At the core of faculty resistance to online course review may be the feeling that their expertise and years of teaching are being questioned. This discussion will share the experience and lessons learned of one institution and ask participants to reflect on personal experiences and propose strategies to create a positive course review process.
It is common to read or hear students complain about the lack of instructor presence online or real interaction between student-student and student-faculty in the online environment. Yet, the number of distance education students continue to grow. According to the 2015 annual survey by Babson Survey Research Group, there are 5.8 million online students nationally. And one-fourth of students in higher education have taken at least one online course. To remediate poor online course quality and delivery and improve students’ learning, the University of Saint Francis created and implemented a course review process for online and hybrid courses. With this decision coming from top down, faculty outrage and vigorous push back weren’t surprising. This discussion will ask participants to reflect on their personal experiences with course review and share successful strategies or propose strategies to create effective course review process to support and empower faculty members.