Tips for instructors in the CCCOnline SBS Division

1. Great Expectations
How to Influence Student Learning and
Get a Good QA Teaching Review
Increase
Student
Success
Document
Excellence
Cutting
Edge
Instruction
Quality

2. CCCOnline Core Value
Quality:
 We commit to excelling in learner-
centered instruction.
 Strategic Goal: Student Success
◦ Presence, engagement, student
outcomes
 Department Goal: Documentation of
quality instruction

3. Share the News
announcements:
Increase student learning I
 Make sure Instructor Information is
current and personal
 Include an image: a personal photo,
some clip art, to liven the page.
◦ Keep the image small (roughly 500x500
pixels)
◦ Crop if necessary (use
www.picresize.com )
◦ All images must be captioned

4. Post News Every Week
 Summarize learning from last week
 Summarize expectations for coming
week, including:
◦ Discussion topics
◦ Due dates
◦ Timeline of larger projects
 Share tips or knowledge with students
for this week’s work

5. Discussions: Make yourself
Known
even before courses start
 Seed discussions:
◦ Introduces the subject, ask thought
questions
◦ Give information on expectations and
grading information
 Create your own personal and
informal introduction in Discussions.
◦ The more human you appear, the better.

6. Discussions: Online Ice
Breakers
Help students get comfortable or think
about a subject
 Ask about a best or worst
experience with the subject
 Ask about career goals and
subject(not great for history
classes!)
 Share hobbies or interests

7. Discussions: Personalize!
 Address students by name
 Respond to every student with a
warm welcome.
◦ You might use information on student
interests or hobbies to suggest topics for
big projects.
 Respond to every student at least
once in every module forum
◦ Offer more information, ask a question

8. Discussions: Make your
presence known!
 Instructor participation is the number
one determinant of student
engagement
 Participate 3-4 days a week.
◦ Respond to student discussions
within 24-48 hours
◦ Post even when students do not
◦ Re-engage on student comments

9. Increase Student Learning II:
Add information to Discussions
• Post new information in every
response
• Post new information in News
 Post links to sources or bibliography or
CCCOnline library journals
• Summarize discussion each week to
reinforce learning at the top of the
Forum. This may be copied to the
News page.

10. Discussions: Foster Learning by
Making Students Want to
Participate
 Acknowledge student learning in
every response:
◦ Praise point of view or contribution to the
discussion
 Interact with the entire class:
◦ Post new information or summaries of
views by addressing “Everyone” or
“Class”

11. Email: Be responsive
 Email should be answered within 24
hours, no exceptions
 If you are unable to do this, let your
chair know so your course will be
covered
 Use student’s name in emails
 Email cannot be monitored – always
copy any issues into another format
(hidden discussion is good)

12. Increase Student Learning III:
Grading
 Grade within 72 hours
 Mark up assignments using Word
comments
 Make comments on grade page
 Use Rubrics where available:
◦ Tell students to refer to them before the
project is done
◦ Use them to give objective mark, but
supplement with written comments

13. Grading: Make it useful to
Students
 Keep comments short – don’t
overwhelm the student with
information
 Mix praise with critique – help student
want to read more
 Grade writing and grammar + content
 Do offer additional information on
drafts (other sources, other points of
view)

14. Feedback: Be kind, be helpful
 Adopt a persona of cheerful
helpfulness (even if you don’t feel it)
 Offer praise first, then critique
 Instead of blunt“bad job,” soften the
language:
◦ I am confused . . . Why do you say . . .?
◦ I wonder if you have considered . . .
◦ That’s a great point. Another way of
looking at this issue is . . .

15. Minimum expectations:
 Presence
◦ Check email daily
◦ Post within 48 hours, 3x per week*
◦ Grade timely: within72 hours
 Personalize
◦ Seed discussions, greet students in introduction*
◦ Address every student 1x per week by name
 Promote Learning
◦ Reengage with additional comments*
◦ Summarize discussions weekly*
 Post News announcement weekly
◦ Summarize last week’s learning
◦ Summarize this week’s themes & deadlines
*QA requirements

16. One last thing . . .
 Be mindful of accessibility: before
recommending a link to a student, see
if it is accessible to all
 Captions.
◦ Videos. This is easy to do for Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbUcv3Bc61
g
◦ Images (and watch the size, too. Crop
with www.picresize.com or Photoshop)
◦ Podcasts. Use Camtasia, or
Voicethread.com

17. More information: Free images
(online courses should be
VISUAL!)
 Copyright-free images to liven web
pages
◦ http://www.morguefile.com/
◦ http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/tips/
freeimages.htm
◦ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-
websites-for-free-stock-photographs/
◦ Flickr.com with Creative Commons
license
◦ Wikipedia
◦ Library of Congress, LOC.gov (no known
restrictions clause)

18. More Information: Student
Engagement
 Faculty Focus: Higher Ed Teaching
Strategies, http://www.facultyfocus.com/
 Validating student feedback through
review of online program delivery best
practices,
http://www.deltastate.edu/PDFFiles/DJE/
Herring%20and%20Burgess%20Final.pd
f
 CCCOnline.Org>Teaching
Resources>Building
Community>Research on Community