On November 4, 2021, The Teaching Innovation Center hosted a workshop titled “Scale Up: Successful High Enrollment Courses”. The “Scale UP” series focuses on expanding access in undergraduate programs (UP= undergraduate programs). The workshop featured explorations of online and immersion coursework “to scale”, the direction of the growth in the School of Life Sciences, and insights from an EdPlus instructional design team specializing in high enrollment courses. Speakers included: Kate MacCord , PhD, Instructor, SOLS Zachary Shaffer , PhD, Lecturer, SOLS Jill Roter , Principle Instructional Designer, EdPlus Dee Mullins , Instructional Designer, EdPlus Scot Schoenborn , Director of Academic Services SOLS Lenora Ott , Instructional Designer, Teaching Innovation Center What is “scale”? and what is High Enrollment? You may hear the term high enrollment often at ASU and it can mean different things to different people. It might be some magic number at which an instructor is given TA supp...

With the rapid rise of Instagram Reels and viral TikToks, students are often “plugged in” for hours socializing but struggling to focus in online learning environments. What is the perceived difference between the two? Influence and value. We know education is valuable, but what gives social media the influencing advantage? A social media “influencer” is someone with a large following of people and the ability to impact trends and purchases. This person has created a sense of value for their posts and can even earn an income from networking and collaborating with other brands.  Believe it or not, social media influencers and online educators have a lot in common : they each want to draw in and engage a targeted audience online, but they also have to work within data-driven “rules” to make their desired impact. Instead of resisting social media’s influence on our current culture, here are a few online engagement tips borrowed from the Influencer’s playbook that can outlast any tre...

As a higher education professional, I’ve had the special privilege of wearing multiple hats. I am currently an Instructional Designer, an Instructor, and an online graduate student. In previous roles, I’ve also been an Academic Advisor and a Counselor. In part due to the many roles I’ve had, I’ve worked significantly with online students and the faculty who create online learning. No matter if I’m working with students or with faculty, peer-to-peer interaction continues to be a concern among all in the online learning sphere. That is to say that when faculty translate their course from immersion (in person) to online, they ask, “How can I ensure the same peer-to-peer learning experiences I’d find in an in-person course?”  In the same way, I’ve had students beg and plead with me as an advisor to encourage professors to create peer interaction in their online courses. I even had a student report a complaint against a professor who wouldn’t use Slack in their course. This example, ho...

When it comes to online course design and facilitation, course announcements are often treated as a “nice to have” supplement to instruction, taking a backseat to things like the syllabus, module overviews, and learning pages. Those pages contain valuable information, but announcements offer an opportunity to share content while making personalized connections. However, students often overlook pages that do not appear to contain value to them, including announcements. There's an art and science to crafting valuable announcements that students will want to view. Planning, organization, and frequency play a role in leveraging announcements to be more than unappealing check-ins that students ignore. Here are some effective ways to use announcements to weave student success and a culture of learning into the narrative of your course. Increase Your Presence One of the most common criticisms of online education is the lack of instructor presence. Particularly in large-scale courses, stud...

Do you feel disconnected in online spaces? Do you feel like it is difficult to connect with your students online and create community? This week we learned from Courtney Plotts, Ph.D. who shared small changes you can make to your online course that can make a big difference for you and your students.  The presentation featured discussion around the standards from the Council for At -Risk Student Education and Professional Standards (CASEPS) . Dr. Plotts shared  three strategies to increase a sense of community in the online space: Identify what your students are missing most and support them Define and share the online community culture and values Create a common experience Missing Community We began by defining the online space, and understanding the community, especially how both faculty and students can feel isolated. One example of how you can connect, is by asking your students what they miss most or if they are feeling disconnected in the online space. This can be made ...

As we enter the 3rd full week of Fall 2020 classes, let’s reflect on tips we've learned for conducting successful virtual class experiences. We've gathered advice from faculty this month that will quickly turn you into an expert on the ASU Sync modality. Let's review classroom communication, screen sharing, and setting yourself up for success in ASU Sync and in-person blended classrooms.  Classroom Chatter: Zoom or Slack?  In large classes, you can  turn off ‘chat’ in Zoom , or just have messages to the instructor available. This prevents students from messaging each other in ways that don't support the course goals. Do not disable all communication entirely, as students need a way to ask questions or report issues with the class feed. There are other options outside of Zoom! Consider having students use a Slack channel for their communication during class. This is an independent application that allows for threaded replies, upvoting, and other features not available ...

As instructors, we make hundreds of decisions throughout a semester as we interact with our students, explain concepts and procedures, or assess their knowledge and skills. To help us make choices - among other important factors - understanding the characteristics and needs of learners is fundamental to designing effective and efficient learning experiences. For example, as parents can tell you, there is quite the difference on how one would explain a certain concept to a 5-year-old versus someone who is in his late thirties! In addition to age, other characteristics play important parts, such as location, language, background, etc. Hence, familiarity of fundamental facts pertaining to the learner population can significantly support the learning effectiveness, efficiency, as well as the engagement. Over the past decade, the learner population of ASU Online has seen significant growth. What started with a few hundred enrolled students at the beginning of the decade has grown exponenti...

Cheating is nothing new, and with internet access and the move to online learning, the opportunities to act without academic integrity have become more readily available. The discussion about academic integrity is often seen as a student-based issue, and thus tends to focus on dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism and how we might reduce these behaviors by students.  As an instructor, you must decide how you choose to approach and address academic integrity in your classes. Research supports that instructors might increase academic integrity among their students by creating an environment that promotes honesty, responsibility, and fairness, instead of focusing on penalties.  Instructors are facilitators of their class and as such can work to create positive relationships and an atmosphere that supports academic integrity ( Boehm, 2009 ;  Stearns, 2001 ).  One of the first steps we can take is to ensure that students understand what academic integrity entails in g...

Despite the best efforts of the instructor or designer of a course, instructional efforts can often fall flat due to poor planning and implementation. Courses are often designed around learning materials rather than around what skills or knowledge students should have at the end of the course. This can potentially lead to disengagement from students, content bloat, burdened student cognitive loads, and ineffectual or sub-premium learning experiences. Backward Design, formalized and outlined by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe , aims to alleviate this issue through planning and consideration designed around student learning outcomes. In this TeachT@lk, Jeremy Hopper and Haily Tyler discuss the benefits of the Backward Design framework. Where to Begin? As the name would suggest, backward design starts at the end and works backward. In this case, the end is the learning objectives or learning goals. In other words, what the students should know or be able to do by the end of the course. ...