the design challenges.
Learning analytics has been heralded as a tool that can powerfully be used to support student success. Administrators and faculty recognize not only the latent value in student data to promote student academic performance, but also the opportunity it provides to assist institutions with implementing changes to close achievement gaps and eliminate race and income as predictors of student success. During this session, we will share the results of two national research initiatives, by APLU and EDUCAUSE and Tyton Partners, on the state of learning analytics, key barriers and challenges that we need to address as a field, and share institutional strategies for implementation.
Join us to learn how DesignPLUS from Cidi Labs has helped over 300 educational institutions design better Canvas courses in less time. We'll demonstrate the DesignPLUS tools and show how they make it possible to design more engaging and accessible Canvas courses -- all without requiring html or css skills!
The educational technology terrain is changing quickly. Planning for and focusing on the needs of students and instructors as a core driver of product design is critical to ensure that they are not lost. Evan Travers, Lead User Experience Architect at ProctorU, has over thirteen years of experience working with customer-facing development projects. He will talk briefly about the practice of User Experience Design, discuss some of the challenges of product design in the world of online learning, and showcase some of ProctorU’s past roadblocks and greatest successes.
It takes less than a minute to empower students, regardless of ability, in a digital learning terrain. Explore how a meditation bell in weekly announcements increases focus or how a gratitude list on a whiteboard can improve groupwork. Craft these mindful experiences to plant into any LMS or live session.
Join us in the Speed Networking Lounge for a “whatcha wanna talk about?” experiment where we leverage the power of Zoom breakout rooms to create casual, “mini speed networking lounges” based on common interests. We’ll determine interests and themes in the first 10 minutes, but hop in whenever you can and we’ll help you make some quick friendships before the 30 minutes are up!
While hands-on training for students came to a halt during the pandemic, the University of Saint Augustine for Health Sciences leveraged its technology, simulation expertise, digital resources, and innovation culture to deliver active learning. We provide our framework and share cases of how faculty creatively used resources such as video, 3D printing, and simulation to “keep teaching” now and into the future.
As we reimagine online education, let’s also reimagine speeches and reframe presentations as conversations. Speeches are stressful, whether in F2F, hybrid or Zoom environments and sometimes the format can increase the anxiety. Let’s collaborate and reimagine speeches as intentional opportunities to share stories and connect in meaningful and empowering ways.
Managing the COVID emergency is the mightiest distraction higher education leaders have ever faced. Short-term tactical needs are so novel and pressing that long-term strategic planning- always hard to focus on but vital for institutional health- seems impossibly abstract and low priority. Early data from the sixth CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) survey, an annual study from Quality Matters and Eduventures, delves into the messy realities online learning leaders face in 2021. In this panel, educational leaders will reflect on the design of the CHLOE 6 survey, seeking to both follow trends from prior surveys and illuminate pandemic-specific developments, and distill what early analysis of the results reveals about directions of travel for online learning in the 2020s.
This interactive session explores how we drew upon foundational teaching and learning practices--scenario-based learning, backwards design, curriculum mapping, and the latest neuroeducation research--to redesign an MBA program to meet new challenges and opportunities identified by our students, faculty, and the employers who hire our graduates.
This session is focused on a story of collaborative leadership innovation. Community college leaders work hard to support their students and provide access to affordable, quality programs. In the midst of a global pandemic, this work becomes even more challenging, forcing leaders to quickly problem-solve under high stakes circumstances. At Northcentral Technical College, leaders rose to the challenge.
Grab a snack or lunch, and join us for the first of a series of OLC Innovate Design Sprints! The Design Sprints will take place over the course of three days. This session in particular will center community building. Participants will be divided into teams and together you will generate solutions to a unique design challenge. Along the way, you'll have a chance to make meaningful connections with other conference participants (including our industry partners), will leave with innovative ideas, and even have an opportunity to win a prize!
Accelerated online courses (8-week courses, for example) are being offered at an increasing rate due to non-traditional students’ desire to complete courses more quickly and utilize the flexibility and convenience that online learning affords. With this condensed format, it is natural for faculty to focus on how to get all of their content across in a limited amount of time. Rather than focus on the limitations of this structure, let’s consider the strategies necessary for student success and satisfaction in this ever-growing format.
This session introduces a visual approach to online discussions and combines social and educational elements to help faculty and students easily create and share knowledge and reimagine the possibilities of online collaboration and learning.
Our faculty training program was developed by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Shepherd University in West Virginia. Geared toward instructors at all experience levels (and all motivation levels), and designed to be highly flexible and adaptable, this six-module, no-cost training greatly fosters learner satisfaction, as well as wide-reaching access and scale. Assessment data gathered throughout the training help us reinforce a culture that values best practices in teaching and learning, as well as continuous improvement.
Join us for this last session of three sessions at OLC’s spring leadership network event, where we bring together digital leaders from academics, non-profits, and the private sector to discuss digital education strategy in times of great change. This session will focus on the evolving nature of student services in present times and the future, and is open to both established and emerging leaders attending the conference.
This interactive session will apply and illustrate how 5 principles for inclusive teaching and learning (adapted from Columbia University’s Teaching and Learning Center) using a Purposeful Learning Framework. Using examples for adopting OER to applying UDL principles, the outcome of the session is to provide participants a better understanding of inclusivity and to become familiar with tools, technologies, and design strategies that can be immediately adopted to strengthen inclusivity in their own programs
See how LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor help over 1,500 colleges and universities deter cheating across a variety of online testing scenarios. You'll see how they work, hear keys to success, and discover new features and integrations that make this the most powerful and flexible proctoring solution available.
Take a break from the rich idea sharing in this virtual coffee talk with PSI experts. Grab a hot beverage and join us for an informal discussion and light networking as an interlude between sessions.
In this interactive synchronous session, participants will explore principles and practices for cultivating an equitable and engaging virtual learning environment. Through a series of activities and reflections, they will explore common challenges around student engagement and develop strategies to build community and design high impact virtual experiences for individual and team-based learning.
For a cutting-edge course such as Machine Learning, where high performance computing infrastructure is key to learning, no access to on-campus labs is a challenge. Join Barbra Sobhani as she shares how the RRCC ML course continued to thrive during this pandemic with the help of HP solutions.
Instructional designers and academic support staff serve a critical role in the design of learning experiences, and are uniquely positioned to perform human-centered research and identify processes and trends that can inform and guide faculty, students, and administrators alike. This session explores the learning designer as researcher, shares methods and frameworks that can guide this work, and facilitates a conversation about what research is and can be within the context of academic support staff.
This session will cover the variables and considerations necessary to develop a data vision and strategy that assures near- and far-term success. It will include an analysis of the various components, contributors, and barriers to that strategy, including stakeholders, systems, institutional momentum, and implicit and explicit drivers that must be considered, all from the perspective of a variety of institutions reflecting varying levels of maturity regarding institutional data and approaches. It will also offer some of the key barriers that are often encountered, as well as common strategies to address or elude those barriers.
