SUNY Effective Online Practices Award Program
Creating a recorded lecture with a SMART Board provides the opportunity for students to control the pace of their learning.
Binghamton University's Teaching Online Certification Program provides faculty with research-based best practices in developing online courses in addition to best practices in teaching in an online environment. The program also includes one-to-one consultations with an Instructional Designer throughout the development process. Participants in the program are required to deliver a complete online course as well as meet the designated essential criteria of our customized OSCQR rubric. The program spans multiple months and faculty consultations occur based on when the course will be taught (i.e. summer, fall or spring semesters). Faculty receive a monetary incentive once all criteria for the program are met; they also receive a certificate of completion for their Department records.
OER content was created for TC3's Intermediate Algebra Course, was piloted and scaled up to all Intermediate Algebra sections in the college (fully online and in-class). After successful implementation, College Algebra and Pre-calculus are currently implemented using the same platform; Statistics and Beginning Algebra are also on track for implementation in OER. Our OER implementation has affected 1721 students in mathematics alone and has involved approximately 20 instructors each semester.
Two to four times during a semester, my online students are required to create and post presentations of how to work specific homework problems and then view and respond to at least two of their classmates' presentations in the context of a Blackboard discussion.
This not only improves their understanding of the topics they choose to present, it builds a much stronger connection between the students than any other component in the course. As a bonus, it also allows me (as the professor) to get to know my students in a more personal way than is otherwise possible.
Students respond with both encouragement and suggestions for improvement/corrections. I am able to both encourage strong students (by asking them if I can post their videos in future courses) and give useful feedback.
The Access MOOC is a free and open online course about accessibility and Universal Design for Learning in education. In order for ALL students to be able to access, engage, and benefit from online learning, designers and instructors must design courses with accessibility and principles of universal design for learning in mind from the start.
The challenge is that many designers and faculty members don’t know how to design courses and content so that they are accessible. This MOOC addresses this challenge by enabling participants to learn about accessibility in a way that is interesting and engaging. Designers and instructors can choose to participate in the facilitated session of the MOOC or they can participate at their own pace in the on-demand version of the course available in May.
VoiceThread has been in use at FIT since 2008. It was first brought to the attention of the History of Art Department by an adjunct faculty member who received FIT Faculty Development Grants and Awards funding. As part of the initial testing phase, I was deeply impressed with VoiceThread, its ease of use and the enthusiastic feedback from participating faculty. Since then, in my role as the coordinator of the FIT Center for Excellence in Teaching, I have developed and demonstrated creative uses for this tool and guided/trained faculty on its effective use for online, blended and conventional learning spaces. As part of our advocacy I’ve presented with numerous colleagues and collaborators on the effective use of VoiceThread at events and workshops outside of FIT.
This practice ensures that all students have equal access to the content I present in my courses. By making all PDF files I post to the course website accessible, students who require the use of text-to-speech processing have the ability to digest, process, and participate in online discussions of class materials. In so doing, this practice facilitates interaction and collaboration between discussants on online forums. Through exposure to diversified instruction, my students construct their own understandings of course content through PowerPoint presentations, audio lecture narration, visual media, primary sources, and scholarly work.
I developed an online component for a 3 credit art history study abroad course when the amount of time for the trip to Paris was reduced to a single week. The semester-long online course offers an opportunity for students to prepare for their trip by introducing them to the key ideas and works of art they would later see first hand. Assignments and self-tests cover the reading, mini-lectures and websites, provide a reasonable weekly workload of homework and criteria for seeing that the course objectives are met. The online format offers a wealth of superlative and informative websites, videos and lectures. As well, the online classroom helps create a class community, a place where students can interact with each other and with me, exchange ideas and concerns.
The Practical Guide to Meaningful Gamification is an OER module and workshop that introduces gamification, suggests ways to implement it, and allows participants the time to develop their own gamified activities. All workshop content (learning module, handouts, facilitator's guide) can be downloaded freely from the following website: bit.ly/UBMeGa
Synchronous teaching using cloud technology is the newest way of having class with students at a distance. Very different than Lecture Capture, the instructor sits alone and teaches from a studio-like room which ensures that the students' experience are the same regardless of their location. And very different than Telecourses (courses via television or video-streaming), the class is live and relies on real-time interaction and collaboration between faculty and students that are rooted in active learning principles and other online learning practices such as flipping the classroom. In this online synchronous modality, students are able to connect with classmates as they usually would in a traditional face-to-face class, and learn from a faculty member who teaches in another location.