SUNY Effective Online Practices – 2025 Entries

The Proactive Student Outreach and Support System (PSOSS) offers online student support through a holistic, data-driven approach that identifies struggling students early and provides personalized, comprehensive interventions. By integrating analytics, targeted communication strategies, and multi-layered support resources, PSOSS addresses the unique challenges of online learning environments, ultimately improving student engagement, retention, and academic success.

Of all course assessment activities, the course discussion board is arguably the most important element of an online course for accreditation purposes, low-stakes skills development, and student-to-student and student-to-faculty interaction. At Farmingdale State College, we host a bank of proven discussion board templates that work for a wide range of disciplines, and invite our faculty to customize them in their own courses.

Among this collection is an RSS News Feed Discussion Board template. This activity uses an embedded newsfeed focused on the topics central to the course, and ask students to select a current event item to explore in context with the learning outcomes for the week. Here are some benefits of this discussion board technique:
- Content is always up to date
- Current events are often not part of a LLM or Ai tool
- Content engages students with real world applications and relevant knowledge about the industry or discipline
- Content is often multimedia rich, including images, audio clips, or included embedded web links to additional resources

Introductory lecture content is often needed to lay the theoretical and practical foundations necessary for higher order thinking and problem solving. However, students with poor notetaking and active listening skills can feel overwhelmed or disconnected from lecture. This can be especially true for asynchronous students, who lack the connection opportunity of real-time classroom settings.
I have developed a practice for live-annotating my lectures. Basic notes are shared with students in advance of each lecture. These are downloaded and/or printed prior to attending class or watching a video lecture. As I teach, I build the notes live. Techniques practiced during the recording session include:
• Use of closed captioning to supplement the audio content being recorded
• Text Highlighting and contrasting color text draw attention to new content additions
• Explicit notetaking instruction, intentional pausing and "pause, rewind & replay" reminders help students review material multiple times and build their own note-sets with intention.

There have been several benefits to this method. I receive more correctly completed homework. Review and help sessions are more fruitful. Exam & project performance is better. This has resulted in higher course & program retention. Students have expressed higher levels of confidence as we annotate together.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered applications have emerged as promising technology tools to enhance accessibility in education, offering personalized feedback and adaptive learning pathways (Krstić et al., 2022). This proposed effective online teaching and learning practice outlines the use of an AI-powered study tutoring application to improve accessibility, confidentiality, productivity, and student learning.

The interdisciplinary collaboration involved faculty from Special Education (SPED) and Computing Sciences (CS), and students from the ACM SIGAI Student Chapter at SUNY Brockport. Under CS professors' mentorship, students developed an AI-powered tutoring application, piloted in a SPED course in fall 2024, in which students received immediate, personalized AI feedback on their initial answers, revised their responses, self-assessed/reflected on their performance, and made a second submission. The SPED professor reviewed the students’ improved work and provided further feedback and grades.

This AI-powered application enhances accessibility and inclusivity in educational assessments. It supports personalized learning and helps students identify and address knowledge gaps. The application complements educator support, allowing instructors to focus on meaningful interactions. We plan to expand its use to more disciplines in spring 2025.

In conclusion, the AI-powered tutoring application advances accessible and inclusive educational assessments, demonstrating AI's potential to enrich educational experiences without replacing human instructors.

SUNY Niagara-branded Wolf Packed (aka Barnes & Noble First Day Complete) is an innovative program that ensures students have access to course materials on the first day of class at a significantly reduced cost. By bundling digital and print resources at a per-credit-hour rate, this initiative removes financial and logistical barriers, improving student preparedness and success. SUNY Niagara implemented Wolf Packed in Fall 2023 and continues to refine it through Spring 2025.
To integrate Wolf Packed effectively, SUNY Niagara collaborated with Barnes & Noble College and publishers to align textbooks and resources within Brightspace. Given the complexity of the process, we developed resources to enhance communication, ensuring faculty could guide students on accessing materials and resolving issues. To further improve the program, we established a committee that includes the B&N manager, financial advisor, student support specialists, faculty, and the instructional design team. This team has worked to strengthen communication, refine the Wolf Packed website, and educate faculty on best practices for informing students about the program.
Since its launch, Wolf Packed has led to some improvements in student success. As the program evolves, we plan to share insights and best practices with all SUNY campuses to support broader adoption and continuous improvement.

Teaching Students at a Distance is an online asynchronous interactive course designed to support Jamestown Community College faculty who are currently teaching or may teach a distance education course. The course provides faculty with the resources they need to get started teaching distance education courses with a focus on the three types of interactions, instructor-student, student-student, and student-content. While the content of this course is important, it is the sharing of ideas among faculty, the connection of faculty to the Online Learning team, and the experience of taking an online course in Brightspace as a student that makes this course a powerful professional development tool. Over 150 faculty members have completed this course at JCC!

The Adult Education Organization Page in Brightspace was developed as a virtual “third space” to foster connection, engagement, and academic success for online graduate students in adult education. Recognizing the challenges of online learning, we created a dynamic space where students can interact socially, share experiences, and build a sense of belonging beyond coursework.
This initiative emerged from a needs assessment in which students identified gaps in support and community. Based on their feedback, we curated a customized collection of resources, including program offerings, microcredentials, APA formatting guidance, and graduation requirements. Additionally, we provide career development resources, such as job postings and professional networking opportunities, along with access to graduate student support services tailored to adult learners.
By centering student needs and fostering an interactive learning environment, the Adult Education Organization Page serves as a model for best practices in online education. This virtual “third space” enhances social and academic engagement, providing a vital hub where students connect, collaborate, and thrive. Through this initiative, we bridge the gap between online coursework and community, ensuring students feel supported throughout their academic and professional journeys.

Learners explore and apply the Online Course Quality Review (OSCQR) system of tools and practices to support quality online teaching and learning. In addition, masters students complete modules in the SUNY DLE Brightspace Fundamentals course for the same reason. In both cases, they are able to add valuable, transferrable knowledge and skills to their "career toolbelt" and earn credentials that are valued by employers. In graduate and online pedagogy courses, learners connect course content (e.g., online learning frameworks, curriculum design, online pedagogy) to the OSCQR rubric as well as its wrap-around system that supports design, development, review, and continuous improvement of online education. Learners have the option of enrolling in the SUNY Online Certified Reviewer program (available in the 2024-25 academic year), and earning certificates in the SUNY DLE Brightspace Fundamentals course. These real life tools and applications enable the learners to connect their course work to career development by becoming reviewers and earning credentials that are recognized by employers.
Note: I collaborate with 2 other faculty (Andre Mount and Gaylynn Walsh) as an Online Faculty Fellow in the Online Pedagogy course for faculty. I want to share the credit for the OSCQR-related activities we have embedded in the course work.