ODEE

In-Person Poster Symposium Goes Virtual

| Ella Weaver

During the Spring 2017 semester, Introduction to Environmental Science (ENR 2100) implemented the first annual Environmental Science Student Virtual Poster Symposium. This active learning assignment was able to assist us in engaging students in the online section of the course and was very successful. The Office of Distance Education and eLearning worked with us to create videos on the assignment to be published on their Instructor Resources portion of the website.

Link to article and videos: https://odee.osu.edu/news/2017/12/18/person-poster-symposium-goes-virtual

 

The State of Distance Education at Ohio State

| Ella Weaver

The Office of Distance Education and eLearning hosted the State of Distance Education at Ohio State in part of National Distance Education Week. Ohio State has become a leader in distance education since the creation of the department in 2012. Several presenters from the office, as well as, other resources on campus shared how distance education has changed and ultimately growth since its adoption on campus.  Today at OSU there are 25 online programs and 204 distance education courses, with many of these being GE courses. The undergraduate distance education program is nationally ranked #8.

We also heard from representative of other campus resources. Amanda Folk from university libraries shared with us how libraries were early digital adopters and are working to provide easily accessible content for all students, especially those now completely distance courses. Dr. Chris Manion from Writing Across the Ciriculum shared writing resources that exist on campus. These tutoring or review sessions held by the writing center allow for students to seek, consider, and incorporate feedback. He also emphasizes that these resources are for all students, not just those that are struggling with writing assignments. They have options for both synchronous meetings of paper drop offs and online consultations.

Resources: https://carmen-services.it.ohio-state.edu/Events/Event/Details/1243

 

Faculty Showcase 2017: Empowering and Engaging our Students

| Ella Weaver

The 2017 Faculty Showcase allowed representatives from all over the university to learn from instructors that are working to empower their students by

leveraging technology, employing forward thinking teaching styles in physical and online environments, and creating open educational resources.

Featured speakers included:

  • Lisa Cravens-Brown, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
    • “You Make the Space” discussed active learning strategies for both active learning classrooms and traditional classrooms. This talk challenged instructors to implement some type of active learning strategies in their classroom to facilitate a better learning environment for developing strong relationships.
  • Theodore Chao, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education, School of Teaching and Learning
    • “Teaching Teachers with iPads” showed the benefits of implementing technology in classrooms, especially with future teachers. These students used the iPads to both connect with the students in their student teaching classrooms, as well as, each other. They also used Twitter and other media to “cultivate online professional identities.”
  • Ana-Paula Correia, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, Learning Technologies program
    • “Trading Leadership Roles” calls instructors to “challenge the LMS” and not to compromise the course needs, objectives, or integrity because of an online environment. Dr. Correia uses online discussions in her course and allows students to facilitate topics and discussion.
  • Jasmine Roberts, Lecturer, School of Communication
    • Jasmine has created an open education resource to avoid her and her students being “imprisoned by the textbook”. Her work has saved students money and is available to them instantly, as well as, throughout their undergraduate careers and into the future.

ODEE event: https://carmen-services.it.ohio-state.edu/Events/Event/Details/1242

Keys to Successful Online Teaching

| Ella Weaver

The Office of Distance Education and eLearning focuses on course development and teaching practices for online courses in this workshop. The workshop was broken into 4 segments:

  1. Managing an Online Course: Marcia Ham
    • This portion of the workshop focused on student interaction and connections between other students and the instructor in an online course. We discussed strategies to implement in an online course before the course, during, and after. Before the course strategies included sending a welcome email, setting all course expectations, including tutorials for your course, or adding a welcome video. During the course, instructors are encouraged to break content into weekly modules, add videos into discussion board prompts, and actively use a FAQ page. After the course, remind students about SEIs, include a farewell video and invite final questions.
  2. Student Interaction and Engagement: Henry Griffy
    • Henry discussed the principle of engagement. We looked at how traditional classrooms have changed over time, in which active learning classrooms are now on the rise. He proposed that we should design our Carmen courses using these same strategies as we would in an active learning classroom.

      How do we build so that we can promote engagement?

  3. Quality Assurance: Tim Lombardo
    • Tim went over the Community of Inquiry Model with participants. We reviewed the Distance Education Core template for Canvas courses and how it fits within the Quality Matters rubric.
  4. Accessibility and Universal Design: Megan Fogel
    • We know that we have an increasing number of diverse learners in our courses and since no two learners are the same, UDL is there to help us address our courses. The three pillars of UDL include: multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. Finally, we covered 5 strategies for design, planning for differences, giving students the options or variety in completion of assignments, presenting information in multiple ways, making the key points stand out, and giving students options and variety for how they interact.

 

ODEE Workshop: https://carmen-services.it.ohio-state.edu/Events/Event/Details/1223

Real-Time Collaborations Online

| Ella Weaver

An ODEE Webinar held on September 20th revealed the important of real-time collaboration and explored tools that can be used for these interactions. Marcia Ham and Jacob Bane of the Office of Distance Education and eLearning demonstrated the use of both CarmenConnect and the Conferences tool within CarmenCanvas. CarmenConnect is a tool used for instructors to lead class activities, where the Conferences tool is aimed more for student led activities.

Learning Objectives included:

  1. Identify and explain strategies for facilitating real-time online collaborations with and between students.
  2. Evaluate tools that enable real-time collaborations within and outside of CarmenCanvas.
  3. Identify where to access on-demand support for using collaboration tools.