K-12 educators across-the-board have turned to digital resources to enhance instruction and address student needs. But not all content is created equal, and educators have been challenged to learn and scale online learning platforms when sifting through options to find high-quality material with little time for basic considerations of instructional design. This session will focus on creating and implementing online, blended and digital learning innovations within the K-12 sector that can be sustained over time. Considering that blended learning or some aspect of digital learning is likely to persist in K-12 education, we must revisit the design considerations most important for ease, adaptability, and assurance of student success in our K-12 classrooms. Blended learning calls for us to use a more systematic methodology (rooted in instructional theory) to design and develop content, experiences, and other solutions to support our students’ acquisition of new knowledge or skills.
Eastern Gateway Community College in Ohio has been delivering free college education to more than 60,000 students over the last 5 years and saved over $12M in course materials through the adoption of free and open educational resources with MERLOT and SkillsCommons. How did we do it? Stop by.
This session will present a framework for reimagining the transition from Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) to the conceptualization, development, and delivery of high-quality blended learning experiences
Develop an implementation plan for your online course quality review and refresh initiative using OSCQR, OLC’s online course quality scorecard. Gain access to free openly licensed tools and resources to support your larger-scale online course review initiative to systematically review and refresh the instructional design and accessibility of online courses and programs.
Dive deeper into the conference experience with OLC Live! Hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr as they lead focused conversations with presenters and participants focused on this year’s conference themes:
Build a creative final assignment for students to demonstrate their learning, add an opportunity to share and publish their work and you create an engaging student experience. Our university has provided everyone with access to the Adobe Creative Cloud. The opportunity for students to utilize this level of professional software in an assignment not only enables them to demonstrate their learning in a creative way but introduces them to tools to increase their digital literacy. The assignment is then peer reviewed and eligible to be part of an Open Educational Resource that will be published each semester.
Even prior to COVID-19’s introduction of nearly every student and school to some degree of online teaching and learning, the world of online learning has exploded with roughly 6 million of the country’s 56 million K–12 students having taken at least one online or virtual class over the last 20 years. Most K–12 teachers start with a learning management system (LMS) to manage their online classroom space (for example, Canvas, Blackboard, Google Classroom, or Schoology) and have also integrated technology into their coursework. Even more of us have added remote synchronous instruction using a host of web-conferencing tools during the pandemic. This session will focus on taking our unique knowledge base of what has worked and what we need additional support and training to reimagine in the digital sphere when asking key questions about online quality in the new normal. It is certainly very possible for K-12 educators to capitalize on the distance learning revolution and extend what works in the post-Pandemic world.
Join us to learn how online programs can grow and prosper, even in this pandemic era, by employing recent research and online best practices. We will also share our institution’s return to in person (with live online elements) and online courses including the planning, successes and opportunities for improvement.
Feeling lost or confused is the fastest way for students to lose interest and trust in an online course. Your presence is essential! Veterans and newbies alike can expect to walk away with at least one new technique to engage students and improve their next online course!
In this workshop, we will discuss a 5-step approach for developing a comprehensive and sustainable faculty development program for online and blended teaching. Participants will discuss how they plan to complete each step at their institutions, and the facilitator will provide specific and effective examples to supplement the conversation.
Protecting integrity of assessments is crucial in remote learning environments. Proctorio has established itself as an industry leader in remote proctoring by maintaining the highest data security and privacy standards and providing a secure and scalable platform to thousands of institutions worldwide.
Looking for FREE teaching materials and exemplary online teaching practices using Open Educational Resources? Join us for a guided tour in exploring free resources to help teachers and their students prepare for successful online and hybrid learning. Walk away with FREE teaching tools you can put right to work!
This session will share feedback gathered from students regarding their online learning experience in a virtual chemistry lab. Specific examples will get shared regarding the perceived transferability of the skills mastered online with those required in a physical lab.
Given the rapid disruption and changes brought on by COVID-19, we know that there will be no returning “back to normal.” In this session, we want to explore ways in which educators and leaders can begin to design and give shape to a new normal, even through all the uncertainty of now. Using the mindsets and tools of design and strategic foresight, we will explore how we might reimagine our teaching and learning environments - particularly online and digital learning environments - by addressing and harnessing the plausible outcomes and impacts of our collective uncertainty. We will also explore and practice with emerging tools and strategies for leading change in a rapidly-changing world.
Learn how Western Governors University is leveraging an AI-based community-building platform to create a deeper sense of belonging among prospective students. Preliminary research findings concerning the impact that belonging has on enrollment will be shared. Attendees will discuss the research implications, especially as applied to their own institution.
Join us for a relaxing night of treats and trivia! Bring your own drinks, cookies, and any other delectables. Be ready to share recipes and join in the fun and laughter of an evening of trivia among new friends. This is a family friendly event. The more the merrier!
Join our Coffee Talk to meet members of our business development team, chat about our range of online learning solutions, and learn about our free Market Assessment opportunity.
Join us for some quiet time to decompress, reconnect mind and body, and practice some self-care as we turn our focus inward for a short while. Mindfulness has been defined as a practice of "bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occuring in the present moment" (Baer, 2003). Clark Shah-Nelson will lead this guided mindful meditation session geared toward centering ourselves on higher levels of consciousness so that we can experience OLC Innovate Virtual Conference in a healthy and present way together.
Baer, R.A. (2003). Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical psychology: Science and practice, 10(2), 125-143.
Instructional designers discuss the design, development, and delivery process for launching a series of MOOCs to address institutional needs arising in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The MOOCs are open to all, completely free, asynchronous, and provide pathways for college credit should students wish to enroll at our institution.
This presentation will showcase how we merged 360° technology and an interactive "choose your own pathway" platform to create personalized experiences for our students. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with these virtual learning experiences to better understand the capabilities of 360 technologies and personalized learning pathways.
Join us for this first session of three sessions at OLC’s International Summit, an online convening spanning time zones and continents bringing together thought leaders and practitioners around the concept of digital transformation. This session will present case studies from The Texas International Education Consortium and their work responding to the disruption of the pandemic by harnessing expertise and networks across Texas in online programming, to collaboratively build capacity at institutions in Ghana, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates.
Our new assignments feature, which has been in the works for several years, was released in full. Many courses and institutions have already adopted it, and we encourage you to check it out, too!
Institutions across the United States are quickly shifting gears to offer the delivery of student support services in a virtual environment. This session will explore a real-world example of how an institution of higher education selected and established an online tutoring platform to enhance academic success.
Join us as we examine diversity and inclusion considerations for the online learning environment, specifically the online classroom. Workshop participants will engage in hands-on diversity and inclusion scenario-based training and discussions, mirroring what one might do to increase awareness through scenarios embedded in faculty development.
Join Walden University to discuss innovative pathways for learning and skills development designed to address skills gaps in the workforce.
