What You Will Learn:
- Learn about the importance that students place on the proper pacing of an online course.
- Learn from leading educators about how to assess and improve the quality of your online courses.
- Build your network by meeting others who share your interest in online course quality improvement.
Join us for a 4-hour virtual Connection event with the D2L Course Quality Improvement Network. There are many questions asked about the quality of online learning opportunities, such as the following:
- What does the word “quality” mean in the context of online learning or even in education more broadly?
- How do you recognize high quality when you see it?
- What steps can we take to improve our quality of online teaching and learning?
We’ll examine these and many other questions during this Connection event. Improving course quality is more complicated than just changing your course design. What do students tell us about what makes a high-quality course? What are the faculty behaviors and teaching techniques that are most important to our students?
Whether you’re already involved in a course quality improvement process or just interested in getting started, this event will help connect you with the right people and the right ideas, at the right level.
Our agenda is designed to provide learning opportunities led by educators who will share their expertise and effective practices while ensuring that you leave the event with some ideas and actions that you can put into practice right away.
Schedule
Network Welcome and Announcements
12:00pm – 12:05pm ET
Strategies for Pacing your Online Course
12:05pm – 12:25pm ET
Presenter: Sharon Blanchard, Kirkwood Community College
This session will discuss strategies on how to pace students through course content using course design, non-tech strategies and D2L tools such as start and due dates, the course calendar and restrictions.
Engaging Learners with Discussions: Evaluating a HyFlex Professional Development Course for Faculty
12:25pm – 12:45pm ET
Presenter: Elizabeth Harsma, Minnesota State University, Mankato
We’ll share the design of four-week, highly flexible (HyFlex) professional development course for faculty focused on engaging learners in D2L Brightspace Discussions. Then we’ll share lessons learned on applying HyFlex course design/delivery for faculty development.
Break
12:45pm – 1:00pm ET
Assessing Course Quality: Improving Good Courses to Great!
1:00pm – 1:40pm ET
Presenters: Karen LaPlant, Metropolitan State University, Zala Fashant, Minnesota State
This session will provide several ways and rubrics to answer the question, “Is my D2L course good?” Strategies will be shared to help you self-assess your course to blend the best practices of quality assessment of your course design to provide significant learning for students and free up more of your time to teach rather than managing the course.
Break
1:40pm – 2:00pm ET
Ensuring Online Course Quality Beyond Course Design Rubrics
2:00pm – 2:30pm ET
Presenter: Jeff Borden and Barry Dahl, D2L
Course design rubrics are good at one thing…standardizing the design of online courses. To have a high-quality online course experience, many other things are needed. We’ll examine some of those other components of high-quality online courses.
Prize Giveaway Contests
2:30pm – 2:45pm ET
Break
2:45pm – 3:00pm ET
Classroom Layout Redesign using QM & UX
3:00pm – 3:40pm ET
Presenter: Sam Coulson, American Public University Systems
A retrospective of a recent LMS migration to D2L’s Brightspace, where the speakers recount the process they followed to restructure their classroom layout so that it intentionally includes Quality Matters (QM) and User Experience (UX) principles. The design process and outcome will be analyzed, and successes & adjustments discussed.
Wrap-up and sign-off
3:40pm – 3:45pm ET
Recordings
Strategies for Pacing your Online Course
Engaging Learners with Discussions: Evaluating a HyFlex Professional Development Course for Faculty
Assessing Course Quality - Improving Good Courses to Great!
Ensuring Online Course Quality Beyond Course Design Rubrics
Classroom Layout Redesign using QM & UX
Three Important Things You Won’t Find in a Course Quality Rubric
D2L Affinity Networks
Our Affinity Networks provide you with ongoing opportunities to virtually connect with peers on your topics of choice. Each Network is facilitated, and you can participate as much as you like.
Learn more about D2L Affinity Networks