2015-2016 Connie Broughton Leadership and Innovation in eLearning Award

Kendra Birnley and Elizabeth Donley, English Faculty and Project Leads at Clark College are the winners of the eLearning Council 2015-2016 Connie Broughton Leadership and Innovation in eLearning Award.

100 word writeup on why they were chosen

The Clark College English Department engaged in a year-long project to increase success and completion rates in online classes, provide a better online course experience for students, better training for online English faculty, and better support and resources for online English faculty. Ensuring they included both full-time and adjunct faculty, they delivered discipline-specific trainings and created common course shells for English courses in place of the college Canvas training requirement. The project met its goals and the eLearning council felt their innovative approach to faculty training is something that can be shared with and copied by other institutions.

Full Nomination

Full list of group names:

"Kendra Birnley, Clark College

Elizabeth Donley, Clark College

Marylynne Diggs, Clark College

Gail Robinson, Clark College

Toby Peterson, Clark College

Lindsey Schuhmacher, Clark College

Nancy Thompson, Clark College

Gerry Smith, Clark College

Alexis Nelson, Clark College"

Discipline-Specific Training and Common Course Shells "The Clark College English Department offers a multitude of online classes, including tech writing, composition, literature, and creative writing courses. Our online course success and completion rates are generally lower than the face-to-face counterparts, and we also have a range of instructors teaching online classes, including many adjuncts who are not well connected to the department or to the college. We also have many faculty who are interested in teaching online but not adequately trained. In 2015, after considering the aforementioned points and receiving feedback from English faculty about their desire for discipline-specific trainings and common course shells, we embarked on creating both as part of a year-long project. The goal of this project is to

1) Increase success and completion rates in online classes

2) Provide a better online course experience for students

3) Provide better training for online English faculty

4) Provide better support and resources for online English faculty

The first phase of this project was to implement English-specific trainings in place of the college training requirement of Canvas 101 and Canvas 201. Under the English plan, Canvas 101 is still required, but instead of Canvas 201, faculty complete two discipline-specific trainings facilitated by experienced DL English faculty. After completing those trainings, faculty submit a course shell for approval that is scored using a department-created rubric.

Each training class offered has a course description and student learning outcomes. Faculty trainers upload course materials into a Canvas training shell that houses sample assignments, readings, and class materials. The training shell is also available to faculty after the training concludes, so they can access materials as needed. An anonymous survey is administered after the training to solicit feedback on the course experience. Below is a course description for one of these training courses:

This workshop is designed for instructors who will teach online and hybrid English courses at Clark College. Instructors should have completed Canvas 101 prior to taking this course, so they have a basic understanding of Canvas. Facilitated by an experienced Clark online English instructor, this course will focus on incorporating audio/visual materials in online and hybrid English courses. Sample materials will be shared, and topics include how to meet course SLOs and engage students by using audio/visual media in instructional materials, feedback, and options for student presentations, as well as ways to ensure accessibility. After completion of this training, you should have the tools to create your own audio/visual materials and should include some of these in the tentative course shell you submit for approval that demonstrates your readiness to teach English courses in online or hybrid modalities.

All trainings have been filled to capacity, and feedback has been very positive. One faculty member shared the following about his experience:

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated Friday's training. I went hoping to learn some practical tips about translating 101 and 102 into Canvas, which I did, but I also left with plenty of food for thought . . . In demonstrating how you use Canvas's tools to experiment with better ways to teach better writing, I found myself reflecting on my own practices and pedagogy in comparison to what you were modeling.

I took Canvas 101 and 201 over the summer, so they are pretty fresh in mind, and while I felt like I learned quite a bit about the LMS in those classes, Friday's workshop was infinitely more helpful for understanding its applications for comp.

This is truly a team project, with six English faculty facilitating trainings and another who is responsible for reviewing course shells. The rubric used to assess the shells, course descriptions, and SLOS were created collaboratively. With the course specifics set this year, we feel these trainings can continue more easily in the future.

Phase two of this project was to create English common course shells in Canvas for English 101 hybrid, 101 DL, English 102 hybrid, and 102 DL. These shells hold a wealth of information and materials for specific classes and are meant to be a starting point for new instructors or a resource for experienced instructors who would like some new ideas.

Each shell has a welcome page outlining how it should be used and encouraging faculty to copy and share whatever materials they would like. The module page is populated with sample modules from different online English instructors, and each module has commentary from the instructor outlining his or her approach to that module. Outcomes are also preloaded into the shell along with information about how best to use Announcements, the grades link, outcomes, and the navigation bar. All the materials in the shells follow the principles of universal design and Quality Matters, and information about universal design, Quality Matters, and curriculum and eLearning polices are embedded into the shell.

These shells should create some consistency in English online instruction to aid students as they move from course to course. This doesn’t mean every online class will look the same, but there should now be consistency with the navigation bar, Modules set-up, outcomes use, accessibility, and other areas. These shells will also make the process of creating a new shell less daunting for a new instructor by providing useful materials based on best practices. Knowing that online courses, especially in the beginning, can have a learning curve for the new instructor, these shells should ease that curve and create a better learning environment for students.

Like the trainings, we see these shells as something that can easily be updated now that we have the basic format and structure. We also plan to create other common course shells for other English courses in the future. Having these shells ready for instructors will also make it easier when we have a more specialized class that needs to be staffed at the last minute.

Overall, we feel our innovative approach to faculty training is something that can be shared with and copied by other institutions." Elizabeth Donley English Division Chair Clark College edonley@clark.edu