Employers continue to complain that college graduates do not have the 21st-century-skills they need.
Through this presentation, participants will be able:
1. Utilize a competency framework to evaluate students’ 21st-century-skills
2. Identify the value of digital micro-credentials
3. Explore how their institution can begin addressing these high need skills
As the pandemic accelerated changes to education, the scope of responsibilities for Design teams are expanding to support more faculty, adjust education delivery, and reach learners in new ways. We will ideate around innovation to meet these evolving needs.
As the world looks to address ubiquitous challenges to access to education in both global and local contexts, open education continues to serve as a powerful pedagogy and practice for creating sustainable and impactful change. This session will focus on creating and implementing a culture of digital transformation in online, blended and flexible learning across the globe through critical open educational practices. The presenters will revisit the findings from the 2019 OLC Accelerate Online International Summit on Openness, sharing what was learned, where we’ve gone since, and what new opportunities emerge ahead.
This session will benefit professors seeking to create engaging video content in their courses. We will discuss tools and approaches for creating videos, including types of educational videos (i.e., webcams, screencasts, animations, editing, etc.), options for software and platforms, logistics (e.g., presentation, scripts, lighting, etc.), and general tips and techniques.
The pandemic has accelerated the need for innovative, online programs – and a new flexible model for online program enablement can provide a flexible, revenue-growth focused partnership that truly moves the needle on enrollment growth.
Dive deeper into the conference experience with OLC Live! Hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr as they lead focused conversations with presenters and participants focused on this year’s conference themes:
Controversy is born the moment dreamers begin taking actions to invite the marginalized ones into the secret society of success. It takes bravery to dream beyond the locked gates of educational access for all. When we say “all” we need to be brave enough to identify the students who the system has not traditionally served. It’s more important than ever that we recognize that our systems are not socially just or equitable for our Black and Brown students. The time is now to FIGHT!
Don't miss the opportunity to join others during lunch for the second part of the OLC Innovate Design Sprints series! The first Design Sprint centered community building. In this session you will be asked to dive into the world of collaborative meaning-making. Participants will be divided into teams and together you will generate solutions to a unique design challenge. Along the way, you'll have a chance to make meaningful connections with other conference participants (including our industry partners), will leave with innovative ideas, and even have an opportunity to win a prize! So grab a snack or a meal and hop into a team for some quick designing and lots of fun!
Leaders influence their organizations and followers. Overall, we accept this; however, we rarely consider what happens if leaders are toxic. This session explores the true influences of toxic leadership on both organizations and followers. Additionally, this session equips attendees with an understanding of toxic leadership, behaviors associated with toxic leadership, and strategies to mitigate toxic leaders' influences.
How did pivoting to remote student services due to COVID-19 provide equity of access between online and campus-based students? Presenters address unexpected findings from a study exploring the nature of online units at 31 HEIs. Results and questions of equity and continuation of expanded online services will be discussed.
Student issues confronted in the face-to-face classroom don’t disappear with the move to synchronous and asynchronous online learning. The issues just get a bit more challenging to address. Join this conversation to share best strategies for effectively dealing with student issues.
In this session, join OLC’s Madeline Shellgren and SARUA’s Rassie Louw as they detail what they learned from the inaugural Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) Global community, a group of educators from around the world who gathered over a four month period in 2020 to help answer challenges around digital learning leadership in international contexts, particularly strategy and operations for ensuring equitable and inclusive access to education.
Join us in celebrating the Online Learning Journal’s (OLJ’s) 25th anniversary! To celebrate we’ll spend time reflecting on what makes high quality research, suitable for publication in OLJ or other peer-reviewed journals. We will also discuss how you can become involved in our efforts to continuously improve the quality of research on online learning.
How to deliver effective hybrid classes during Covid-19.
In order to make sure that you select the best proctoring solution for your needs, many factors need to be considered. Join us for a review of available modalities, and hear from universities who have used different modalities successfully.
The rapid shift to online learning caused by COVID-19 has exacerbated existing inequalities for underrepresented learners. Research shows that inclusive, equitable, and welcoming learning environments can close educational gaps and promote the learning of all students. Our CARE framework provides practical design principles that can make online learning welcoming for all learners.
Are you an instructional designer who has been working in higher education for close to 10 years or even longer? Then this session is for you. Let’s bring together like-minded professionals to remind ourselves of the passion for this work and provide a place to discuss emerging opportunities and the future of the field.
This session will summarize an analysis of over 300 undergraduate online courses. Course level data were analyzed to investigate the relationship between class size and student performance (average GPAs and DFW rates). A discussion will be led about how results can be applied to class size in online education.
Session 1 of the ID Summit will begin with a panel discussion on a range of topics that will address the key components of the instructional designer role: designing learning experiences, collaborating with faculty, leveraging educational technology, and integrating new approaches and theories into our work. Join us for this dynamic conversation with our expert panelists!
This education session is an effort to provide quick strategies and techniques for active learning to Academic Faculty and Instructional Designers in Health and Medical Education for their synchronous/asynchronous/blended sessions and course designs that can be applied to teaching all didactic lecture, clinical, and laboratory sessions.
Simple Syllabus is a centralized, template-driven platform that creates a collaborative environment between instructors, instructional designers, and other institutional staff for building online class syllabi—directly within the LMS. Join our session to learn how your peers are using the Simple Syllabus platform to easily create interactive and digital class syllabi for their students all while ensuring compliance with regulatory and accreditation standards.
Have you ever had that magical moment where you just “clicked” with a fellow conference attendee and ended up attending some conference sessions together just to keep the conversation going? This session is all about how we can make that happen in the virtual world! Join us for strategies, inspiration, and of course, the casual socialization you’ve come to expect (and love) from the Speed Networking Lounge.
Embedded within ‘simple’ practices for teaching online are ways of thinking and doing that can be ‘invisible’ to practitioners and troublesome for faculty who are learning how to teach online. This interactive session presents early research findings and invites participants to strategize constructivist approaches to preparing others for online teaching.
One of the best ways to combat feelings of isolation online is through providing meaningful feedback to students. Join us as we conjure some magic and cover best practices of feedback in the online classroom.
In Session 2 of the ID Summit you’ll choose one breakout topic to explore. You’ll have a chance to brainstorm ideas and share resources about your chosen topic/prompt. There will be a collaborative notes document where you’ll work together to create recommendations for addressing challenges associated with the topic. We have created an engagement key which describes the level of interaction that will take place in these breakout sessions.
As teachers, we rely on peer review to help students improve their writing. But how do we ensure peer comments are actually helpful? This study provides detailed guidelines for how to make shorter comments (21-40 words) more productive.
Learning happens when people engage with each other. Harmonize delivers new ways to engage and support students, transforming online discussions into spaces where every student can fully participate in a shared learning experience. With Harmonize, instructors have the tools they need to challenge students to think more deeply and support students with ongoing and consistent engagement—in a way that makes sense for your institution. Join our session to learn more about how Harmonize can transform your online discussions.
