March 2014 Project Update:

GE PROJECT UPDATE BANNER

Curious about course progress in the month of March? Here’s how some of them are going:

Course: English 1110

Update by Tara Koger

Our course began with eight interested instructors and a department decision to pilot four separate sections of 1110 for the fall semester. Currently, the department is in the process of selecting which candidates will be teaching in this initial project. Our team uses a private U.OSU.EDU blog to share ideas and discuss topics relevant to the project. It allows easy commenting and discussion. In our initial meeting, there were questions about how much content would be considered “done” by the June deadline, which was certainly valid and something we’ll continue to explore and define going forward. One of the keys to creating an online composition course is acknowledging that the format of the course in the beginning will be significantly different than the end: the first half of the semester tends to focus more on instruction, small projects, and discussion, then culminates in larger projects toward the end. Hence, there will be more content delivery to establish early on and more assessment-based work in the final months. For instructors, this can mean that there’s not quite a full semester of video content to create, or that content is at least stacked heavily toward September and October.

Course: Biology 1102

Update by Cory Tressler

We have begun working on specifics regarding the course. The instructor is working through the Distance Education course blueprint to determine exact content and assessment needs. The course will include a Jigsaw project, and we have developed a framework for facilitating a conducive online collaboration environment for the students. One aspect of the project assignment that we are into taking special consideration is the structure and providing explicit directions. In face-to-face settings that utilize group projects, students are familiar with the framework of communicating and working together inside and outside of class. In an online setting, the instructor needs to provide a framework that guides them through the process and develop clear guidelines for what is expected. For example, the Jigsaw project for this course will require students to sign up for a topic and then develop a blog/wiki that contains all the information they have individually gathered on that topic. These first steps require careful consideration in an online setting. Only 5 students can sign up for a given topic, and, with 100 students in the course, you need to provide a fair way to allow for choice in the sign up but also prevent students  deleting a student’s name and adding their name because they really want a topic but were too late in signing up. After students have their topic and need to create their Blog/Wiki, special consideration needs to be placed on what this environment needs to do. For example, the Blog/Wiki needs to be private so that other students with the same topic cannot copy verbatim from another student before the due date and the TA and instructor need access to all 100 Blog/Wiki environments. While these project based learning assignments may require a little more instructional design considerations in an online setting, they do provide an opportunity for collaboration and creativity amongst students with the goal of reaching a higher level of thinking while meeting the course learning objectives.

Course: Stats 1450 (and 1350)

Update by Kevin Kula

Our Statistics 1450 team jumped out of the gate on our GE Online project.  Through initial conversations, we decided to focus on this course first because of its relationship with high school AP Statistics.  After we accomplish this, 1350 is on deck to go online.

Our team consists of Faculty, Course Coordinators, and technology consultants.  We have our standing meeting on Monday afternoons to hash out our agenda and discuss any topics relevant to the whole group.  I have been impressed that this team is asking the right questions on resources, timelines, and the details for going fully online with a course.  A recent topic we tackled was how to administer exams and address proctoring needs.  58 students will be enrolled in the Statistics 1450 online course in Autumn 2014, and we are excited to give them a stellar Ohio State online experience!

Course: History 2201

Update by Mike Kaylor, Doug Dangler, and Allen Coleman

 The team that will be working on the development of this course is made up of 3 ASCTech and 1 ODEE instructional support staff and 1 faculty member from the Department of History.  A shared box folder for the project has been setup to allow the sharing of templates etcetera across the team as needed.  A shared MediaSite folder has also been established for this course with permissions for access given to the faculty and staff assigned to this course.  We will be meeting with Tim for the first time this week as a team and as a part of this meeting we will write up a course proposal with important milestones for completion as a part of this project.  We are also working with Tim to identify any equipment or software needs that he may have to aid in the development and support of the distance learning section of History 2201.  Thus far, he has requested a desktop version of SoftChalk for the development of elearning activities and content.  The team will also be working on migrating video content currently being housed on the ODEE streaming media server to MediaSite for use in this course.

Course: Communication 1110

Update by Mike Kaylor, Doug Dangler, and Allen Coleman

The team that will be working on the development of this course is made up of 3 ASCTech instructional support staff and 2 faculty members from the School of Communication.  A shared box folder for the project has been setup to allow the sharing of templates etcetera across the team as needed.  A shared MediaSite folder has also been setup for this course with permissions for access given to the faculty and staff assigned to this course.  We will be meeting with Dave for the second time this week as a team and as a part of this meeting we will write up a course proposal with important milestones for completion as a part of this project.  We are working with copyright media from Dave that will need to be “ripped” for use on his course.  We have made arrangements for Dave to drop the media off at the studio in 142HH to begin this process.  We are also working with Dave to identify any equipment or software needs that he may have to aid in the development and support of the distance learning section of Communication 1100.  Thus far, he has requested a microphone to aid in the creation of voiceover lectures.

Course: Mathematics 1152

Update by Doug Dangler

The team that will be working on the development of this course is made up of 3 ASCTech instructional support staff members, an ODEE staff member, and 2 instructional staff members from the Department of Mathematics.  A shared box folder for the project has been setup to allow the sharing of templates etcetera across the team as needed.  A weekly meeting time has been established, as well as a list of project responsibilities. We are working to identify who can do which aspects of the course and how to best generate new content.

Course: Psychology 1100

Update by Allen Coleman

Our first full Psychology 1100 team meeting will take place on Thursday, April 3, in Hagerty Hall. The team that will be working on the development of this course is made up of 3 ASCTech instructional support staff, 1 ODEE instructional support staff, 1 Program Director from the Department of Psychology and 2 Graduate Teaching Assistants.  A shared box folder for the project has been set up to allow the sharing of templates etcetera across the team as needed.  A shared MediaSite folder has also been set up for this course with permissions for access given to the instructors and staff assigned to this course.

When our full team meets later this week,  we will write up a course proposal including important milestones for completion as a part of the project.  We are also working with the Psychology team to identify any equipment or software needs that have not yet been recognized and incorporated.

 In addition, Psychology has decided to use a face-to-face proctored environment to administer three online-tests, using iPads and the ExamSoft testing platform. The tests include two midterms and a final. Students will come to Main Campus at 060 Denney to complete their exams.

 Consequently, Mike Kaylor and Melissa Beers met with Kevin Stringfellow from the OSU College of Medicine to get an overview of their best practices for onsite proctored testing using iPads and ExamSoft. The College of Medicine has used this model successfully for the past two years.