OLC Innovate 2023 Program

This presentaton will outline a  design case describing the tensions and resolutions of a virtual STEM mentoring program developed for mid-career STEM women faculty. The design focused on the self-paced modules. The case highlights the intersection of design elements, Bandura’s (1977) sources of self-efficacy, as related to mentoring competencies and career advancement. 

Our institution adopted an asynchronous model for online learning. Despite historical practices, instructors thought that students would desire to engage with their instructors in real time rather than through back-and-forth asynchronous discussions and written feedback.  This thought led to a more in-depth exploration of adaptive synchronous learning.  The impact identified has now evolved into an institution level implementation plan. Presenters include both faculty and staff so that they can share their unique lens on Live Learning including the logistics of running sessions, major roadblocks identified, and student success metrics.  Staff members will cover basics about adjunct faculty contracts, cloud-based conferencing platforms, and legal issues. 

In this session, we briefly present and then lead a discovery discussion of the complex relationship between gender equity and anonymity in course forums in online classes. Our research suggests that patterns in anonymous posting may actually reinforce the same negative perceptions that give rise to it in the first place.

By enhancing instructor presence in an online course, instructors can foster a connection with students and build a strong online learning community. This session explores opportunities for creating an engaged online learning community and strategies to build and maintain a sense of instructor presence throughout an online course.

This presentation will explore the strategies used to build and foster relationships with non-traditional fully online students. We will be showcasing how we communicate, engage and cultivate belonging with our students, while being physically distanced.  

Emerging talent is an important part of meeting employers’ needs for a skilled, diverse workforce. The pillars of an effective blended training program include a technology-enabled learning journey fueled by employer-driven projects, practitioner instructors, and ongoing support to equip recent college graduates from all backgrounds with job-ready skills.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion starts with an idea. How about starting with gratitude?

Virtual reality experiences provide healthcare students an opportunity to practice professional and technical skills in contextualized environments leading to increased confidence in clinical practice. This session explores the collaborative process of designing and implementing an unfolding virtual reality experience within an institution.  

veryone wants to create robust, interactive content but who has the time? This presentation showcases a solution in H5P, an open-source,easy-use technology, that designers and instructors can employ to help their courses meet the needs of all learners in accordance with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines.

There continues to be a need to prepare practitioners with the skills necessary to address global challenges. This presentation will give an overview of the Metaverse and explore the possibilities for how the Metaverse could be used to teach practice skills and connect students globally.

Mission vision and values statements are essential to building an inclusive, engaged, and empowered culture within your online course development team. But how do you ensure your statements will be meaningful and long-lasting?  This presentation will detail strategies and demonstrate a whole-team approach for creating your own MVV development project.

All college instructors, especially knowledgeable industry experts new to the classroom, need strong teaching skills and practical approaches to teaching and learning. Western Dakota Technical College helps improve instructor retention and student engagement using California State University SkillsCommons’ Jumpstart to Successful Instruction, an online, self-paced open course.  

As many students experience isolation in online courses, community building is crucial to students’ engagement in online courses. This presentation will share a creative way to make human connection and build learning community in an online course. Participants will take away new ideas with resource to enhance their online courses.

As educators, we strive to create environments inclusive of racial, ethnic, ability and other differences. Accordingly, online educators should promote body diversity in their pedagogy. This session will equip you to avoid diet culture pitfalls, examine harmful stereotypes, and validate learners struggling with poor body image and disordered eating.

Case Studies: Why More of Us Should Write Them (and Read Them) is an argument for developing data-informed documentation about instructional innovations so they may be readily reviewed and repeated. To ensure the growth and evolution of innovative teaching and learning, results and key features must be documented and shared.

In this presentation, we discuss examples of data analytics we used to explore trends in student enrollments, demographics, and learning outcomes in an online MicroMasters program. Based on our findings, we invite attendees to in-depth conversations about leveraging large-scale learning data to gain insights about online students’ needs and experiences.

This topic will introduce the participants to a persuasive discussion format that is based on the Iowa Caucuses. Within this particular exemplar, an overview of an assignment provided on the ethical and social issues related to genetics and genomics will be provided. 

