This "workshop" was actually an asynchronous activity week in the workshop series. I sent instructions in an email, as follows:
Dear colleagues,
I appreciate your participation on last week's forum discussion on Integrity in Hybrid Courses. It looks like we have a consensus that collaboration is essential in our disciplines and classes, and that collaboration and integrity are tightly intertwined. The specifics of how to simultaneously promote collaboration, integrity, and learning in particular classes, though, will look very different. You shared some good tips about making students accountable to themselves and their peers, creating rubrics, using both structure and discussion to discourage unethical behavior, and using tools like chat, POGIL, and discussion boards for the purposes for which they are best suited. I'll have to follow up with SJA to see if they would be interested in developing resources on integrity in online learning environments for their website.
Shifting roles for a bit, I'd like to comment here about how I would use the discussion board if I were teaching a class instead of a workshop series. I would provide a slightly expanded version of the summary paragraph above, bringing in connections to the readings and other resources, and highlighting controversies, well-articulated insights, and unanswered questions. I might also spend some time talking about the interaction and addressing any interactions of concern to keep the community positive and focused. I would then use the unanswered questions as springboards for the next face-to-face discussions. But with the limited time that we have, instead I'll move straight on into the next discussion topic. Just an editorial note about one way to use this tool...
We'll spend the next two weeks focusing on Quality Assurance in Hybrid Courses. You'll have individual work, pair work, and discussion board work, as follows.
- Please respond to this poll about the quality assurance process for hybrid courses. It should take you about five minutes.
- Please read two short pieces by Thompson and Diaz & Strickland on the peer review process for hybrid and blended courses, available here and in the SmartSite resources folder, each four pages long.
- Please choose one of the four rubrics, also available here and in SmartSite. Each has a different specific focus, and all four have strengths and weaknesses for evaluating hybrid courses.
- The BlendKit rubric for blended [hybrid] courses
- The CSU Chico rubric for online courses
- A rubric for syllabi incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning
- The list of questions that UC Santa Barbara uses for online course approval
- Get in contact with your course-pair partner, and exchange all of the course materials you have created so far--syllabus, learning objectives, plans for hybrid activities and assessments, and so on. Don't worry if you don't have a perfect finished product. All of us are in draft mode right now. Please exchange materials by Saturday, March 31. If you cannot fulfill your assignment, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can give your partner someone else to work with. Course pair partners:
- (names of faculty)
- (names of faculty)
- (names of faculty)
- (names of faculty)
- (names of faculty)
- Use the rubric you selected to provide feedback on your partner's course materials. Your partner may choose a different rubric than you do to guide feedback on your materials. Again, we are in draft mode, so work with what your partner sends and provide suggestions for anything that's not developed yet. Send the rubric and comments to your partner by Saturday, April 7.
- Finally, post on the Quality Assurance discussion board in response to one or more of the discussion questions you'll find there. Please post by Saturday, April 7, and respond twice by Wednesday, April 11. And remember your ABCs when you respond: Acknowledge, Build, and Conclude (concisely).
The collaborative peer review process requires an investment from all parties, but as you tell your students, it has many benefits. Those of you who are preparing to submit a course for approval through ICMS in April will be better prepared for the ICMS requirements, and those of you who are just mulling over possibilities and not ready to dive into full course redesign will get ideas and suggestions from your peers. And all of us will be better prepared for the final workshop, in which we'll meet with a panel of the rest of the campus team involved in hybrid courses--librarians, administrators, course approval representatives, students, and so on. Look for more information about the dates and times for that discussion coming soon. I'm still working to schedule our panelists and may need to push it into the third week of the quarter, and I will let you know as soon as I can.
That's enough for now. Good luck with the peer review process, and please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Rosemary
The discussion board questions are here:
As we near the end of the course design phase, it helps to consider the standards our hybrid courses should meet. The readings and peer review process provided you with several examples. Please respond to one or more of the following questions, either on this thread or in a new post.
- What elements are missing in the readings and example rubrics that should be present in a UC Davis rubric for hybrid courses?
- How will you know whether your hybrid course is sound prior to teaching it? How will you know whether your teaching of the course was effective once it has concluded?
- With which of your trusted colleagues might you discuss effective teaching of hybrid courses? Is there someone you might ask to review your course materials prior to teaching your hybrid course? How will you make it easy for this colleague to provide helpful feedback?
- How are “quality” and “success” in hybrid and online learning operationally defined by those whose opinions matter to you? Has your institution adopted standards to guide formal/informal evaluation?
- Which articulations of quality from existing course standards and course review forms might prove helpful to you and your colleagues as you prepare to teach hybrid courses?