The COVID pandemic has required hands-on career and technical education programs to move online. The workshop will demonstrate how to use SkillsCommons, an OER repository of workforce development training resources, to design hybrid and online courses that align with hands-on learning in the workplace.
The static MOOC model has not evolved since its widespread adoption in 2012. This session will explore the development of a dynamic Global Adaptive Instructional Network (GAIN) to create the means to personalize the learning experience for every learner everywhere.
This paper explores the decision-making process during the construction of an online teacher professional development course. The analysis revealed repeated attention to the underlying pedagogy and the process of aligning pedagogical structures with technological affordances. Such alignment is essential for harnessing the potential of online and blended learning designs.
Don’t miss the third and final session of the Instructional Design Summit where raffle prizes will be awarded to participating attendees and breakout group facilitators will have the opportunity to provide report outs from the previous session. Join us for a final reflection on the four corners of an ID’s life!
As leaders are re-examining their programming post-inoculation, including incorporate new course modes and programming modes, including expanding blended and online programs, they are seeking answers to key strategic questions. Leaders are determining how they can build capacity and better support processes and procedures to ensure quality programming. This capacity building and quality depend greatly on the organizational structure (units, reporting lines, staffing, cross-functional teams) and activities (e.g., faculty development, instructional design support, learning technology administration) that take place on campuses. This session reviews the research on organizational models to support quality blended and online learning and brings in leaders in our field to discuss their own experiences in creating a capacity to support quality.
Online discussions form the basis for student interactions in many courses but they are labor-intensive and quite frankly underwhelming. This session questions many aspects of the dominant paradigm and will dive deep into data suggesting other best practices to consider.
Need a break and wish to spread some joy? Join us for an evening of writing letters of thanks and encouragement! Use this time to show appreciation for OLC Volunteers, colleagues, students, or anyone else who needs a joyful letter. This is a family friendly event. The more the merrier!
In August of 2020, a group of STEM educators gathered virtually to discuss and collaborate around the realities and possibilities for online STEM labs. Central to the design of the event (“OLC Ideate Labs for Online STEM: Innovating STEM Education”) was the acknowledgement that while educators around the world were shifting with the move remote, some — namely those engaged in experiential learning — were unsure if / how they could proceed at all in the online context. In this featured session, educators and partners from that event reconvene to showcase the ways in which they’ve leveraged the unique affordances of digital, virtual, and distance learning to innovate in the lab context. They’ll be joined by other experiential learning educators (across the arts and even athletics/sports) to dialogue around their experiences and practices. We invite you to collaborate with us as we engage in stories of successes and failures, but also as we discuss strategies for intentionally incorporating online experiential learning into our educational spaces into the future. Additionally, come reflect with us as we explore the types of things we can do together in convenings such as this to drive support around experiential learning. Finally, if you are an experiential educator, we welcome you to bring your own examples and practices to share with others and add to our digital experiential learning community showcase.
It’s been a wonderful week of conference sessions, and our brains are buzzing with new knowledge, inspiration, and hopefully, new friendships. Remember, though: your brain needs downtime, too! Join us in our final Speed...er, Slow Networking Lounge session for an open invitation to take a breath, take a walk, take a stretch, and take what you need to recharge your batteries.
The movement to the online educational space has been challenging for many of us. During this virtual event, attendees will be guided through specific communication techniques and skill sets that ensure you are presenting yourself in an effective way virtually, and getting the most out of future online events.
Faculty have had to pivot to new methods with short notice, so, reasonably, teachers and students are weary and wary. This session will examine classroom-tested tools and methods, and breakdown the design of new engaging virtual/live/recorded synthesized teaching environments including the free but licensed use of music, sounds, and graphics.
Emmy award winning Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was Netflix’s first interactive movie that allowed the viewer to choose the movie’s storyline. Designed in Articulate Storyline and similar to Bandersnatch, this case-based eLearning module allows the student to choose their own learning path. In this session we will review the eLearning module and discuss the design process while providing technology tips and tricks for developing multifaceted branching scenarios, triggers and layers.
The strategic combination of f2f and online experiences in individual courses is likely to rise in prominence as the pandemic wanes. As a desirable middle-ground between the pandemic ubiquity of online tool use and the desire for safe, value-add f2f experiences, blended has the opportunity to fulfil the promise of being the “best of both worlds.” Drawing from decades of experience with effective institutional blended experience and influenced by emerging trends in faculty and student expectations, this session will offer clarifying perspectives on effective blended course design and institutional implementation post-pandemic.
A university professor with over 50,000 followers on TikTok will provide a crash course on how to use TikTok to connect with students and build community. The first part of the workshop will cover basic information on the benefits of TikTok, how the app itself works, and how participants can use TikTok to create meaningful asynchronous engagement with students. The second half is experiential and will guide participants through brainstorming and designing their own TikToks.
Join OLC Live hosts Chris Stubbs and Katrina Wehr to discover ways to make the most of all the ideas and resources from the conference and beyond with the OLC community. Discuss upcoming opportunities to engage with the community after the conference ends.
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.
Responding to the spring COVID-19 shift to an all-virtual campus, our institution focused on quickly ramping up online teaching skills. This session shares design principles and lessons learned from a rapidly created summer online teaching training program. Partnership between the academic technology team and faculty created enhanced readiness.
This session will highlight how project management tools such as planning, status reporting, and stakeholder management can improve the operations of online learning programs. Opportunities for professional development (OLC class Project Management for Instructional Designers), certification (PMI PMP), and the value of these skills for career resilience will be presented.
Wondering how you can leverage blended programming to meet your teaching and learning needs as we leave the pandemic? We have a Playbook that can help with that!
Equipped with SkillsCommons' vast repository of open educational resources (OER) and SoftChalk's innovative lesson design tools, you can renovate your course materials to align with the unique educational goals of your institution and students. Though we teach common courses across institutions, each institution and each classroom educates a unique combination of students, programs, and pedagogies. This interactive presentation will demonstrate how OER from a program like SkillsCommons and a course authoring tool like SoftChalk enable faculty and staff to make over OER to redesign curriculums.
In this two hour workshop participants will review the importance of Affordable Learning Solutions initiatives and their relationship to OER, review the benefits of using a lesson authoring tool like SoftChalk, and focus on workforce development. Participants will have the opportunity to see SkillsCommons and SoftChalk in action in redesigning OER content for lesson design.
This workshop is designed for institutional administrators as well as instructores and educators of all levels. Gerry, Sue, and Rick look forward to working with you to renovate and remodel your course materials to meet your specific and unique needs.
