Paths of Quality: Using OER, Badges, and Video to Prepare an Online Internship Course for Quality Certification

Description

The formal implementation of course quality certification programs is becoming an increasing reality in higher education. The State of Florida, in particular, has implemented an ambitious plan to improve online course quality by certifying 90% of online courses at public universities, based on standards inspired by the Quality Matters rubric (Florida Online Course Design Quality Designations, 2019). While some types of online courses are a natural fit for quality certification with a “weekly module” layout, there are also many courses that don’t fit a typical format for a quality-certified course and may present unique challenges towards certification.

The presenters, consisting of a faculty internship coordinator and an instructional design team, will detail the steps they took to prepare an online recreational therapy internship course for Quality Matters (QM) certification through the use of student and instructor-created video, badges, and freely available open education resources (OER). They will also share data retrieved from an action research model of evaluating these changes in multiple iterations of the course.

The presenters will provide practical tips for instructional designers and faculty to design online internships and any courses based in large part on experiential learning. This includes steps that can be taken to improve student-to-student interaction and meeting specific QM standards and with an emphasis on making the course design experience enjoyable and meaningful for all stakeholders. 

Who will benefit

This session should appeal to instructional designers and faculty who are motivated-- intrinsically and/or extrinsically-- to pursue quality standards such as QM for their online courses, particularly for non-traditional courses that involve experiential learning such as internships and study abroad courses. The session will also benefit anyone interested in the implementation of OER, badges, and the creative use of video in online courses in order to improve student interaction, engagement, or simply to make the experience of designing, teaching, and taking an online course more fun. Overall, the presentation should appeal to a broad audience including instructional designers, teachers/faculty, education researchers, design thinkers, and administrators.

How we’ll do it

The presenters will draw upon elements of visual storytelling in order to highlight practical solutions to contemporary issues in online teaching. The presenters plan to reveal theoretical concepts and share ways that instructional designers and faculty can think creatively to utilize simple tools that will make a difference for their students so that others can apply some of these lessons into their own practice. The presenters plan to offer an opportunity for attendees to participate through a series of guided questions and interactive “callouts” aimed at creating a fun and colegial session where attendees can meaningfully contribute to the conversation. 

Objectives

• Attendees will be able to identify tools and strategies that can be taken to improve student-to-student interaction in online courses that are focused on external, experiential learning activities.
• Attendees will be able to recognize and describe challenges in obtaining quality certification (such as Quality Matters) in non-traditional courses and identify some steps that can help overcome these unique challenges.
• Attendees will be able to identify and apply simple action research strategies aimed to gain a better understanding of how tools and activities within an online course are used and perceived by learners, and how the design can be improved in subsequent iterations of the course.

Reference

Florida Online Course Design Quality Designations. (2019, May 20). Retrieved from https://dlss.flvc.org/florida-online-course-design-quality-designations