This study examines faculty perspectives about confidence and readiness to teach online after completing the Online Pedagogy Program at Midwest Community College. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data provided outcomes that were shaped into recommendations for improvement to the design and delivery of the Online Pedagogy Program.

In this session, we will discuss how student choice can be thoughtfully incorporated can personalize course content to increase and deepen engagement. 

The purpose of this presentation is to summarize the process of redesigning an online course for a blended format. The course offers students the flexibility to learn at their own pace with the online resources available to them during the week, while getting discipline-specific (STEM) tests during the computer-facilitated tutorials. A data-driven approach is used to guide the choice of assessment questions based on click-level data gleaned from the course content.

How do we ensure that online students can learn independently, while never learning alone? Join us for a conversation with leaders in online instruction as we discuss how virtual learning communities deliver just-in-time support to reduce faculty workload, increase peer engagement, and improve outcomes for students learning at a distance.

This interactive session focuses on the blueprints for online learning that have been utilized for more than ten years to foster student support and success with the districts throughout Pennsylvania.  Join me to get the keys to open the door to student success in online learning!

Can students have place-based learning experiences when they are online and asynchronous? When they don’t share a place at all? It’s not just possible, it’s more effective than in a traditional shared classroom. Discover course design approaches that get students away from their computers and into their own diverse communities.

Rowan-Cabarrus Community College (RCCC), the 8th largest community college in North Carolina, is no stranger to redesigning developmental education. Over a four-year period, RCCC adapted a state-implemented redesign to better serve Rowan-Cabarrus students. In fall 2022, RCCC rolled out its own model, based on 7 premises, they’d like to share.

NMHU experienced crisis beyond COVID: wildfires, flooding, and water insecurities.  Leadership is exploring lessons learned at the same time addressing our increasingly segmented demographics. Join us as we explore the lessons learned and positive movement forward in crafting quality educational experience for each segment and delivery modality.  

In this session, we discuss how the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) impacts researchers interested in studying online, at-scale education programs, which often enroll EU students. We discuss our own difficulties with ensuring GDPR compliance, suggest general research implications, and provide practical recommendations for conducting research in online education.

The authors will discuss the differences between VR simulations versus on-ground simulation experiences, review development of the pilot program plan and describe the multiphase approach toward implementation. Additionally, the authors present a review of initial outcomes and testimonies of learner experience throughout the pilot program and examine the learners’ improvement in clinical reasoning skills with VR simulations.

This study departs from past literature that characterizes flexibility as a universally positive or negative experience of online learners, to understand flexibility as a relative, individual process (Houlden & Velestianos, 2019). This qualitative case study explores how 15 full-time virtual students (11th and 12th graders) perceive and experience flexibility (of time, pace, place, and pedagogy) when learning online at a K-12 virtual school.

While employers look for a more skilled workforce, individuals are struggling with the rising cost of a college degree. Educators, this is our time to shine! Come learn about our solution-driven partnership with a local business that is transforming lives through our innovative approach to online learning. 

Learn about the growing field of Aviation English language training. Enact pilot and air traffic control radio communications. Overview problems and solutions related to course design and contribute your own ideas for creating conditions for effective oral language skills development online.

Join this session to explore an example of how building a physical learning space for synchronous online teaching can foster student and faculty engagement. Discover ideas and resources for designing an effective studio that supports the online instructor with tools, screens, and space.

In this interactive session, we share how and why instructional designers must take educational research into their own hands. Working through a real-world case study, we engage participants to think about how to design, instrument, and evaluate a learning activity to drive evidence-informed changes that measurably improve a learning experience.

This session will present a summary and discussion of Teaching at Scale: Improving Access, Outcomes, and Impact through Digital Instruction, published in October 2022 by Routledge. The session will focus on ten opportunities and six design principles for teaching at scale.

During this session, we will showcase one method of utilizing Digital Escape Rooms as part of faculty development. Our goal is to minimize the effects of technology resistance and fatigue amongst Faculty while promoting the use of Digital Escape Rooms within their courses.