Join us for the final session of the OLC Innovate Design Sprints series! The Design Sprints consist of three related sessions - each designed and structured in the same way but featuring different challenges. Thus far, designers have delved into considerations of community building and collaborative meaning-making. In the final installment of the series, you'll be asked to design with asynchronous engagement in mind. Participants will be divided into teams and together you will generate solutions to a unique design challenge. Along the way, you'll have a chance to make meaningful connections with other conference participants (including our industry partners), will leave with innovative ideas, and even have an opportunity to win a prize! Snacks or lunch welcome for this third and final lunch networking session!
How can online discussion foster intrinsic student motivation—by supporting peer-to-peer interaction, helping students formulate inquiries, and encouraging them to assume a teaching role? This panel will explore a forthcoming study from 10 institutions finding that inquiry-based discussion can drive greater student engagement, increase faculty satisfaction, and, ultimately, improve academic outcomes.
Health care professionals participate in online graduate programs to advance their practice. Connecting and learning with peers is an integral part of this journey. However, this often conflicts with work and family responsibilities. How can we engage learners and empower them with digital fluency in an online learning experience?
In the rush to offer courses online during the pandemic, ensuring that online technology and pedagogy are fully accessible and otherwise inclusive of students with disabilities is often overlooked. The presenter will provide 20 evidence-based tips on how to deliver an online course that is inclusive of all students.
As we move past the pandemic, more institutions are looking at how to better use technology in the classroom and be prepared for future distasters. Learn how to implement a quality blended learning program in this session. OLC’s Blended Learning Scorecard will be shared along with best practices for an effective blended program.
With educators facing ongoing stress and uncertainty the need to focus on wellness is vital. This training will help educators and leaders learn the importance of caring for themselves in order to continue to support the needs of their staff and students through best-practice self-care strategies designed for busy lifestyles.
During and eventually after the pandemic, providing services to students virtually is integral to an education institution’s success. Services such as advising, orientation, emergency aid, clubs and activities, academic/learning supports, and health and well-being programs must be transitioned online. Join SmarterServices as they explore and share best practices with how to support students.
Reducing the cost of higher education by providing free to low cost course materials has proven to be an important institutional strategy. The session will review strategies to improve the institutional readiness for AL$, customized technologies to implement AL$, and the research agenda to evaluate the impact of AL$.
The pre-designed nature of an online “master course” can make faculty unsure of how to rise beyond the role of Facilitator to that of Instructor; however, master courses can be taught creatively. This session will empower faculty to actively teach and supplement a master course through technology and engagement.
You are convinced that now is the time to adopt OER. Where do you begin? Learn how to use LibreTexts to find OER your colleagues have authored and "remix" customized OER texts with state-of-the-art annotation, computation and homework system capabilities that will best serve you and your students.
Persistence lift is significantly impacted by student recognition; evidenced by the findings of our study and corresponding to findings of extant studies. Students struggling and on the verge of disenrolling exhibited greater motivation to perform well in a competency-based education model following student recognition of excellence (11-20% persistence lift, n=30,440).
In this presentation, we outline data-driven tools that can be utilized to anticipate student challenges and deploy hands-on support to foster student success in times of crisis.
We all challenge conventional wisdom about education to shift pedagogy at our institutions. It’s time to challenge our conventional wisdom about leading change. Join us as we try to make sense of all the change in the past year – what conventional wisdom still holds true, and what’s old news?
Moving beyond the mere transactional sit-and-get conference experience, OLC Innovate brings together educators from across the globe to engage in critical change work in supporting the modern learner, anywhere and anytime. Part fireside chat, part active design sprint, this highly-engaging plenary will weave together the threads of the salient themes and discussions covered across the various tracks, sessions and engagement opportunities. Using a curated set of notes collected by numerous conference attendees, session participants will first hear reflections on how the discussions and themes from the conference presentation connect to our collective role in reimagining educational innovation. Then, we will hear reflections from the leaders of the OLC Innovate 2021 summits, each aligned to different tracks of the conference. We’ll close with a call to action in support of our future discussions, collaborations, and advocacy.
Join us for a transformative session that will not only weave together the threads of OLC Innovate 2021 as a closing activity, but will provide you with a road map and continued momentum for the shared path ahead of ensuring access and impact of our online, blended and digital teaching and learning practices.
The sessions may be over, but the fun doesn't stop there! Live music, fun games, virtual celebrations, organically unpredictable Zoom antics...what's not to love? The OLC Innovate 2021 After Party will be an experience you don't want to miss, and we hope to see you there!
Many online students, when given the space to manage their own time, do not have specific strategies that work for them, despite understanding that time management is important. This presentation considers both clock and experiential time in relation to self-regulation and time management.
To maximize the potential for making connections during live online sessions, this presentation will highlight:
We reduced QR attrition rates from 18% to 5% by implementing theory-based practices, including: Rationale for theory identification, construction of a philosophical framework for course implementation, collection of stakeholder input, implementation, evaluation of impact on attrition, post-implementation maintenance and communication, and institutional socialization of the new paradigmatic shift.
COVID-19 has impacted teaching and learning at all levels. This presentation synthesizes research on challenges and opportunities faced by today’s online doctoral students and discusses how experiences during COVID-19 may impact online doctoral learning. Results of a qualitative study utilizing open-ended interviews with online Dissertation Chairs are presented.
Asynchronous learning opportunities can include engagement and be created with free software...right? This panel will explore the use of Google Forms to create engagement-heavy learning objects for asynchronous learning. In this interactive session, presenters will share actual Google Form creations and their findings from the creation and implementation process.
As universities develop online programs at a rapid speed to meet transnational student enrollment numbers, it is important to consider cultural humility in student learning. This session will highlight best practices learned through a 2020 international study that can be applied to the development of online learning in transnational education.
The internet is full of information, a lot of it notably wrong. Crash Course Navigating Digital Information is a 10-episode YouTube series designed to teach the hands-on skills needed to evaluate online information. It was developed in collaboration with the Stanford History Education Group, The Poynter Institute, and MediaWise.
ABSTRACT: Transformational, DEI-responsive curriculum is a necessity. But how do we create Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) that support our teachers in this process? A DEI-responsive PLC program inspires teachers to curate both curricula and classroom spaces that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive for all learners.
In this session, I will review the rationale for creating and designing an OER for an online RN to BSN course. Additionally, I will review the research I conducted comparing the learning gains between this open textbook with the previous commercial textbook.
With broad adoption of technology in teaching and learning, blended learning is increasing in higher education, particularly at the COVID-19 pandemic time. This session will share practical ideas and resources about what and how to “blend” to optimize student learning and support student success through designing meaningful blended learning environments.
Education 4.0 learning environments need to be flexible and agile with technology changing aspects of education to prepare students for current and future work in the 4th industrial age. Students need to develop a diverse set of skills for an ever-changing world. This presentation explorers tried technology and techniques used in some engineering courses.
Are your learners really learning anything from online discussions? Discussions that don’t help students learn from each other can increase feelings of isolation – the #1 reason online leaners drop out. Let’s ask four key questions and brainstorm innovative approaches to discussions to open pathways for engaging, effective, and collaborative learning.
