An EPIC approach to increase student success and retention in online classes at Wake Tech will be presented. It included collaboration, teamwork, and faculty and student preparedness strategies. We will discuss the development and deployment of each EPIC component and how it contributed to improvements in student success and retention.
As part of Wake Tech’s quality enhancement plan (QEP), a multi-pronged approach to increase student success and retention was activated. The components for faculty included eLearning quality standards, online instructor certification, mentoring support, and course reviews. For students, they were required to pass a gateway course to qualify to take an online course.
With a focus on student preparedness and faculty preparedness to teach quality online courses, EPIC was developed. It stands for eLearning Preparedness across the College and required faculty, staff, and administration participation. For student preparedness, a team was developed a gateway course that contained information and skills that students should know before taking an online course. This was titled eLearning Intro and deployed in fall 2015.
The student gateway course taught students about time management skills, organizational skills, basic computer skills, and how to navigate and use assessment and collaboration tools in the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS). While preparing students is important to their success in online classes, so is preparing faculty to teach an online class.
Because of the importance of having quality courses and instruction, a faculty preparedness initiative involved creation of multiple teams to create the components of EPIC. Additional teams were deployed to implement these components. Each team used scholarly research to investigate best practices and to create proposals for approval by an overarching committee. Team leads were put in place to manage each team and faculty and staff were recruited to join these teams. Each team had a division dean to support the team lead and to ensure communication to all members of each academic division occurred.
One team was charged with creating eLearning Quality Standards for online teaching to ensure some standardization in how courses were developed and facilitated. The output was a detailed document that provided guidance to faculty on how to organize their course, how to ensure communication and collaboration, and how to ensure assessments were tied to student learning outcomes. This document was later used to evaluate online courses and provide division deans with an aggregated report about quality teaching in their division.
Another team developed professional development in the form of a 30-hour online teaching certification. This involved faculty, eLearning technologists, and accessibility experts. Together they created a robust instructor certification for faculty who wanted to teach online. This certificate was modified and offered as a continuing education course for outside experts who desire a credential to show their expertise in online instruction.
A third team developed a peer review process and rubric to be used to evaluate courses that faculty voluntarily submitted for review. While faculty had the option to either take the 30-hour online teaching certification, experienced faculty were encouraged to submit their course for review to a set of their peers qualified to evaluate it for quality. This peer review process was anonymous and feedback was received by the faculty member from a peer review coordinator.
A fourth team involved creation of a mentoring program to assist new online faculty in development and facilitation of quality online courses. This required that all new faculty be paired with an experienced online instructor while they completed the 30-hour instructor certification. This program was tested in Spring 2017 and become fully operational in Fall 2017. The components of this program will be presented in this session.
Another team vital to the success of the program was the change management team. It provided a communication pipeline to the entire college, coordinated events to advertise and discuss EPIC, and provided incentives to those who completed the 30-hour instructor certification.
Once these components were in place, a course review process was developed and implemented to see if faculty had adopted these eLearning quality standards for their online courses. The outcome of EPIC showed increases in student success and retention. As faculty continue to make improvements in their online courses, this trend should continue.
This workshop will be interactive and open with a short small group discussion of what participants expect to see in a quality online course with a report out and documentation of responses on a flipchart by one person in each group. They will physically walk up to the flipchart and write in their group’s response. Then participants will be asked to talk about their experiences with students and what knowledge, skills, and abilities they believe students need before taking an online course. Each group will report out and a presenter will list the responses on the flipchart. This will set-up the presentation about eLearning Intro and create interest in how to Wake Tech has prepared students to take online courses. eLearning Intro and its components will be presented in detail, along with statistics of success rates.
Next, participants will be asked to think about what resources would support faculty who teach online. Participants will ask the person to the left of them and write down that person’s response. Then participants will be asked to walk around and ask two other people what their response is and then there will be a report out and documentation of responses. A presenter will document these responses on a flipchart. A rating of the top five resources will be voted on and highlighted for the group. An in-depth discussion of why these five were voted as the top ones and how they tie to faculty preparedness and student success will occur.
Next information on the EPIC structure will be discussed and the team composition and types of teams will be highlighted and explained. Details about each teams’ objectives and how they successfully carried them out will be discussed. An open discussion will occur allowing participants to comment on the types of teams they have used at their institutions and what successes they have experienced using teams. Participants will be encouraged to come to the front and write on the flipchart the name of the team, its objective, and why it was successful. As participants come to the front, presenters will walk around and talk with others to see what they think about the teams used in EPIC and whether they are interested in using these types of teams in their institutions.
Next a short description of the process used to create the eLearning quality standards will be presented. Participants will be asked to work in teams of 5-10 people and come up with the top five eLearning quality standards that are most important to their institution’s success in online education. One leader from each group will present this information to the participants and presenters will documents responses and consolidate responses on the flipchart. Then Wake Tech’s eLearning Quality Standard categories will be presented.
Then the participants will be asked if they had a mentor when they started teaching. If so, an open discussion about the value of mentoring will occur. If not, the presenters will ask how participants how having a mentor to guide you would have helped you when you started teaching. Then the mentoring program development, implementation, and evaluation process will be presented. The components will be described in detail, along with early successes and comments from mentors and mentees showing success of the program. The important of using best practices will be highlighted and participants will be encouraged to ask questions about the mentoring program.
Next the master certification, its process, elements, and tracks will be presented. The courses required for each track will be listed and described. The purpose of creating a master certification will be discussed. Participants will be asked if any of the tracks interest them and what other tracks should be offered to faculty.
Lastly, a summary of all the types of teams, their output, and the success shown for EPIC will be reviewed. Ten to fifteen minutes of question and answer opportunities will be provided at the end of the workshop. A handout of the EPIC 30-hour continuing education certificate and the categories of the eLearning quality standards and the rationale for the categories will be provided. Lastly, a mentoring job description, confidentiality agreement, and mentor/mentee meeting form will be provided to the participants. For any participants who provide their email address, the workshop notes will be typed up and emailed to them.
This workshop is valuable for faculty who teach online or want to teach online, for eLearning technologists who want to know how to collaborate with faculty to ensure quality design of online courses, and for administrators who want to increase their online student success and retention. It will be very interactive and provide multiple opportunities to meet others who share the same interests. It will provide a comprehensive viewpoint of how to increase online student success and retention and it will provide multiple documents to support implementation of these changes at other institutions.