The Center for Instructional Design (CID) has assisted 20 faculty members with “Edging Out” an online course—from core courses to graduate-level courses. Expanding the reach of this work, CID is building a section in our website called “UTEP Edge Online Resources.” The goal is to provide faculty with examples of real life, high-impact assignments and assessments categorized by subject or discipline. This provides online students with greater access to UTEP and is facilitated by creating a more meaningful sense of belonging to one’s institution (Ostini, et al., 2020; Thistoll & Yates, 2016). 

This proposal is to present a comprehensive Teaching Case Study that was written to align with Program and Course Objectives for a Business Management program written with Open Educational, Responsible Management, and Culturally Responsive pedagogies to support diverse learner needs.
 

Game based learning works for young audiences. It’s time to bring game based education to adult learners. When combined with Web3 concepts, completely new ways of building skills with adult learners emerge. This is an immersive workshop in which participants will experience a game-based learning challenge with the opportunity for discussion & critique.

The session will discuss considerations of virtual reality in educational environments. It will also examine the viability of Second Life as a platform in education. This session will highlight Valdosta State University’s virtual campus in Second Life. Second Life is an internet-based virtual environment program, which allows users to interact with other users through the use of motional avatars.

SUNY Empire State University faculty, professionals, and administrators will discuss their campus’s implementation of Desire2Learn’s Brightspace. Participants will address the challenges and potential solutions found when completing a Learning Management System (LMS) transition. They will also look at the impact of SUNY’s initiative to bring 51 campuses together under one Digital Learning Environment (DLE).

At TCSPP, we have several campuses and three different delivery modalities, online, blended, and on-gorund. The challenge was to develop the same course for all campuses and modalities. This included modifying the syllabus and creating one Canvas course for all modalities. This presentation provides the recipe of how we did it!

Third-grade reading proficiency is an indicator of future student success; however 47% of students in one state are not meeting this goal. This mixed methodology study investigated the extent to which virtual school in second grade prepared students for third grade reading achievement using pre and post COVID data.

The design of online programs varies widely, however the desire for students to feel connected to the student community is present along that full spectrum. In this session we’ll present the approach taken by our institution and discuss what has worked well (or not so well) at other institutions. 

Research supports inclusion as critical for effective learning (Strayhorn, 2018). In a challenging statistics class, humanizing online discussions were designed to create meaningful connections and a sense of belongingness with the class. At the end of the semester, students were asked about participating in the discussions. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Implementing a culture of care in online learning is crucial to student success. This session will explore the idea of a culture of care and how the use of artificial intelligence-based tools allow faculty to create a supportive and flexible learning environment for students.

ActiveFlex expansion occurred at our university in Fall 2021.  As Ian Malcolm said, “preoccupied with whether we could, we didn’t stop to think if we should”.  Positive early results overshadowed development issues.  Our journey describes ActiveFlex challenges, solutions, and future concerns.  Although challenges arise, resilience and flexibility find a way.

This presentation will explore the dynamic relationship of program leadership and community involvement regarding internship experiences of students.  Buy-in from hospital and healthcare leadership is necessary for successful internship experiences.  Program leadership has learned how to foster these relationships through trial and error.

We always talk about how to prepare faculty to teach online but rarely do we talk about how we celebrate faculty and students making the work environment more enjoyable. This session will focus on the fun in celebrating eLearning and it's success. The audience will be asked to share their celebrations and ideas, too!

Despite ongoing developments of the micro-credentials and the popularity of massive open online courses (MOOCs) they are yet to gain traction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Demographically, the continent has a youth population who are transitioning into the workforce and are not immune to the disruptions of the digital age. Additionally, the educational systems in SSA are grossly inadequate to provide needed skills and competencies quantitatively. Therefore, research gaps exist in learning of the low micro-credentials and MOOCs relevance and adoption in SSA. Considering developing ecosystems around micro-credentials and MOOCs, how should open universities in sub-Saharan Africa (re)position to strategically lead micro-credentials adoption, relevance and mainstreaming? This research answers that with a focue on SSA open universities.