Don't listen to the naysayers about CBE! Find out how one major university partnered with a professional services company and accomplished the impossible to launch a rigorous CBE program that has already begun to transform the way students learn. It’s CBE by design. CBE at scale. CBE for everyone.
Leveraging the LMS, a simulation, cases, technological tools, and pedagogically sound teaching creates scalable, flexible, personalized, scaffolded, experiential learning combined with repeated reflection. Instructors use templates, customize activities, materials, cases, tutorials, examples, and scenarios aligned with learning objectives to fit student and content needs for improved simulation performance and learning.
I operate two YouTube channels focused around math with more than 21,000 subscribers and over 2 million views. Teaching math via YouTube has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I will teach others how to launch a math channel and create quality content.
This session will highlight an informal faculty mentoring program around online teaching and learning developed in one University Department that could be used as a model for other departments and Universities seeking to support and mentor faculty new to online learning.
Research shows that social presence is important in online teaching and learning. Based on research and practice, this session will share instructional strategies and digital tools to enhance social presence. Attendees will take away ideas and resources to enhance social presence and support student learning in their own online teaching.
COVID-19 put a hard stop to study abroad and exchange programs, causing further isolation and fewer academic opportunities for students. To provide the enriching experience of international travel when social distancing is the norm, learn how to implement a virtual international exchange program in your course, no matter the subject.
For years, Pressbooks has supported the authoring and adaptation of open educational resources (OER), providing the accessible, intuitive, and customizable Authoring & Editing Platform on which faculty have created and shared the resources they need. In recent months, we’ve developed new features and services that will improve the users’ ability to share and discover OER and to deliver and assess the use of those resources in the classroom. During this Discovery Session, Sarah Fennessey will be demonstrating Pressbooks Directory and Pressbooks Results for LMS and taking you Pressbooks questions.
Everyone knows that video can be a powerful tool for engagement and instruction in online classes. But what might a comprehensive strategy look like – one that encompasses all the classes in a university first year sequence, one that aims to develop an intentional roster of student-facing video content, and one that is designed to support student success while providing an additional tool for adjunct faculty and advising partners?
This session will cover the results of a Case Study on a business partnership between an Online Program Management Provider and a Research University. It will discuss and present the problems and concerns arising when the instructional design services are outsourced in the OPM-University model and will suggest best practices for such a partnership.
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Illinois’ teachers have shifted rapidly from traditional instruction to online teaching. The study investigates principals’ perceptions about PK-12 teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and self-efficacy in effective online instruction and shares the success stories of teachers in creating and delivering their online courses.
This presentation will highlight results of the authors’ quantitative study that investigated how K-12 teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) incorporated educational technology tools in their remote classrooms, and the access issues they encountered, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings can inform instructional decisions to better leverage modern technologies and improve learning outcomes in the ELL classroom.
We all have had professional development sessions through our institutions; it isn't always geared to our particular discipline area. MERLOT gives you the opportunity to review materials in your discipline, and work with colleagues across the world. You can grow, learn, and contribute to the community. Find out more!
Dissertation completion is a vital yet complex process for doctoral students. Online students encounter unique challenges of dissertation completion resulting in faculty needing to provide diverse mentorship approaches. This presentation explores online doctoral students’ experiences and effective mentorship strategies that faculty can implement to overcome challenges associated with student research.
PSPP is a free alternative to SPSS, created by the Free Software Foundation. It includes many, but not all, of the features found in SPSS. This tutorial includes a subset of the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS) for use in conjunction with the software.
This session will cover the results of a Case Study on a business partnership between an Online Program Management Provider and a Research University. It will discuss and present the problems in process management during this partnership that caused a negative impact on faculty motivation to participate in the instructional design process and to teach online. This session will suggest the best practices for this partnership.
Feedback in online modalities continues to be an important area of discussion. As a result, there is need to examine the most valuable way to provide feedback to benefit student learning. In this session, research on student perceptions of feedback will be presented. Research findings will provide faculty and administrators with greater understanding of the most valuable ways to provide discussion forum feedback that is most beneficial to student learning in the online classroom.
Online education and learning environments struggle with students feeling isolated from their instructors. The discrepancy between student engagements with online materials and the achievement of learning outcomes has also been problematic. The authors will be attempting to apply the use of a novel communication tool and building an Online Community.
This discovery session will demonstrate theory-guided online teacher professional development course template. We will engage participants in exploring affordances of online and blended instructional modalities for pedagogical purposes. Participants will walk away with a template and several practical examples for implementing sociocultural practices within an online environment.
Fully online classes use simulated labs in an attempt to provide a traditional learning component in the online classroom and help students actively engage in the learning process. This session will discuss the impact of online lab exercises in enhancing student understanding of core concepts taught in Introductory Astronomy courses.
Virtual professional development has become a common practice in K-12 and higher education to continue the advancement of employee learning while also maintaining teacher health and safety through social distancing. This presentation seeks to explore how the innovations in virtual meeting spaces can provide increased engagement, professional growth, and efficiency.
Drawing upon his broad experience, administering Poll Everywhere accounts at Stanford University and consulting with individual faculty in Human Biology—Carlos Seligo will share a case study and best practices for faculty to promote active learning among students and collaboration among colleagues, during our rapid transition to online teaching.
Academic integrity with testing in the home environment can be promoted using remote proctoring tools, but there are many types and options to choose from. This session will feature a remote proctoring tool evaluative guide and implementation recommendations for adaptation by other institutions."
How do you provide educational field experiences when schools are closed? This session focuses on pre-service school librarian field experiences, and effective efforts that preparation faculty and school sites make to provide valuable virtual experiences.
There are snow days, storms, pandemics...how can you be ready? Check out our sample lessons (created in MERLOT’s Content Builder), attend this session, and discover how to do it yourself.
Enjoy a hands-on learning experience of PlayPosit's platform while learning about the powerful instructional design tool’s full suite of applications and some of the most popular partner use cases over the years.
The second round of CARES Act Funding provided $21.2 billion in additional assistance for higher education institutions. How can you best position your school or program to take advantage of these funds and what stipulations are most important to consider when applying.
During the COVID crisis many online courses are using virtual proctoring. Students are pushing back due to Concerns, Costs, Convenience, and Choices. This session will explore the current status of online proctoring including solutions schools are using to alleviate the student’s concerns.
Identifying opportunities of hybrid learning for creating engaging and effective learning environments.
Student motivation and engagement are the key to a strong learning community. With the sudden transition to online classrooms during COVID-19, it becomes much harder to keep students connected. This session presents FeedbackFruits pedagogical tools that help educators create engaging courses and its new AI solution to save instructors time.
Neurodivergent students face barriers with standardized learning but thrive in a multimodal learning environment that lets them focus. Game Based Learning (GBL) uses games to convey instructional material engagingly. In this talk we will discuss methods for using GBL to ‘level up’ the learning experience for neurodiverse learners.
