iCourse and Active Learning Workshop Summary

On Friday, faculty met to learn about the future of icourses in SoLS (PowerPoint) and share some ideas for best practices. Mike Angilletta opened the workshop with a call for SoLS icourses that will draw students to a summer class, including unique classes that aren't taught during the regular academic year, and popular courses that have high enrollment. Details will be coming out soon in the new Undergrad Program Newsletter from Courtney Shobert. 

We went over the new suggested SoLS iCourse Standards for all icourses, and how they fit with building quality courses through the use of the Quality Matters rubric and best practices for online courses. The SoLS standards are set up to support the 7 categories of quality learning that include Course Design, Delivery, Content, Infrastructure, LMS, Faculty and Student Readiness. Faculty are encouraged to begin developing about 6 months before course starts, so courses are complete before the semester starts.

We also heard from Peter van Leusen, Instructional Designer for CLAS, regarding the QCD Pilot Process. This process connects faculty and instructional designers to work together to assess current icourses, set priorities for improvement, and give support to faculty. The pilot has been highly successful, and SoLS will follow a similar model for reviewing and continually improving existing icourses. Faculty in the pilot spent approximately 30 hours on improving courses which included building assignments, recording videos and fine-tuning learning objectives.

Finally, faculty quickly brainstormed ways to bring active learning to the online environments by translating traditional activities into online web meetings, student-created videos, peer reviews and blogs. Although each course is different, most traditional active learning activities can be done online with some support from instructional designers and technologists.

If you want to develop an icourse for SoLS, please see the following "Action Items":

1. Review the new standards for SoLS courses
2. Faculty are strongly encouraged to take the next ASU Online boot camp course starting Feb. 6 and become familiar with the Quality Matters program. Registration is at: http://www.eventbrite.com/o/asu-online-790244257
3. Set up a meeting with Amy Pate and Courtney Shobert to discuss your idea for a class and get started on the process.

If you already are teaching an icourse, and
want to take it to the next level:

1. Go over the "Quick 10" Review Handout for our SoLS Standards
2. Set up an account for Quality Matters and do a self-assessment of your course
3. Set up a meeting with Amy Pate to establish a timeline and priorities for making your course ready for a Quality Matters Review.