Improve Online Delivery and Boost Student Success: The Power of Strategic Partners, Project Management, and Change Leadership.

In this presentation, we will share a strategy developed by a HBCU to improve online program delivery, promote learner success, and meet institutional and accreditation goals.  

Context: 

The institution at the center of this work has a long history and legacy of providing black students opportunities for excellence in their educational pursuits while honoring the importance of a Christian education. It first started offering graduate degrees in 2008 with the establishment of a School of Graduate Studies in 2021. Throughout this time, the mission has been to provide a diverse community of learners with high-quality education that takes place at a distance.   (mission) .  

In late 2022, facing an accreditation visit, one of the co-presenters, a leader at the institution, embarked on planning to renew and update delivery of online programs in the School of Graduate Studies. While accreditation precipitated the planning, the goal of the exercise was to promote student success in graduate programs where students are studying while working, parenting, and caregiving, so time for study must be purposeful, meaningful, and consistent. The project was to revise and renew the online learning platform as a foundation for providing an optimized and consistent learning experience for students in existing and new programs. Student satisfaction surveys, external audits, and internal observations indicated that while the content and materials in the programs were of great quality and relevancy, there were opportunities to rethink some elements of the online learning experience, such as learner interactions with instructors, assessment and evaluation procedures, and delivery standards and consistency.  

The institution worked with a strategy partner (the other co-presenters) to develop a plan that takes a phased approach to the renewal of online teaching and learning to: 

• Address the university’s mission to provide high-quality education courses and programs that are consistent with the institution’s role and mission to a diverse community of learners through an environment where learning may take place at a distance 

• Align with OLC scorecard and QM standards for quality online education in areas where there were identified gaps/needs. 

Because of the short timeline from planning to implementation, the team worked quickly to identify the needs and resources to meet the goals. The plan is currently in the implementation phase.  

Presentation Details: 

In this presentation, we will share how the plan was developed, the key elements of the plan, and how change leadership principles are integrated into the implementation of the plan. We will discuss key elements of strategic planning, including identifying and using frameworks, determining vision and scope, and engaging stakeholders. Preliminary results and feedback will be woven into the presentation, as the plan will be in the initial stages of implementation at the time of the conference. We will share how we used a project management approach to move from strategy to application.  

We will use online polling with Mentimeter throughout the presentation to engage participants in thinking about their own contexts and opportunities for developing a strategy for renewing practices and processes that support student engagement and experience.  Results will be shared with participants and discussed in real time. We will ask participants to share their own experiences, best practices, and resources through discussion and also on a ‘strategy development’ wall/flipchart where participants can add post-it notes with ideas, questions, and resources. The wall will be summarized and shared out to participants after the conference.  

Key participant takeaways will be:  

• The importance and benefits of working with a partner to develop a strategy 

• The demonstration of key activities for strategic planning 

• How to use foundations of change management to support the plan, including receiving additional resources for institutions to utilize for change leadership 

• How to use a project management approach to move from strategy through application and toward measurement. 

This presentation will be of interest to institutional leaders who are looking to meet accreditation goals, to evaluate and improve program delivery, and to center student success in program delivery and measurement. It will also be of interest to leaders who are looking for practical ways to develop and advance projects with a strategic, functional, and agile plan in a short timeframe.