National Distance Learning Week with SUNY Events

SUNY Online is pleased to host and showcase several diverse presentations from our SUNY campuses in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW), November 9-13, 2020. The webinars are designed to generate greater awareness and appreciation for distance learning, discuss current issues and emerging trends, highlight best practices, and recognize leaders in the field.

Online Learning at NCCC is pleased to announce the launch of our newly created Faculty Technology Toolkit. Over the last year, we spend a good amount of time helping faculty with their ongoing efforts to refresh and revise their online courses through design and teaching behaviors. Through that effort, we felt a technology toolkit would be helpful to many.

The Technology Toolkit provides information on each of the technology tools we recommend and support, and some that we pay annual licensing fees for at NCCC.

Please, take a moment to browse our new Technology Toolkit. You will find technology resources for grading and feedback, interaction & sharing, polling, presentation, document sharing and hosting, screencasting, video creation and storage, social bookmarking, web conferencing, communication, blogging, website creation, and more.

We hope you enjoy our new faculty resource.

Best Regards,  Online Learning @ NCCC

NCCC Online Learning faculty support center

NCCC Online Learning  faculty technology toolkit 

 

 

 

This month eLearning at NCCC will continue providing training and workshops to support our online course observation and effective online teaching guide by providing resources and workshops to support Principle #6.  Principle #6 is “Good practice communicates high expectations.”

With this principle, effective instructors have high, but reasonable, expectations for their students.  They clearly communicate those expectations and provide support to their students in their efforts to meet those expectations. In an online course you can communicate high expectations through the following:

• Explicit communication of the skills and knowledge every student needs to have in order to be successful in the course.
• Explanation of course learning goals and student learning outcomes, and how the assignments are designed to help students achieve those goals.
• Frequent feedback provided to students through written explanations or narrated screencasts that provide detailed feedback on assignments and other course activities.
• Motivation and encouragement that inspires students to move past the easy answers to more complex solutions.
• Routine use of critical and probing questions when communicating with students about course assignments and activities.
• Examples of high and low quality work, along with a discussion of the differences between these.
• Examples of student work that demonstrate advancement toward learning goals

We curated some great resources to support this principle and they include:

Online Assessment Techniques (OATs)

Exploring the Advantages of Rubric

Rubric Resources from NCCC eLearning Blog

5 Ways to Help Students Succeed in Online Courses

Screencasting Feedback and More from the NCCC eLearning Faculty Support Blog

SUNY Tools of Engagement Discovery Resource on Screencasting

Grading with Voice on an iPad

In addition, we’re holding some workshops and drop-in clinics focusing on the Blackboard Grade Center, Setting up Rubrics in Blackboard, Screencasting feedback, and more.  View our eLearning event calendar for dates and times.

 

This academic year the eLearning department at NCCC is focusing on providing training and workshops to support our new Online Course Observation/Effective Online Teaching Behaviors self-evaluation guide. Each month we will focus on one of the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education with a specific focus on Online Teaching. December will focus on Principle 3 which is to “encourage Active Learning.”

Active learning methods engage students in the learning process by encouraging them to discover, process, and apply information.  In an online course, student activities to support this would be active uses of writing, speaking, or other forms of self-expression, opportunities for information gathering, synthesis, and analysis in solving problems, engaging in collaborative learning, and reflecting on their learning.  Below are a few articles you can read to learn more and I invite all NCCC faculty to join us for our live sessions via Zoom.  We will showcase examples of active learning tools such as reflection journal assignments, resource curating and sharing, and collaborative learning spaces.  See this document for the session schedule and log in information.

Suggested Readings:
7 Things You Should Read about Instructional Strategies for Active Learning

Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Online Course Videos

This academic year the eLearning department at NCCC is focusing on providing training and workshops to support our new Online Course Observation/Effective Online Teaching Behaviors self-evaluation guide. Each month we will focus on one of the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education with a specific focus on Online Teaching. We will start this series off this October by providing resources, tools and strategies to support Principle #1 which is to “encourages contact between students and faculty.”

In the guide you will see evidence  that can show you meet this principle.  Examples are detailed and frequent announcements,  timely responses to messages and email,  a great narrated screen cast that welcomes students to your online course and that provides an overview of the course and the student learning outcomes.  The students should be able to see a picture of you or (use a web cam) and hear your voice.  In addition, you could communicate with students through email, free text services like remind, and provide online office hours through web conferencing tools like Zoom.  We will also send out tips of the week through the Blackboard eLearning faculty group to help you enhance your teaching skills with Principle #1.

During October the NCCC eLearning department invites you to join in to listen to our lunch time webinars, register for our campus workshops, and view the additional resources in Magna and Atomic Leaning to help you enhance your online teaching skills for Principle #1.

