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2024-25 Cal Poly SLO 

Semesters and Maritime

Cal Poly's Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology provides support and informed and consistent quality reviews for all participants in the QLT award cycle, and promotes high quality online and hybrid course development across the University. We are also navigating the Quarter to Semester conversion while anticipating a Year Round Teaching model, and have been informed we will potentially be absorbing an administrative role for CSU Maritime. It is indeed a sea change!

Quality Assurance Lead
  • 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 Chase Hall. 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 (Canvas), AI, content development and delivery, Accessibility, and assessment.

Campus Commitment Toward Sustainability of OCS Efforts

  • The CTLT and Provost's office continue to provide stipends for faculty completion of all OCS workshops offered throughout the year
  • The CTLT has generously assisted in sending our team to various conferences that focus on hybrid & online teaching, Artificial Intelligence, LMS, UDL and DEI.

Summary of Previous OCS  Accomplishments

This year we sent 16 faculty through the AI For Teaching & Learning workshop through the OCS. We are in the process of creating workshops that will ensure more courses having the option for online delivery in 2025-26 when the campus changes to semesters, but anticipate lower faculty involvement until that transition takes place.

Campus Goals for Online Course Services

For 2025-26:

Goal 1: Recruit faculty and train them for online course delivery under the new semester system. Our goal is to train 20 faculty in summer 2025, and another 25-40 faculty in the 2025-26 academic year using our newly updated Introduction to Online Teaching & Learning workshop as well as our Creating Accessible Course Materials workshop.

Goal 2: Recruit faculty and train them to become online course reviewers. Our goal is to train 20 faculty over the next year to be certified course reviewers, and to fund at least 20 internal course reviews before converting to semesters.

Goal 3: Continue to support efforts to incorporate AI into the classroom through workshops and other events.

Goal 4: Hold a series of summertime “Drop in” events again in 2025-26 as these have been very well received in the past. These events allow faculty to visit with an instructional designer in person over a five-hour event that offers a quiet location to work, and morning coffee as well as lunch. 


From 2024-25:
Goal 1: Continue this year with SQuAIR, with Kelly Bennion again taking the lead.
     Kelly has created a two-year plan for Cal Poly as we are heading into our Quarter-to-Semester conversion, and we will be addressing Cal Poly’s anticipated need for hybrid and online courses as our room availability becomes more competitive.

Goal 2: Continue with previous goals as planned, while supporting the Q2S conversion efforts - while also encouraging (successfully so far!) the inclusion of online modalities for all courses in our system.
    This year we have launched a series of presentations to help faculty embrace online and hybrid options - including becoming course reviewers! - as we proceed toward the Q2S conversion. 

Goal 3: Increase our efforts in training faculty on use of AI in the classroom.
    This year we launched a series of AI workshops (called the AI Buffet) where over the course of the year, 88 faculty experimented with AI and discussed how to potentially incorporate it into their classes. This series drew more faculty than we expected, with 32 additional faculty attending the CSU AI workshop as well.


Workshops and events

This past year we worked hard to incorporate AI into everything we offered to faculty, while addressing the needs of the conversion from quarters to semesters. We had a few other changes to ponder as well as the campus considered year-round operations and a change to the semester duration.

Summer ‘24
  • AI Buffet Workshops
  • Drop-in Course Conversion Workshops
Fall ‘24
  • Creating Accessible Course Materials
  • AI Buffet Workshops
  • Inclusive Course Design: Implementing the UDL Guidelines
  • Intro to Equitable and Inclusive Teaching
Winter ‘25
  • Online Teaching Opportunities in Semester Conversion Creating Accessible Course Materials
  • Inclusive Course Design: Implementing the UDL Guidelines
  • Intro to Equitable and Inclusive Teaching
  • AI Buffet Workshops
Spring ‘25
  • Online Teaching Opportunities in Semester Conversion
  • Intro to Equitable and Inclusive Teaching
  • Creating Accessible Course Materials
  • AI Buffet Workshops

Course Peer Review and Course Certifications

Currently our course peer review & online certification process has taken a back seat to the Quarter-to-Semester conversion and anticipated Year Round Teaching initiatives. We have adjusted our grant expectations for the coming year accordingly, but will begin some outreach in summer 2025 to faculty who may be ready to convert their courses to online delivery.

SQuAIR Research Report

This year, Kelly Bennion focused her research on student preferences and perceptions of various online teaching modalities through surveys and focus groups. The findings revealed a strong preference for face-to-face instruction, with hybrid formats (especially those combining in-person and asynchronous elements) also viewed favorably for their flexibility. Asynchronous courses were preferred over synchronous ones despite being seen as less effective, largely due to their scheduling convenience. Bichronous formats were rated lowest in both preference and effectiveness. Key challenges identified included reduced engagement, limited interaction, and self-discipline demands, while benefits included flexibility and accessibility. Students emphasized the importance of instructor quality, training, and the need for flexible, well-designed course structures.

Challenges

Cal Poly is facing a profound shift as we transition our course offerings from the quarter system to a semester system as well as a year-round teaching model. This year the campus was informed we may also be absorbing some of the administrative functions of CSU Maritime. During this time, we are reaching out to all faculty to encourage their proposals to include hybrid and online modalities, with much success already. When Cal Poly has completed this transition, the hope is to finally be able to post our courses on the https://www.csufullyonline.com/ site. In addition to this, Cal Poly will be focusing on the ATI initiative in 2024-25 to ensure all course materials are accessible for all students. Our other challenge is addressing the impact of AI on our teaching and learning environments.