Conference Presentations

After losing $1.6M in performance-based funding due to a 1% decline in success rates, our college committed to improve student success. Learn how a large, multi-campus, unionized college implemented Quality Matters, leading to a 4.6% increase in student success rates.

This session will demonstrate how a well-designed on-line course can enable professors to use unique, low stakes, write-to-learn assignments to (1) improve engagement and student persistence, (2) help students develop an effective learning, researching, or writing process (3) help instructors to improve their understanding of their student's capabilities and points of confusion and (4) improve the social presence of students in their online courses.

This session will demonstrate how a well-designed on-line course can enable professors to use unique, low stakes, write-to-learn assignments to (1) improve engagement and student persistence, (2) help students develop an effective learning, researching, or writing process (3) help instructors to improve their understanding of their student's capabilities and points of confusion and (4) improve the social presence of students in their online courses.

This presentation showcases our attempt at Stevenson University to use Quality Matter rubric as a guide, a free, cloud-based Course Management System (CMS) as a structured supplementary channel, and emerging technologies as a model for the process of online course development. We hope this approach would help our instructors embrace both QM Rubric and emerging technologies, and build the collegial and collaborative relationship between faculties and instructional designers to improve the quality of our online courses.

The presentation will highlight the alignment of QM standards in an international, collaborative, and online learning context. It will center on the development and engagement of an international collabortion learning unit between two colleges and courses - The College of Westchester (New York) and Empire State college (Panama).

A STEM faculty learning community was created at North Carolina Central University to assess online science course offerings and instruction. Faculty completed the APPQMR course coupled with services from the Division of Extended Studies and implemented changes in their subsequent online courses. This presentation describes the impact of that training and application of Rubric Standards on the design and student outcomes for an Introductory Biology course over four terms, as published in the QM-focused 2017 edition of the American Journal of Distance Education.

Clear expectations, intuitive navigation, easily found course components -- all good ideas for online course design, right? We know them when we see them, but can we purposefully design them? Join us to discuss how the design of structure and interface of online courses can benefit the  learner, educator, and organization as a whole. Also, discuss how program-wide design standards can help support learner success, and break down examples of structures that can serve as a  guide when designing, updating, or improving online courses.

Presented by Sandra Johnson and Susan Bussman, New Mexico State University

Course Developers and Instructors work together to create a course that best meets student needs, facilitates learning, and encourages communication.  Often, members of the team do not realize the full scope of each others role.  Switching roles affords a new appreciation for the contingencies and systems involved. This contributes to a better working relationship, as well as improves the quality of the course as a whole.

Five Learning Objectives:

Yes, course design matters! We compared average course grades before and after online courses were redesigned and found that engaging a professional instructional designer positively influences student performance, resulting in significantly higher average grades compared to courses without such support. Come learn what we do to make a difference!

Two recent surveys, by the University of Rochester and by Quality Matters in partnership with Eduventures, have focused on the role of chief online officer, how that role is being defined at institutions across the U.S., and their perspectives on current institutional practices, priorities, and challenges. Among many responsibilities, these individuals are key to the response of their institutions to accreditation, regulation, and compliance issues.

This study explored how class size affects the quality of online language teaching and learning. The present study compared the experiences of instructors and students in two second semester Spanish language classes. There were 125 students enrolled in the large-scale class and 25 students enrolled in the small-scale class. Each class had one instructor and no teaching assistants. Two instruments were used to collect data, a Teacher Questionnaire and an anonymous Student Questionnaire.

Survey participants were asked to align the Quality Matters (QM) higher education rubric standards with the seven (7) principles for good practice in undergraduate education developed by Chickering and Gamson (1987).  Participants reviewed the QM higher education rubric standards and categorized them into the seven (7) principles based on their perception and experience.  The participants were faculty, instructional designers, online program coordinators, directors of centers for teaching and learning and other educational professionals.

ASU's Online Campus created, designed, and implemented a one-week online student orientation course last fall for a subset of its online population.  The results -- increased student retention, decreased DEW rates higher grades in subsequent courses, and prepared students.  Find out what we did, how we did it, and why we are expanding the orientation to all ASU Online students.

QM certification requires considerable faculty time and effort. To help faculty with the continuous improvement of their hybrid and online courses through the integration of QM concepts, the QM template is developed at a large, public, comprehensive, unionized university. The Canvas open-source QM template version 4 that supports the 6th edition of QM Rubric will be posted on Canvas Commons. The template consists of three modules: Start-Here, Example Module and Module 1.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approaches allow instructors to anticipate the needs of any learner. At our institution we have begun modeling design principles that follow UDL guidelines to foster flexible and inclusive learning environments. This presentation connects UDL approaches to QM™ Review Standards, demonstrates the concrete implementation at our institution, and provides participants with the opportunity to begin applying UDL to learning experiences within their organizations.

Based on the 2021 title Creating Transformative Online Communities in Higher Education, in this interactive presentation, we will a) describe the common features of transformative learning experiences; b) explain the importance of course design in supporting transformative learning; c) review practical ways to apply transformative principles and practices to the instructional design process.

Decisions, decisions! How do we make them with quality assurance in mind? Let's learn! This presentation will provide both examples of successful quality-driven operational decisions and the tools to make quality-driven decisions that lead to sustainable and measurable outcomes.

After this session, participants will be able to . . .

Universal Design for Learning provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone, not a single one size fits all solution, but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs (The National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2012).   Session attendees will share processes for creating flexible classroom environments by incorporating the UDL Principles of Representation, Action and Expression, and Engagement.   Activities will include the development of flexible grading