Teaching and Engaging Students in Online Programs Amanda Fairbanks Kansas State University gpidea.org

Session Overview Overview of Great Plains IDEA 11/8/2018 Session Overview Overview of Great Plains IDEA Insights into an Instructional Enhancement Initiative Sharing of challenges and best practices 3 goals for the session today: Inform you about the alliance Discuss how we have been addressing course quality across the alliance Group discussion on challenges and best practices gpidea.org

About Great Plains IDEA 11/8/2018 About Great Plains IDEA Great Plains IDEA is a national consortium of 19 universities offering programs and courses in agriculture and human science disciplines. Each degree or certificate includes online courses taught by multiple universities who partner together to offer degrees they could not offer alone. The Lead Institution serves as the management team for the alliance, offering support and administration of programs and initiatives. First, a quick overview of the alliance Mostly master’s degrees and certificates gpidea.org

How Great Plains IDEA Works 11/8/2018 How Great Plains IDEA Works Students apply and are admitted to one university, which becomes their home university. Each university uses their own learning management system to deliver online course content, and students use the LMS to complete coursework. When a student completes their coursework, the degree or certificate is awarded by the home university. For example, a student would apply and be admitted to OSU, which would be their home universities. Throughout their program they would take classes from TTU, ISU, KSU, etc… Their degree would be awarded from OSU. gpidea.org

Member Universities 11/8/2018 This is a quick glance of where our 19 member universities are located gpidea.org

Big 12 Universities Kansas State University Iowa State University 11/8/2018 Big 12 Universities Kansas State University Iowa State University Oklahoma State University Texas Tech University Of our 19 member universities, 4 of them are in the Big 12 gpidea.org

11/8/2018 Quality Assurance Strong emphasis on quality assurance through implementation of an initiative that focuses on course quality and student engagement. Human Sciences Board of Directors Instructional Enhancement Initiative Three-year initiative Five areas A challenge we have is working across multiple institutions and having universities with different standards, requirements, professional development opportunities, etc… To address this, the HS Board of Directors created the Instructional Enhancement Initiative gpidea.org

Instructional Enhancement Initiative 11/8/2018 Instructional Enhancement Initiative Principles of Effective Online Teaching Learn Shops University Resource Inventories Mini Grants Instructional Design Services The initiative focuses on five areas related to instructional enhancement. I will give you a quick overview of each, starting with the Principles of Effective Online Teaching gpidea.org

Principles of Effective Online Teaching 11/8/2018 Principles of Effective Online Teaching Principle 1: Student-Faculty Contact Principle 2: Cooperation Among Students Principle 3: Active Learning Principle 4: Prompt and Meaningful Feedback Principle 5: Deadlines and Consistent Patterns of Course Activities Principle 6: High Expectations Principle 7: Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning Principle 8: Course Quality Accompanying Documents: Best Practices Instructor Checklist **Handouts 8 Principles and two supporting documents *Provide a brief description of each and how they were developed Used two different sources (The Advisory Board and Magna – cited at the bottom), and added some of my own content *These have been distributed, and also incorporated into other parts of the initiative, such as the learn shops and mini grants gpidea.org

Learn Shops Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 11/8/2018 Learn Shops Year 1 Video to Enhance Presence, Interaction and Instruction Leveraging Online Assignments to Maximize Interaction Using Web 2.0 Interactive and Engaging Tools Year 2 Strategies to Improve Online Discussions and Student Engagement in the Online Classroom Year 3 TBD We have had 2 annual learn shops, which are professional development workshops for faculty. We are in the process of planning a 3rd one for next year. Topics have been determined through faculty surveys and research gpidea.org

University Resource Inventories 11/8/2018 University Resource Inventories One inventory for each member university Quick guides to campus resources for faculty University quality standards and course review Instructional design services Video services Open Source Resources These inventories are meant to help faculty easily find resources at their own universities. We found that many of our faculty were unaware of what resources they have available to them, or where to find help. gpidea.org

11/8/2018 Mini Grants Annual grant funding for instructional enhancement of Great Plains IDEA courses and programs Up to $5000 available to each program Priority course enhancement or program development Allowable expenses Instructional design and technology assistance Graduate student support Direct costs of face-to-face meetings Software Training/professional development costs Over the two years we have awarded 11 grants to 7 programs totaling around $48,000. The RFP for the third round just went out. This grant money has been used for purchasing equipment such as swivl cameras to use for student teaching, for software purchases, graduate student support for research, external review panel for a program, and other things. gpidea.org

Instructional Design Services 11/8/2018 Instructional Design Services Contracting of Instructional Design Services by the Great Plains IDEA Lead Institution Not yet needed This was originally budgeted for, but we found many faculty who didn’t think they had access to instructional design services at their own universities actually did, so we have not pursued this yet. gpidea.org

11/8/2018 Discussion What challenges do you face in regards to course quality and student engagement? What best practices do you follow? How can you use what you learned today? I would like to hear from the group now about what challenges you as faculty, or the faculty you work with, face, what professional development is available for your faculty that teach online, what best practices you follow, thoughts you have about how the resources or ideas shared today could be implemented at your own institutions, etc…. gpidea.org

Questions? Amanda Fairbanks, Ph.D. ajfairbanks@ksu.edu 785.532.2804 gpidea.org

Thank You! www.gpidea.org gpidea.org