Home


Cal State LA's Continuing "Sneaky" QA Implementation

2015-2016 Academic Year 

Cal State LA  

Proposal Summary:  [At Cal State LA, we proposed to continue our offering of two 4-day Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institutes that incorporate QM Rubric standards, as well as supplement CETL’s current training efforts with Quality Matters workshop grants. We also requested funds for a CETL Faculty Fellow and travel funds to attend the Annual QM conference.  All of these efforts--and more--were successfully completed this academic year.

MERLOT II
MERLOT is a collection of free and open online teaching, learning and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. The MERLOT collection of open resources spans across a wide variety of disciplines and education levels. What sets MERLOT apart is a combination of peer reviews, member comments, learning exercises and other valuable information and metadata associated with the materials.

Campus Need for Quality Assurance

Campus Need for Quality Assurance 

Current factors that influenced our quality assurance efforts this year:

  • Current low number of hybrid and fully online courses that have been informed by or developed with quality assurance rubrics
  • Increased interest of faculty going hybrid or fully online due to semester conversion 
  • Increased interest of faculty in using Moodle or other technology tools in their teaching

Proposal Goals Based on These Factors

  • Offer 55 Quality Matters workshop grants to faculty, staff and/or administrators
  • Recruit a Faculty Fellow to help with training and support for developing hybrid or fully online courses.  This Facutly Fellow would serve in a peer metoring capacity to faculty interested in course redesign. 
  • Allow CETL directors and instructional designers to present and attend the Annual Quality Matters conference.

Quality Assurance Lead

  • Beverly Bondad-Brown, Associate Director for Educational Technology

Supporting Campus Partners 

  • Catherine Haras, Director of the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (CETL)
  • Jeff Suarez-Grant, Instructional Designer
  • Maria Fernandez, Instructional Designer
  • Justin Cassity, Associate Director for the College of Professional and Global Education (PaGE)
  • Mandy Hillstrom, Faculty Fellow (Winter 2015) and Associate Professor in Nutrition 

selfie


Background on Quality Assurance Efforts 

In the last couple of years, we had limited faculty interest in QOLT, and began offering QM workshop grants to faculty.  There was also limited interest in technology use in courses and the desire to go hybrid or fully online.  Lst year's grant allowed us to integrate QM best practices into our Moodle workshops and trainings, and exposed faculty and administrators to the QM rubric.  Prior year efforts included:

  • Moodle and educational technology workshops that introduce or reinforce QM Standards
  • 4-day Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institutes that support faculty redesign efforts
  • Moodle and educational technology support via phone, email and walk-in assistance
  • Customized workshops and support on active learning, course redesign, peer instruction, SoTL, leadership development, etc.

Quality Assurance Project Results

Tasks/Resources Completed AY 2015-2016

Quality Matters workshop completion numbers this year:

  • Designing Your Blended Course (DYBC) - 50 
  • Designing Your Online Course (DYOC) - 9
  • Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) - 11
  • Teaching Online Introduction (TOL) - 14

Additional goals met:

  • Faculty Fellow Mandy Hillstrom became a QM Peer Reviewer, developed and taught a fully online course Summer 2015, and is currently developing a hybrid course for Fall 2016.
  • Implemented a Hybrid Course Redesign Program for 3 cohorts of faculty to develop a quality hybrid course to be taught either Fall 2016 or Spring 2017.  This programming consisted of 2 face-to-face meetings to revise course learning objectives and develop course module level objectives; completion of QM's DYBC workshop; completion of QM worksheets to plan the course; and adoption of a Moodle template to ensure QM best practices.  A total of 45 faculty have completed this intensive hybrid development program.
  • Attendance and presenations at the Annual Quality Matters conference in San Antonio, TX.

slide


slides 2

Successes

  • An increased interest in Quality Matters professional development
  • An increased interest in hybrid course development (due to semester conversion)
  • Two faculty and two instructional designers completed QM Peer Reviewer training

Ideas/Lessons Learned

  • Low interest in the QOLT award program does not equal no/low interest in technology-enhanced, hybrid or fully online course development - we have very little interest in the QOLT award program at our campus, but many are still designing great fully online and hybrid courses.  I think our faculty are not yet ready for peer review, despite building courses that follow all the best practices.  Most faculty who have developed great fully online or hybrid courses are tenured faculty who are not interested in QOLT recognition.  They may feel they do not need it as a junior faculty may for RTP.
  • Communication is key - We need to always market and communicate our services to faculty.  We send weekly emails to faculty on our programming.  All of our Calls for Participation (Institutes, workshop grants, etc.) must be sent multiple times for maximum exposure.  We also have a CETL Technology-Enhanced Certificate Holder (T.E.C.H.) program that recognizes those who complete a majority of our technology workshops.  Some faculty have completed the requirements, but have not asked for the recognition.  Again, we need to keep communicating, advertising, and marketing so faculty are aware of these programs.
  • Leverage other ideas and learn from professional conferences - There is great value in keeping ourselves up to date with technology tools and trends.  Although we do faculty and professional development, we need to remember the value in going to professional development opportunities as well.  The Annual QM conference was great as we began implementing QM on our campus.  We are excited to keep staying innovative by attending other related conferences next academic year.

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2014-2015

  • Continue our offering of two 4-day Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institutes
  • Supplement CETL’s current training efforts with Quality Matters workshop grants and CO-hosted training grants
  • Travel for staff development at OLC Innovate Conference
  • Funding to help submit 3 fully online courses for formal QM peer review