September 24

Minnesota Online Quality Initiative Webinar series continue

Image credit: minnesota.qualitymatters.org

Image credit: minnesota.qualitymatters.org

All MnSCU faculty and staff are welcome to register for different D2L Brightspace and SIG (Special Interest Group for Learning Spaces & Instructional Technology) webinars.
There are a few that repeat so you can choose a date that works better for you. With the final one in September: D2L Brightspace Advanced: Checklist Tool
to the final one in October: SIG Webinar: Time-Saving Tips for Stressed Out Instructors there is a gamut of helpful one-hour sessions for instructors and staff of our MnSCU institutions. We will keep you posted on more events sponsored by MOQI as well as add these webinars to our calendar!

Category: Course Design, Online and Distance Education, Online Teaching Pedagogy, Professional Development, Quality Matters | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 8

FREE Webinars on Using Brightspace by D2L!!!

The Academic Technologies Team recommends these free webinars for instructors who are new to D2L Brightspace.

For more information, view the PDF: D2LGettingStartedWebinars

Photo credit: www.brightspace.com

The MnSCU Special Interest Group: Learning Spaces & Instructional Technologies will be holding a series of free 1-hour webinars to get faculty who are new to D2L Brightspace up and running. Internet access available from home or campus – whichever works for you. Session size is limited!

The following sessions will be held July 27 thru August 31:

  • Organize Your Content (Content & Course Builder Tools)
  • Using Respondus Quiz Tool
  • D2L Brightspace Quiz Tool
  • News, Classlist and Email
  • D2L Brightspace Discussion Board Tool
  • Points Based Gradebook
  • D2L Brightspace Dropbox

For full description, dates and registration: https://mnquality.eventbrite.com

 

Category: Course Design, D2L Tip of the Month, Professional Development | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 5

“Building a Game Plan”

 

Creative Commons "Wordle” by Rose PhotoAmateur (CC BY SA 2.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Creative Commons “Wordle” by Rose PhotoAmateur (CC BY SA 2.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

By Paul Keyworth

Following on from my last article on game-based learning, below is a link to a useful handout from Heidi Jung and Cheryl Bosarge’s presentation on “Gamification” at last month’s Brightspace Fusion 2015 Global eLearning Conference. They propose a five-step plan for gamifying your courses within a learner management system such as D2L.

Here is the link:

Building a Game Plan

Jung and Bosarge are gamification designers at Southern Illinois University’s Center for Teaching Excellence.

Category: Course Design, Game-Based Learning | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 22

The Positive Impact of Online Collaborative Learning on Student Success: An Assessment of Harvard Business School’s ‘HBX’ Initiative

Creative Commons "Harvard Business School Baker Library” by Chensiyuan (CC BY-SA) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_business_school_baker_library_2009a.JPG http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Creative Commons “Harvard Business School Baker Library” by Chensiyuan (CC BY-SA)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_business_school_baker_library_2009a.JPG
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

An article in Inside Higher Ed highlights the following positive effects of Harvard Business School’s HBX CORe program which was designed to facilitate extensive collaborative learning:

  • A course completion rate of over 85% (usually lower than 10% for MOOCs).
  • High satisfaction rate with 80 to 90% of learners evaluating the teaching and program content as either four or five out of a five.
  • Very high levels of engagement with peers and course materials through program analyses, reflections, and content discussions with peers (via required participation).

Read the article to learn the principles of collaborative learning that Harvard Business School used in their online course design.

Category: Course Design, Online Collaborative Learning, Online Teaching Pedagogy | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 1

Utilizing Course Shells to Improve Online Courses

By Kristen Carlson

In March, I had the opportunity to present a poster session at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education international conference hosted by AACE. The session focused on “Utilizing Course Shells to Improve Online Courses”. Through utilizing a course shell (or template), our online courses had the ability to look more unified. This allowed our students to learn how to navigate the course, find documents, and upload assignments the same way, no matter which course they were taking within the department. The course shell is available for all faculty at SCSU to implement within their own course and was created to follow the Quality Matters rubric.

While attending the conference, I was also able to hear how other universities were teaching technology integration to their teacher candidates. The session I found the most interesting was “Coaching for Technology Integration: a Peer Partnership Approach. In this session, faculty members from Houston Baptist University discussed the implementation of a collegial coaching model that helped faculty members integrate active learning and collaborative technology into their teacher preparation courses. It definitely inspired me to think about how we, as a University, could help faculty through a similar model.

 

Category: Course Design | LEAVE A COMMENT