So how can you ensure that online course requirements meet the same “time per credit hour” requirements as grounded courses?  Courses delivered online are still required to meet the same “time per credit hour” standards as in the classroom as per the MSCHE Credit Hour Policy and SUNY credit/contact policy and definitions.  In the following resource you will learn how “time” in online courses is calculated.  Since online courses don’t have “seat time” like grounded courses, it’s important that you and your students understand how much “time” it will take to complete the course.

Students at NCCC can estimate how much time a course should take them through the use of our eLearning Time Management Estimator. 

Faculty should review the following resources from R.I.T. to learn how “time” in online courses work. The resources will provide information on how you can ensure your online courses  require the same amount of  learning and should equal the same amount of time per week as grounded courses.

Time on Task  overview from the Learning Institute at R.I.T.

Time on Task expanded version PDF file from the Learning Institute at R.I.T.

Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning

NCCC now as a full campus-wide site license for Atomic Learning – Join us for an Atomic Learning Overview

Wednesday October 21, 1:30pm – 2:30 pm in FRCAE or  register to watch it online Presenter – Leah Klocker, Atomic Learning

The office of Electronic Learning is pleased to announce that we now have a full campus-wide license for Atomic Learning.   Since Atomic Learning has resources to support  the entire campus,  I would like to offer you an opportunity to learn more about Atomic Learning by registering and remotely attending the webinar. Leah Klocker from Atomic Learning will be providing the training.

Leah will provide a site overview of the resources available, and provide information on how to insert content into Blackboard.  The online training library has over 60,000 short, video training tutorials on over 250 of the most commonly-used technology devices and software applications and is available to you and your students 24/7.  There are also workshops and tutorials on plagiarism, citation, how to be a successful college student, how to be a successful online learner,  ADA, career success, campus safety, and more.

This resource can also help you eliminate the cost of some expensive computer technology text books.   There are full workshops with assessment attached that can be integrated into Blackboard and results added directly to your grade book.  I hope you can register and listen in to learn more about this new campus-wide resource.

Here is a link that maps out an overview of the campus-wide learning solution.   This short video will provide you an overview of Atomic Learning for Higher Ed. You can access Atomic Learning now by going to the link from the institution page in Blackboard. Once logged into Blackboard, no further authentication is needed.

Note:  the eLearning department will be scheduling workshops and opportunities for consultations so you can make the best use of this resource.  This session is designed to provide an overview of Atomic Learning.

“OATS” Online Assessment Techniques

There are a lot of resources to help you with strategies to assess student learning outcomes called “SLO’s” in online and blended courses.  We are currently working on our “OATS” initiative to help you with strategies and techniques to effectively assess your outcomes in eLearning courses at NCCC.  We are offering training, workshops and times for 1-1 mentoring for the fall 2015 semester.

The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence “COTE” created an excellent community resource on assessment and you should view the resources in our NCCC Faculty Assessment Resource Guide.

COTE Assessment Resources

NCCC Faculty Assessment Resource Guide

If you have any questions, please contact Donna or Lisa in eLearning.

This communication tool provides a safe way for you to text message students and stay in contact with parents. The tool is simple to use and 1 in 5 teachers in the United States are already using it.  So, if you’re not one of them, please join me to see how easy it is to get started.  

What is it?  Remind is a tool to help educators communicate with students and parents

How to get started? Get started and learn about teacher-tested resources and best classroom practices

New Feature: Hold online office hours via the new “chat” feature

Get Help: Remind help and faq’s or YouTube support channel

We are excited to share in the celebration with SUNY and increase awareness about the benefits of Open Education Resources.  With that in mind we are sharing an email and resource list they provided to us for sharing.

SUNY is excited to celebrate Open Education Week (March 9-March 13, 2015) and raise awareness about the benefits of Open Educational Resources (OERs). These open resources, which can include full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, videos, and more, help save our students money and increase student access, completion, and success. In fact, research suggests that 60% of college students do not purchase all of their required textbooks due to cost. At Tompkins Cortland Community College from 2011-2013, 698 students saved an estimated $69,800 on textbooks costs and there was an 26.7% increase in passing grades accompanied by a 15% decrease in withdrawal rates after an open textbook and other OERs were adopted into a Psychology course.  There are many exciting OER related initiatives throughout the system, some of which are highlighted below. Please feel free to share with your colleagues and join the discussion on Twitter by tweeting to @OpenSUNY and using the hashtag #OER.

We listed all of the resources that SUNY shared with us and found some additional OER resources to add to our blog. Please view our Open Education Resources section for more information.

NCCC faculty can also join me for a hands-on workshops to explore a variety of OER that you can make use of in your courses.  See our eLearning event schedule for dates/times.

Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning