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Washington State Course Design Checklist

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Washington State Course Design Checklist

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WA Course Design Checklist V2 (ID Focus Group) 

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Abstract

HyFlex is a course design model that presents the components of hybrid learning in a flexible course structure that gives students the option of attending sessions in the classroom, participating online, or doing both. Students can change their mode of attendance weekly or by topic, according to need or preference. Models like HyFlex, which present multiple paths through course content, may work well for courses where students arrive with varying levels of expertise or background in the subject matter. Courses built on the HyFlex model help to break down the boundary between the virtual classroom and the physical one. By allowing students access to both platforms, the design encourages discussion threads to move from one platform to the other.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know Aboutâ€¦" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

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7 things you should know about the hyflex course model

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7 Things You Should Know About the HyFlex Course Model

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HyFlex is a course design model that presents the components of hybrid learning in a flexible course structure that gives students the option of attending sessions in the classroom, participating online, or doing both. Students can change their mode of attendance weekly or by topic, according to need or preference.

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30 Crative Ways to use Padlet in the Classroom 

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30 Crative Ways to use Padlet in the Classroom 

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Here's more Padlet ideas! Liz https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2017/08/30-creative-ways-to-use-padlet-for-teachers-and-students

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How to Succeed in Online Classes

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A sense of belonging to enhance participation, success, and retention in online programs

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A sense of belonging to enhance participation, success, and retention in online programs

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What Achieving Digital Equity Using Online Courses Should Look Like

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What Achieving Digital Equity Using Online Courses Should Look Like

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For almost a century, technology enthusiasts have promised that new innovations can democratize education. In 1932, Benjamin Darrow, founder of the Ohio School of the Air, argued that radio would "make universally available the services of the finest teachers." In 1961, the Ford Foundation's Teaching by Television report declared that TV would provide poor students with "instruction of a higher order than they might otherwise receive." In our own time, advocates of online learning promise to level the educational playing fields with massive open online courses, MOOCs.

The most compelling evidence for the democratizing power of MOOCs comes from a new generation of Horatio Alger stories, where the video lecture replaces the bootblack's cloth. In 2013, the New York Times Magazine told the story of Battushig Myanganbavar, the " Boy Genius of Ulan Bator," who earned a perfect score on MIT's first MOOC as a high school student in Mongolia and subsequently gained admission to MIT. This year, MIT has featured the story of Ahaan Rungta, a 16 year old Freshman, born in Calcutta, who has completed 55 courses on edX and MIT's OpenCourseWare. Rungta's father is the manager of the Indian restaurant in the MIT student center.

As powerful as these stories are, the extensive data collected by MOOCs tell another story. While there are extraordinarily talented students from all backgrounds who succeed in MOOCs, those from more affluent and better-educated neighborhoods are more likely to enroll and succeed in these courses. Moreover, the relationship between socioeconomic resources and course success is strongest among teens and college-aged students, exactly the ages where we might hope that online courses could provide a new entry point into higher education.

In a recent study published in , we found that young students enrolling in HarvardX and MITx courses live in neighborhoods where the median income is 38% higher than typical American neighborhoods. Among teenagers who register for a HarvardX course, those with a college-educated parent have nearly twice the odds of finishing compared to students whose parents did not complete college.

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What Achieving Digital Equity Using Online Courses Could Look Like

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For almost a century, technology enthusiasts have promised that new innovations can democratize education. In 1932, Benjamin Darrow, founder of the Ohio School of the Air, argued that radio would "make universally available the services of the finest teachers."

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4 Expert Strategies for Designing an Online Course

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4 Expert Strategies for Designing an Online Course

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Salena Rabidoux and Amy Rottmann, Amy Rottmann, Salena Rabidoux

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4 Expert Strategies for Designing an Online Course

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Steps for success include involving the learner, making collaboration work, devising a consistent structure and revising based on evaluation.

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How to be a Better Online Teacher: Advice Guide

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How to be a Better Online Teacher: Advice Guide

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Online Learning is Misunderstood: Here's How

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Online Learning is Misunderstood: Here's How

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I'm Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering innovation in and around academe. For more than two years, I've been curating the weekly Re:Learning newsletter. Now I'll be using it to share my observations on the people and ideas reshaping the higher-education landscape. Subscribe here. Here's what's on my mind this week:
Online learning is misunderstood. Here's how.
One out of three college students takes at least one class online. But the medium is still often misunderstood by the general public, and even within higher education itself.

So what do the professionals who work in the trenches wish their colleagues knew about online education? You might be surprised. I certainly was.

I asked that question during a talk I gave last week during the Minnesota eLearning Summit at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus (where, by the way, the campus creamery makes some yummy chocolate ice cream).

From Glori Hinck, an instructional designer at the University of St. Thomas, I heard a reminder that the classes aren't just a one-way, "passive transfer of information." Even online, she pointed out, "students can have a learning community." I'd like to hope that is true in all cases, but certainly she's right that such connections are possible - and ideal.

Christine Mueller, senior executive associate dean for academic programs at the University of Minnesota's School of Nursing, argued that online classes are often more carefully designed than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. "Our faculty are actually learning about how you construct courses and curriculum," she said. "Honestly, most faculty, and I'm one of them, never learned that. We learned our discipline. But we didn't learn how to teach."

That sentiment has been around for a while. But it did make me wonder: When will that no longer be so true? I keep hearing that graduate programs are taking teaching more seriously as part of their training of the professoriate. Is that enough? And does that training equip new professors with the skills they'll need to teach online?

My curiosity was also piqued by a concept introduced by Jane Sims, director of academic technology at the College of St. Scholastica. Online classes, she said, can bring together students from more diverse backgrounds - and allow them more chances to connect with each other - than many traditional classrooms do.

She elaborated in a follow-up email exchange. "Traditional classrooms are often segregated" by students' age and life circumstances, she wrote, and they're constrained by the clock. "There is not enough time for everyone to speak in a timed session, and often the extroverts are heard instead of introverts or people from other cultures or physical capabilities."

I hadn't thought a lot about how the 24/7 nature of an an online class - often with requirements to comment on discussion threads - could be a vehicle for more deeply exposing students to a broader set of perspectives from their fellow classmates. But clearly, Sims has. Online, she said, "there is an expectation that everyone adds a reflection and comments to others. There is ample time to 'hear' another person and form an articulate response. Reflection is an important component of challenging your assumptions and existing knowledge and incorporating new ideas."

I'll share one more response, one I almost passed on writing about. When Martin Springborg, a faculty member and technologist at Hennepin Technical College, described how online education can broaden access to higher education, it sounded just too familiar for this readership. But when I followed up with him, I realized that even some of us familiar with online education don't always appreciate what simple access to education can mean to some students, like those serving overseas.

For him, it's a professional issue and a personal one. His mother, who lives in rural Minnesota, has multiple sclerosis, "and would not have been able to return to college later in life were it not for online education," he said. His sister, who has two kids and works full time, also earned her degree online. "As a faculty member, I've seen my online classes become increasingly diverse in practically every way possible - in race, age, region, people with disabilities, veterans currently on active duty in other countries," Springborg said.

On top of the ice cream, that was great food for thought. Is there anything you'd add? If you have direct experience in online education, what do you think is misunderstood? Please let me know, and I'll share some of the best responses in a future newsletter.
The M&A wave rolls on.
Two trends are emerging in the business of higher education: the rise of mergers and acquisitions and for-profit colleges converting to nonprofit status. A deal announced last month embodies both.

The nonprofit National University System's purchase of the for-profit, all-online Northcentral University is in some ways a mini-me version of the Purdue-Kaplan deal (just without the part where the acquired organization stays on to run the online programs). The 35,000-student National University, the system's San Diego-based flagship, already offers dozens of online degree programs. The system's purchase of the 10,000-student Northcentral will give it an immediate boost in online doctoral degrees, said a university spokesman.

National also just bought the technology platform and curriculum of another for-profit organization - an operation called UniversityNow, which had attracted millions in venture capital but very few students to its college, called Patten University.

National did not disclose what it paid. Northcentral, founded in 1996 and owned by private-equity firms since 2008, was headed by two veterans of the for-profit-college sector. (One, David Harpool, was once the provost at Kaplan University; the other, George A. Burnett, once ran the company that owned the controversial Westwood College chain.)

National has bought colleges before. There were nonprofits - John F. Kennedy University, in 2009, City University of Seattle, in 2013 - and the for-profit WestMed, in 2007. Back then, such deals were pretty unusual for nonprofit institutions. But in the past year, it seems, the pace of merger-and-acquisition activity in the sector has picked up. I expect that trend to continue.

I'm not the only one thinking that way. A Moody's Investors Service "comment" on business models released last month also spotlighted the still-slow but rising trend of college mergers. It also noted that they "continue to be difficult to execute with many preliminary conversations not leading to consummation."

While we're on the subject of business models, consider how Paul Quinn College in Dallas ( and as of last month, Plano) is upending work-study. It's a creative approach that manages to both expand work opportunities for students and bring in additional revenue for the institution.

And for a deeper look at that model - and many other insights on business models - check out this just-published report on "Sustaining the College Business Model" by my colleague Scott Carlson.
Got a tip you'd like to share or a question you'd like me to answer? Let me know at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past editions or sign up to receive your own copy, you can do so here.

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Online Learning Is Misunderstood. Here's How.

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I'm Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering innovation in and around academe. For more than two years, I've been curating the weekly Re:Learning newsletter. Now I'll be using it to share my observations on the people and ideas reshaping the higher-education landscape. Subscribe here.