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Cal State L.A. Quality Assurance in Flipped, Hybrid, Online Courses

Summer 2014 

Proposal Summary: At Cal State L.A., our first goal was to increase awareness of the Quality Matters Rubric and bring training to the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (CETL) Instructional Designers, interested faculty, and key administrators (e.g., College Curriculum Committee Members, and Associate Deans).  We also wanted to offer an additional 4-day Online Institute to Cal State L.A. faculty, and offer grants for captioning of online content, and self- and peer- review of hybrid and online courses.  

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 

As the campus goes through the Semester Conversion Process (semesters launch Fall 2016), faculty were encouraged to think about Conversion Plus which included curriculum innovation.  Many faculty were interested in moving toward flipped, hybrid, and fully online models under the semester calendar.  We hoped to capitalize on this opportunity and provide additional training and resources to assist faculty in this endeavor. 

Goals of Proposal

  • Introduce the Quality Matters Rubric and Program to Cal State L.A. faculty, College Curriulum Committee members, and key administrators (e.g., College Deans and Associate Deans).
  • Increase awareness of the QOLT Program and Rubric in CETL workshops
  • Provide additional training on flipped, hybrid, and online best practices
  • Train CETL staff on both Quality Matters (QM) and QOLT objectives.

 

Background on Quality Assurance Efforts 

Since June 2012, CETL has held faculty institutes for those interested in teaching hybrid or online courses.  CETL hosted a faculty institute on "Online Teaching and Learning" during Spring Break (March 24-27, 2014) with 8 participants. During June 23-26, 2014 CETL held another Institute renamed "Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institute" with 9 participants. By changing the name of the institute, we got a lot more applicants that were interested in the flipped and hybrid models who did not think the "Online Institute" applied to them.

In addition, CETL has hosted a variety of Moodle and educational technology workshops.  Beginning in Fall 2013, we redesigned our "Getting Started with Moodle" workshop to include tips on best practices and introduced the QOLT rubric.  Based on these efforts, Cal State L.A. had 3 applicants in the 2013 QOLT program--the first time any Cal State L.A. faculty have participated.  In addition, we saw an increase in faculty demonstrating best practice as soon as they started using Moodle.  For instance, faculty spent more time organizing their course shells, clearly labeling their assignments with due dates at the beginning of the quarter, incorporating an extra forum for their students, and utilzing the Moodle News Forum to reduce the number of one-on-one emails to students.  We quickly realized the power of presenting best practice along with the technology skills.

Due to semester conversion, faculty have been increasingly interested in moving to a hybrid, or online format.  However, many faculty seemed unaware of the time and committment this could take, as well as the best practices that should be considered.  Some departments who wanted to go fully online had not even taken Moodle workshops, or were not aware of the QM or QOLT rubrics.  These were some issues we wanted to address in our QA grant proposal. 

 

cetl logocetl logo

Quality Assurance Lead

  • Beverly Bondad-Brown, Ph.D. - Associate Director for Educational Technology in CETL

Additional Quality Assurance Partners

  • Catherine Haras, Director of CETL
  • Jeff Suarez-Grant, Instructional Designer
  • Maria Fernandez, Instructional Designer

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2014-2015

  • Increase our 4-day Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institute offerings to increase exposure to flipped/hybrid/online teaching best practices.
  • Increase support for Cal State L.A. faculty who wish to get QM certified, or take QM workshops.
  • Get CETL staff QM certified with Peer Review Certification
  • Engage more administrators, Department Chairs, and key faculty (e.g., Academic Senate Executive Committee members) in the quality assurance efforts.
  • Create additional shared resources for faculty who wish to go flipped, hybrid, and/or online (e.g., Netiquette standards, links to boilerplate syllabus content, a Moodle template for courses, etc.)

 

Quality Assurance Project Results

Tasks/Resources Completed Spring to Summer 2014

QM training

On-site Quality Matters APPQMR training - On June 11, 2014, a Quality Matters facilitator came to Cal State L.A. to offer the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) workshop to 16 participants. Most attendees were members of their College Curriculum Committees who are currently overseeing the course conversion process as Cal State L.A. moves to the semester calendar. We felt that these folks needed to hear what constitutes a quality online or blended course as they read course proposals from their colleagues. This training was well received and allowed participants to be more informed about quality in hybrid and online courses. 

institute photo

Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institute - CETL hosted a faculty institute on "Online Teaching and Learning" during Spring Break (March 24-27, 2014) with 8 participants.  During Summer Break week (June 23-26, 2014) CETL held another Institute renamed "Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institute" with 9 participants.  By changing the name of the institute, we got a lot more applicants that were interested in the flipped and hybrid models who did not think the "Online Institute" applied to them. 

From this grant, we were able to host an additional "Flipped, Hybrid, Online Institute" during September 8-11.  Participants included 10 faculty from 6 of the 7 Colleges at Cal State L.A.  Feedback from the Institute was extremely positive, with 100% of the particpants reporting they were highly likely to recommend the Institute to their colleagues and 90% reporting that their overall experience was "very positive."

Quality Matters Workshop Stipends - The QA grant allowed us to cover the cost for 7 faculty and 4 staff members to take various Quality Matters workshops.  Some reflections from faculty include:

"I learned a lot of valuable information from this workshop. I think the main lesson for me was being very explicit about aligning my course objectives to my module objectives to my learning activities to my assessments... and explaining this alignment very clearly for my students. I learned to make my online course a more user friendly experience for my students."

"I have a sound overview of the QM standards, which ultimately made me realize that because of outdated course objectives, I have multiple alignment problems throughout the course."

The most valuable thing I learned in this workshop is, "To add a 'start here"'or 'welcome' section to my course design.  To take information about accessibility and technology support out of the syllabus and make it easier for students to find."

"I learned various standards for designing a blended course. I learned also how to incorporate these standards to align the f2f with on-line part. Putting together a Module Planning Worksheet was the favorite part for me."

Successes  

  • We have seen an increase in Cal State L.A. faculty who are interested in quality assurance in hybrid/online courses
  • Faculty are beginning to realize that "going online" does not mean posting a syllabus and slides on Moodle.  They are more aware that rubrics exist, and are understanding it is more realistic to go hybrid, then fully online.
  • We have seen an increase in faculty attending CETL workshops this fall--and they are getting "tricked" into learning best practice as they learn the technology skills.
  • Based on QOLT training at the Chancellor's Office, CETL staff are more comfortable with the peer-review process for QOLT. 

Ideas/Lessons Learned

  • Quality Matters workshops take time and effort - suprising to even CETL full-time staff, the QM workshops take much time and effort to complete.  However, they are invaluable in allowing participants to understand the student perspective as faculty become the student in these fully online workshops.   
  • Incorporate best practice into your initial technology workshops - we consistently incorporate best practice into all of our Moodle and educational technology workshops. For example, in our "Communicating with Students Online" workshop, faculty not only learn about Adobe Connect as a tool, but also learn the value of instructor feedback, nettiquette policies, etc. which relate to how they should communicate with students. 
  • Target key faculty to help with quality assurance buy-in - by inviting curriculum committee members to QM training, they could share with their colleagues the value of quality assurance in their courses. This info did not have to come from CETL administrators or instructional designers.