This Exposition Foundry session aims to honor the goals of OLC Innovate with a space for discussing how we can all create more inclusive learning environments while sharing how Remote Learner is attempting to answer that question for ourselves.
User experience is of utmost importance to competitive online software providers. ProctorU employs several channels to gather feedback from test-takers and administrators. Hailey is a Product Marketing Manager at ProctorU and has been with the company for nine years. In this session, she will explain the process used by ProctorU in order to make user feedback a reality while viewing a real-time product update.
For more than 50 years, Walden University has been using educational innovation to empower the greater good. Explore our impact as a leader in distance and online learning, and discover Walden’s Acts for Good, an initiative that helped us make an impact on communities across the country.
Technology-enriched learning provides a level of insights never before seen, and the ability to support students in ways we've only started to explore. How do we leverage the full potential of data to improve teaching and learning while upholding our commitment to student privacy and security, and ensuring positive impact on a student’s desired outcomes?
Are you evaluating solutions that can track and ensure integrity, accreditation compliance, and federal guidelines in your online programs from day one of the student life cycle?
Compute intensive workflows and the need for collaboration isn’t reserved for after school, it is within our education today. ZCentral has the remoting solution that you and your students need. You don’t have to take our word on it, dial into this session to not only hear about how ZCentral enabled other schools to continue remotely when COVID-19 hit, but also see for yourself what this technology can do.
Maintaining test-taker privacy is at the core of Proctorio’s Learning Integrity Platform, not an afterthought. How does Proctorio set itself apart from other remote proctoring solutions when it comes to protecting test-taker privacy and data security?
This presentation outlines effective practices for delivering equitable quality education regardless of modality and explores how we might reimagine our learning delivery methods to better duit today's and tomorrow's higher education ecosystem.
Join Rachael Barksdale, Carolina's Distance Learning Digital Specialist, for a demo of their Forensics Fingerprinting virtual lab and a discussion of combining digital and hands-on science labs in online science courses.
BigBlueButton focuses on one goal: providing teachers and students the most learner-centric virtual classroom in the world. This presentation showcases some of the amazing adoption of BigBlueButton in 2020, how it enabled schools world-wide to quickly move online, and the upcoming features planned in 2021 for teachers.
What happens when all social events are canceled and everyone is forced to learn remotely? The result is a learning experience that can feel overwhelming and isolating. Learn how Fort Hays University is using technology to build authentic relationships and engage students and build authentic relationships. We’ll be addressing your questions live in the VoiceThread!
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An investment in building culturally responsive teaching environments requires structural changes to the curriculum. This session will introduce an adaptive version of NYU Steinhardt’s Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard as a tool for faculty to take a deep look into the content of the curriculum to critically analyze whose knowledge the texts’ privilege, and how different groups are being represented. The scorecard looks at a few dimensions of the curriculum including 1) Representation, 2) Social Justice and 3) Instructor’s Materials. Attendees will leave with an action plan that will include short and long-term changes that they can make to their curriculum that will validate their student’s cultural funds of knowledge and activate their culturally-bound prior knowledge. (edited)
During the COVID crisis many online courses are using virtual proctoring. Students are pushing back due to Concerns, Costs, Convenience, and Choices. This session will explore the current status of online proctoring including solutions schools are using to alleviate the student’s concerns.
Health care professionals participate in online graduate programs to advance their practice. Connecting and learning with peers is an integral part of this journey. However, this often conflicts with work and family responsibilities. How can we engage learners and empower them with digital fluency in an online learning experience?
How can online discussion foster intrinsic student motivation—by supporting peer-to-peer interaction, helping students formulate inquiries, and encouraging them to assume a teaching role? This panel will explore a forthcoming study from 10 institutions finding that inquiry-based discussion can drive greater student engagement, increase faculty satisfaction, and, ultimately, improve academic outcomes.
This presentation will highlight results of the authors’ quantitative study that investigated how K-12 teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) incorporated educational technology tools in their remote classrooms, and the access issues they encountered, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings can inform instructional decisions to better leverage modern technologies and improve learning outcomes in the ELL classroom.
ABSTRACT: Transformational, DEI-responsive curriculum is a necessity. But how do we create Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) that support our teachers in this process? A DEI-responsive PLC program inspires teachers to curate both curricula and classroom spaces that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive for all learners.
This paper explores the decision-making process during the construction of an online teacher professional development course. The analysis revealed repeated attention to the underlying pedagogy and the process of aligning pedagogical structures with technological affordances. Such alignment is essential for harnessing the potential of online and blended learning designs.
This discovery session will demonstrate theory-guided online teacher professional development course template. We will engage participants in exploring affordances of online and blended instructional modalities for pedagogical purposes. Participants will walk away with a template and several practical examples for implementing sociocultural practices within an online environment.
Student-to-student collaboration in the classroom has immeasurable value. The rise in online classes and platforms has instructors investigating best practices and pedagogies that allow for students to collaborate asynchronously. This session will investigate asynchronous group dynamics, and pedagogies that are effective vehicles of collaboration.
Are you interested in strategies and proven methods for expanding your leadership capabilities? Are you looking for a cross-institutional peer network to broaden your perspective and help you solve local challenges? Then this is the session for you!
Join several faculty from The OLC Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) and get a sneak-peak into this unique leadership development program. IELOL Co-Directors and faculty will discuss the program structure and outcomes, and alumni will share success stories. Designed to build healthy peer cohorts while developing projects to pitch to senior higher ed leaders, the program provides access to a prestigious cadre of faculty who bring a diverse wealth of knowledge about leadership in digital learning. In its 13th year, this premiere OLC program has prepared over 380 leaders representing diverse institutions of higher education from across the globe to position themselves to take the next big step in their careers. As higher education continues to evolve and change rapidly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our field needs more leaders who are prepared to address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of us.
OLC will develop and host the 2021 program in partnership with Arizona State University, named the Most Innovative University by the US News and World Report for six years in a row. ASU’s approach to digital education, unique programs like Starbucks College Achievement Plan, Uber educational benefit, and adaptive education have significantly contributed to the ranking.
In collaboration with the Online Learning Consortium, MERLOT and AnnotatED, the community for annotation in education, Hypothesis is convening a free workshop on collaborative annotation at OLC Innovate 2021. Register now to join us 10am–12pm CT Friday 12 March 2021.
The workshop will start with a quick orientation to collaborative annotation for social reading: What is it, and how are people using it to enrich online learning?
Then we'll shift to a hands-on activity to explore, discuss, and augment readings selected by our special guest educators, focused on topics related to their OLC Innovate presentation on connecting with students through intentional instructor presence. We'll practice reading together to see firsthand how social annotation can build understanding, connections, and community with Rebecca Cottrell, Ann Obermann, Adjoa Robinson, and Lee Scriggins from the Department of Social Work, and Meredith Jeffers from the Department of Modern Languages at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Our conversation will be anchored in text — literally — and spread out to engage other texts, ideas, and people beyond the workshop itself.
The second half of the workshop will combine with a special edition of Liquid Margins, the show where we gather to talk about collaborative annotation, social learning, and other ways we make knowledge together. You'll join episode 20, "Making Sense of Science With Social Annotation," to meet up with educators using social annotation to help students read, interpret, and comment on scientific texts — and share their “findings” with each other. Hypothesis scholar in residence Remi Kalir will moderate a conversation with Erin McKenney, Assistant Professor of Applied Ecology, and Carlos Goller, Associate Teaching Professor, both from North Carolina State University; and Melissa McCartney, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Florida International University and the Director of Research at Science in the Classroom, an AAAS program that helps students learn to read real-world scientific literature.
Read more about the AnnotatED Workshop in the Hypothes.is blog.
To participate in this free workshop, please register online.
Note: You do not need to be a registered attendee of OLC Innovate 2021 to participate in this workshop. Hypothesis will send registrants Zoom connection information prior to the workshop. Registered OLC Innovate attendees will, however, also be able to access the workshop through the OLC Innovate 2021 virtual conference venue.
As the world looks to address ubiquitous challenges to access to education in both global and local contexts, open education continues to serve as a powerful pedagogy and practice for creating sustainable and impactful change. This session will focus on creating and implementing a culture of digital transformation in online, blended and flexible learning across the globe through critical open educational practices. The presenters will revisit the findings from the 2019 OLC Accelerate Online International Summit on Openness, sharing what was learned, where we’ve gone since, and what new opportunities emerge ahead.
Employers continue to complain that college graduates do not have the 21st-century-skills they need.
Through this presentation, participants will be able:
1. Utilize a competency framework to evaluate students’ 21st-century-skills
2. Identify the value of digital micro-credentials
3. Explore how their institution can begin addressing these high need skills
Session 1 of the ID Summit will begin with a panel discussion on a range of topics that will address the key components of the instructional designer role: designing learning experiences, collaborating with faculty, leveraging educational technology, and integrating new approaches and theories into our work. Join us for this dynamic conversation with our expert panelists!
In Session 2 of the ID Summit you’ll choose one breakout topic to explore. You’ll have a chance to brainstorm ideas and share resources about your chosen topic/prompt. There will be a collaborative notes document where you’ll work together to create recommendations for addressing challenges associated with the topic. We have created an engagement key which describes the level of interaction that will take place in these breakout sessions.
Don’t miss the third and final session of the Instructional Design Summit where raffle prizes will be awarded to participating attendees and breakout group facilitators will have the opportunity to provide report outs from the previous session. Join us for a final reflection on the four corners of an ID’s life!
This session will cover program management strategies and student success practices for the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) which is a fully asynchronous online professional master’s degree for working engineers. Faculty and student onboarding practices are discussed as well as strategies used in advising and building community in the program.
Are you tired of receiving email after email asking you questions about material covered in the syllabus? Are you looking for a better way to direct students to the important information they need to be successful in your course? If so, then an interactive syllabus is the vaccine your syllabus needs to thrive in our new normal.
Join Rachael Barksdale, Carolina's Distance Learning Digital Specialist, for a demo of their Forensics Fingerprinting virtual lab and a discussion of combining digital and hands-on science labs in online science courses.
How can we effectively engage faculty at all levels when the nature of pedagogy requires specific knowledge and support? How can we collaborate with faculty who would normally be unwilling or unable to teach online? This presentation will discuss and have participants collaborate on strategies and solutions.
Our new assignments feature, which has been in the works for several years, was released in full. Many courses and institutions have already adopted it, and we encourage you to check it out, too!
Join us as we examine diversity and inclusion considerations for the online learning environment, specifically the online classroom. Workshop participants will engage in hands-on diversity and inclusion scenario-based training and discussions, mirroring what one might do to increase awareness through scenarios embedded in faculty development.
Creation of new faculty development programs can be a lengthy process and may be limited to small enrollment. However, circumstances such as the recent pandemic presented the need to quickly prepare large amounts of faculty to teach online. This presentation will explore a model used to quickly create a quality faculty development course focused on the essentials of online teaching, which can be scaled based on individual institutional needs.
Creation of new faculty development programs can be a lengthy process and may be limited to small enrollment. However, circumstances such as the recent pandemic presented the need to quickly prepare large amounts of faculty to teach online. This presentation will explore a model used to quickly create a quality faculty development course focused on the essentials of online teaching, which can be scaled based on individual institutional needs.
Are you interested in strategies and proven methods for expanding your leadership capabilities? Are you looking for a cross-institutional peer network to broaden your perspective and help you solve local challenges? Then this is the session for you!
Join several faculty from The OLC Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) and get a sneak-peak into this unique leadership development program. IELOL Co-Directors and faculty will discuss the program structure and outcomes, and alumni will share success stories. Designed to build healthy peer cohorts while developing projects to pitch to senior higher ed leaders, the program provides access to a prestigious cadre of faculty who bring a diverse wealth of knowledge about leadership in digital learning. In its 13th year, this premiere OLC program has prepared over 380 leaders representing diverse institutions of higher education from across the globe to position themselves to take the next big step in their careers. As higher education continues to evolve and change rapidly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our field needs more leaders who are prepared to address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of us.
OLC will develop and host the 2021 program in partnership with Arizona State University, named the Most Innovative University by the US News and World Report for six years in a row. ASU’s approach to digital education, unique programs like Starbucks College Achievement Plan, Uber educational benefit, and adaptive education have significantly contributed to the ranking.
This presentation describes actual IOT enhanced online chemistry labs where students in Zoom breakout rooms collaboratively designed experiments, gathered data and analyzed results while working in Google Docs and Sheets. We will demonstrate in real time an IOT-enhanced online lab, while going over multiple paradigms for their use in academia.
This session will tell the story about the development of a two course research methods sequence and present a framework for teaching research methods fully online. The story of the design process will take attendees on a journey through the conceptualization, initial design, formative evaluation, and redesign of the courses.
In this session, we’ll discuss the design of a 1-day course for online and hybrid faculty. We’ll cover course elements and share feedback received from our target audience as well as anticipated course outcomes. By participating, you’ll walk away with practical ideas for implementing an efficient and engaging online faculty development experience.
Eastern Gateway Community College in Ohio has been delivering free college education to more than 60,000 students over the last 5 years and saved over $12M in course materials through the adoption of free and open educational resources with MERLOT and SkillsCommons. How did we do it? Stop by.
Join Dr. Matthew Wise, Director of Chemistry Instruction at The University of Colorado Boulder and Carolina Distance Learning as we discuss how the Boulder campus used Lab kits to navigate the recent pandemic.
(To the tune of The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle)
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from a virus,
that grew to epidemic.
It caused everything to close,
All schools had to go online
All faculty needed to be trained,
How would that fly?
Come hear how & why!