California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Proposal for Online and Blended Courses 2021-22
Cal Poly's Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology provides support and informed and consistent quality reviews for all faculty who are teaching online and blended courses, and promotes online course development across the University.
During the 2021-22 academic year, Cal Poly rescinded the emergency approval for all courses to be taught online unless prior approval had been given. With the majority of faculty having experience teaching online, the Instructional Design team shifted our focus to helping our faculty capitalize on the work they have done in the past year to deliver hybrid courses, as well as focusing on accessibility. Our goals for the 2021-22 academic year included:
- Pivot training to assist faculty in the return to campus, while encouraging Blended course design
- Provide training and stipends to faculty through Q1 (IOTL and CACM) and Blended course workshops
- Encourage online course preparation while converting from quarter to semester system
- Facilitation of a new course peer review pipeline to help faculty achieve Q2 and course review status
Add 100 academic courses to our online offerings through Course Information Management (CIM) for approval in online modalities
Add more faculty to Q1 certification
Train 20 faculty in course review (Q2) from across the disciplines
Creating Accessible Course Materials (CACM) workshop is taught by Pam Dougherty, MS Ed.
Introduction to Online Teaching & Learning (IOTL) and Blended/Hybrid Course workshops are taught by Catherine Hillman, MS Ed.
The campus learning management (Canvas) support and training are led by Tonia Malone, MS Ed.
Background on Quality Assurance Efforts
In the past year, the CTLT has expanded support for quality online and hybrid course development, so we have experience and existing programming to build upon through this new CSU initiative. CTLT’s current support for online and hybrid courses has included multimedia, web conferencing, OER online materials, and UDL, as well as a strong online delivery through the Flipped Classroom courses.
In the past few years, we have felt this was a slow-moving process, but this year we have seen much of our hard work and preparation pay off well with a surge of interest in quality online courses. The QA grants have given us a solid foundation for creating resources and feedback that align with the highest standards in online teaching, and that has gone a long way toward calming the concerns of faculty in regards to online teaching.
- Catherine Hillman, MS Ed.
Instructional Design Team
- Pamela Dougherty, MS Ed.
- Tonia Malone, MS Ed.
Supporting Campus Partners
- Academic Programs & Planning
- Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology
Our program:
Cal Poly’s primary quality assurance activities supporting online education are offered through our Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology (CTLT), located in the Robert E. Kennedy Library. The QA team is led by Catherine Hillman, Instructional Designer (and also current faculty in the College of Business), and the team offers robust support in the areas of teaching pedagogy, Learning Management System (Moodle), Multimedia and other content development and delivery, Accessibility, and assessment.
Goals Achieved:
- We offered five sections of our three-week workshop on Blended/Hybrid Course Design, and two Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning workshops, for a total of approximately 120 faculty participants
- The campus exceeded the goal of adding 100 academic courses to our online offerings through Course Information Management (CIM) for approval in online modalities – our pending total is around 130 courses
- We guided 22 faculty to Q1 certification
- Seven faculty completed the Reviewing Courses Using the QLT Rubric since March of 2021
- Five faculty completed the Advanced QLT Course in Teaching Online, and we are reaching out to those faculty to encourage enrollment in the Reviewing workshop
- Our "Online Opportunities" lunch presentations drew 15 interested faculty so far in Winter/Spring and resulted in at least two more signups for becoming course reviewers
Student Quality Assurance Impact Research
This year, Dr. Kelly Bennion is participating in the full SQAIR project. We are excited to have her on board, building on the work of the prior team.
Accessibility/UDL Efforts
We have continued the process of adopting ALLY into our Canvas LMS, and the CTLT is continuing to offer workshops on UDL and Accessibility. This year the CTLT also partnered with each of the colleges to create a DEI workshop (6 weeks).
Online Opportunities
With the transition to semester course offerings, our Curriculum Committee is shifting their focus from approval to online modalities in quarter-based courses to redesigning courses for the semester system.
In light of this change, we are focusing on helping faculty become course reviewers for online courses, and encouraging faculty to submit their online course modification proposals with their revised semester course proposals for 2025.
To answer questions and facilitate this shift, we have offered a series of hosted lunchtime presentations and Q&A sessions. These are offered as a hy-flex activity - those attending in person are served a lunch, and those who prefer to attend via Zoom can also participate. We hope to continue this series in 2022-23.
Next Steps for QA Efforts
In the coming year, we anticipate more workshops to help faculty reconcile their efforts in producing quality online courses with the campus directive to return to face to face teaching. We have had some assurance from the campus administration that online courses will be a higher priority in the future, and we will continue to offer a robust training schedule to accommodate the needs of faculty as they develop online and blended courses. Our offerings continue to be entirely online in the form of both self-paced and fully interactive workshops, however as of Winter 2022 we have begun offering some in-person workshops.