Do Asynchronous Courses Need Synchronous Sessions to Succeed?
At OLC Innovate this past March, Dr. Tricia Bertram Gallant raised a provocative idea: fully asynchronous courses need synchronous opportunities to truly support student success. I’ll be honest—that landed hard. As someone who has spent years designing and teaching in asynchronous graduate programs, it felt like a bit of a dismissal of what intentional asynchronous […]
Come for the Learning. Stay for the People.
There is a moment at every OLC Accelerate when you realize you are no longer standing in a room full of strangers. Maybe it happens over coffee when someone asks where you are from. Maybe you find yourself laughing with someone you met five minutes ago through an Engagement Hub game. Maybe you strike up […]
Choose the Occupied Table
I remember arriving at my first OLC conference in Nashville feeling three things at once: excited, nervous, and a little in over my head. I was eager to learn and meet people who cared about the same things I did, but walking into a conference for the first time can be overwhelming. Conversations are already […]
The Power of One: Navigating Accelerate with Our Field Guides
There is always that moment at a conference when you walk into a room filled with people, scan the crowd, and wonder where you are supposed to go. Maybe you recognize a few faces from LinkedIn or have colleagues attending with you. Or maybe you are standing there thinking, “I literally do not know anyone […]
Bringing Many Lights Into Focus: Curiosity and Connection at OLC Accelerate 2026
In this time of ever-increasing change for digital learning practices and across educational institutions, we often find ourselves feeling our way around in the dark. Many of us are working as hard as we can to interpret the shadows of a future just around the corner, with uncertainty and instability as our two constants. This […]