In this gamified session, you will embark on a quest for the key to online student success. Follow the pathway, collect treasures and learn how we created the Online Teaching Certification program; the key to preparing instructors to provide quality online instruction and level up the success of online students.
Join us as a single player or create a clan to learn about our Online Teaching Certification (OTC) program. Retrace our path to success as you collect jewels and clues, and find the key to providing faculty with the resources and support to effectively teach online.
According to the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (2018, 2019), as overall postsecondary enrollment in the U.S. dropped from fall 2016 to fall 2017, the number of students who took at least some of their courses online grew by more than 350,000. When we consider this year’s conference theme, Accelerating Online Learning Worldwide, it is important to focus not only on accelerating online enrollment, but the quality of online instruction as well.
In 2016, our institution launched the Strategic Plan for Online Learning, a three year plan that explored a variety of themes related to online learning. The plan identified six goals, one of which focused on advancing quality online instruction in order to increase student satisfaction and success. This presented a formidable challenge, as we had little in the way of existing relevant professional development content to offer, a small online learning team, and a daunting task ahead. Armed with data regarding student success in online courses, our desired outcomes, and a little creativity, we began our quest.
With over 450 full- and part-time online instructors whom we wanted to accommodate in a reasonable amount of time, we did not have the resources to offer a facilitated, cohort style program. Instead we opted for a fully online, on-demand approach. Our program features three pathways to certification, six learning tracks, and over 25 courses that can be mixed and matched for the ultimate personalized learning experience. In our specialty learning tracks, we also include consultations with our Instructional Developers, as well as the opportunity and resources to create professional introduction and instructional videos in our studio! Additionally, for new, short-notice hires, we offer an Instructional Developer/Online Learning Mentor program designed to assist these faculty as they navigate the challenges of the first semester in a new environment. All courses offer downloadable products that can provide instructors with an easily accessible resource as they move to implement the new ideas they encounter in the program.
Our course offerings were created in-house by our online learning team and include topics such as LMS management, online pedagogy and andragogy, engagement, communication, collaboration, accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, copyright, authentic assessment, gamification, and more. In the spirit of continuous improvement, our future plans include growing our catalog of course offerings and learning tracks to coincide with trends in online learning and the evolving needs of our program administrators and faculty. One idea we are most excited about pursuing is creating individual learning tracks for each academic division! This program is sustainable and scalable to any size due to its on-demand and digital nature.
In order to gain support and buy-in from faculty members, we created a positive marketing campaign highlighting the program’s benefits for both instructors’ practice and their students’ experiences. Additionally, we award a variety of shareable, verifiable digital badges for the completion of learning tracks. Faculty can share their credentials in their LMS courses and on any social media platform.
As we strive to meet the needs of our online instructors, we also support the needs of the administrators responsible for the success of their online programs. To assist division directors and program chairs in evaluating and guiding their online faculty, we created the Online Course Observation Form. This form consists of four competencies, each containing a variety of components important to online student success. The form provides a score in each of the competencies, and the accompanying Observer’s Guide provides prescriptive recommendations linked to course offerings in the Online Teaching Certification program. The Guide also includes annotations outlining the rationale for the inclusion of each component, as well as resources for further exploration.
Come join us in the quest environment to learn more about our Online Teaching Certification program and ways you could implement a similar program at your institution. You’ll use your mobile device, tablet or computer to join the quest, or we will have a few devices available to share. You and/or your clan will access our game environment, navigate the path to each marker, review content and answer questions to earn jewels, and work to be the first to reach the Key. Your leaders will circulate, share clues and hints, and then pull everyone together at the end to debrief you on your journey, respond to any additional questions and provide take-away resources. “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this” (The Legend of Zelda, 1986).
References:
The Legend of Zelda [Computer software]. (1986). Redmond: Nintendo.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2019). Enrollment and employees in postsecondary institutions, Fall 2017; and financial statistics and academic libraries, Fiscal Year 2017. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019021REV.pdf
National Center for Education Statistics. (2018). Number and percentage of students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by distance education participation, location of student, level of enrollment, and control and level of institution: Fall 2015 and fall 2016. Digest of Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_311.15.asp?current=yes