Are you looking for a versatile, intuitive tool to expand connection, collaboration, and engagement? Padlet is a cloud-based platform that allows users to upload, create, and share all forms of content on virtual bulletin boards. Whether you are hosting a brainstorming session, presenting concepts, reflecting on the learning experience, co-creating content, or showcasing student work, Padlet can empower your practice.

The Food Justice Leadership Academy was a pilot mini-course that examined the structural, historical, and cultural roots of the US food system and issues surrounding disparities in food access, land ownership, agricultural practices, distribution of technology within African American communities. 

Instructional designers and instructors alike often find themselves lost, overwhelmed, or reverting to what they know without exploring new possibilities. The FIU Online Showcase Course is an inspiration hub that highlights teaching strategies, learning science, and diverse educational materials in an effort to empower us to imagine limitless e-learning possibilities. 

Doctoral attrition has been a perennial concern across disciplines and decades with distance (DE) education doctoral programs consistently experiencing higher attrition than traditional/residential programs. To addresses this issue, we propose a mentorship model of differentiated support for online doctoral candidates depending on the candidate’s knowledge, skill, and level of self-direction.

During the pandemic, teachers who found success during emergency remote education used district support, collaborated with colleagues, demonstrated perseverance, and had high levels of intrinsic motivation. The successful adaptation to the virtual setting wasn’t without challenges. Success was a direct result of the perseverance and dedication of highly skilled educators.

This session will share the University of Arizona Global Campus’s Academic Operations department’s approach to leveraging the continuous improvement process to carry out faculty focused system and process improvement initiatives. The focus of this presentation will be outline the design, development, and implementation of a new adjunct faculty compensation model the university launched in October of 2021, and the continuous improvement process used to evaluate and collect feedback from faculty and staff. This data collection process helped drive data driven decisions on planned improvements to the model for the next fiscal year.

Complementary - not competing - programs.   Managing a healthy online portfolio across a system of institutions requires leadership collaboration across campuses.  This session presents a process for chief academic officers across a system to review online degree proposals to ensure that online degree offerings provide multiple pathways for students.

In this session, we will present the results of our research on retention rates in an at-scale degree program. We find that despite the accommodating admissions, retention is comparable to other more selective online programs, and not far behind on-campus programs.

How can the curriculum and student learning experience for fully online academic programs be intentionally designed to facilitate success for the specific student audience? This session will discuss one university’s holistic approach to program planning and how that information carries through to course design with a focus on student success.

The presentation will highlight the many benefits of creating a programmatic approach to meeting accessibility compliance using a supplier-partner relationship. This includes the gamut of online courses from high school to graduate school. BYU’s highly collaborative partnership with Symbiosis and the program is put in place from each party’s perspective. 

This session will highlight podcasting as a stage for sharing research and advocacy through simple planning steps and intentional focus on a specific area of change work.

We share our developed quality assurance processes for the development of new online courses, and the review of existing courses, and how we created a process that satisfied key institutional stakeholders including administrators, union leaders, faculty, and staff.

In an 8-week online course, students studied topics including math anxiety, mindset, and memory formation. Students examined root causes of their math anxiety, strategies for dealing with these negative feelings, and explored mathematics applications. A comparison of pre- and post-course MSEAQ results showed an increase in reported self-efficacy regarding mathematics.

Course quality reviews have a number of benefits for various stakeholders. Why then do institutions find the process and outcomes so darn frustrating? This presentation will showcase how one institution iterated to solve issues in the course review process and implement scalable, learner-centered feedback for faculty developing online courses.

This session outlines the need at our institution for faculty support on OER adoption and authoring, describes the ways in which institutional partners collaborate in an on-going response, shares efficacy data on these solutions, and engages participants in a conversation to brainstorm and troubleshoot the application of these ideas.

How a small break room at a major university was converted into a studio to film faculty and their presentations, and how it propelled the department to develop a full-service technologically-advanced studio. Discussion includes equipment needs, implementation, keys to functionality, facilitating faculty needs, ease of use, and expected costs.

Learn how one instructional designer is letting data inform faculty training. The presenter will describe the types of data collected, identify key themes found in the data, describe current faculty training efforts, and share the vision for an ongoing faculty training plan based on the analysis of the data.