Distance Education Newsletter

Two years ago this March, we "pivoted" to online learning. The intrepid educators at this institution rose to the challenge, and over the subsequent semesters, as our great online experiment stretched out, we never stopped rising to the challenge. We learned more and more about supporting students and their learning online. We identified the biggest hurdles and strove to overcome them. We began to see where the digital environment created opportunities for deeper learning and deeper connections. Let's take a moment to recognize these amazing (and exhausting!) accomplishments.

And now, with COVID numbers dropping, it's time to really think about what our futures hold. Which environment(s) will allow us to maximize our students' learning? And how can we best support and serve our students through the coming transitions and into the future? We know a whole lot more about online education than we did two years ago. What will we, both individually and collectively, do with that knowledge?

Last month, we mentioned online courses had the highest fill rates at KCC for Spring 2022, matching the preferences of our student survey takers in Fall 2021, but we didn’t re-share a link to the UHCC modality and class preference survey results data dashboard! Oops. Here it is.

Want to dive more deeply into what the final fill rates looked like at KCC for Spring 2022? Click here to view the Spring 2022 enrollment dashboard.

The University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) Strategic Innovation in Online Education Award often celebrates one specific innovative program at a higher education institution, but the 2022 award recognizes and celebrates the fact that a complex network of interconnected initiatives and projects is responsible for the high quality of the online education provided by Kapi‘olani CC. And that the campus uses all these initiatives as opportunities to build, strengthen, and nurture a mutually-supportive community of online educators and learners.

In the past two years, more teachers and students have experienced the flexibility and unique affordances of learning online; it’s clear that in the future, a major part of the Kapi‘olani CC learning experience will take place online. Thanks to the hard work of the institution’s amazing students, staff, faculty, and administrators, and thanks to the interconnected web of innovations celebrated by this award, Kapi‘olani CC is ready for that future. And we’re pretty excited about it, too.

Learn more about the initiatives celebrated by this award and about previous awards earned by the college.

Join us for the first all-UHCC campus gathering in two years! There are over 60 sessions to choose from, including 10 UHCC cross-system discipline/unit meetings. The program is ready for you to explore (subject to minor updates)!

UHCC 2022 Excellence in Education Day

Friday, March 4, 2022, 8:30am – 12noon

Register for 2022 EIE Day here: 2022 EIE Day RSVP

This year’s theme, Mālama Kekahi i Kekahi (taking care of our students, each other, and ourselves) reflects the UHCC’s ongoing commitment to student and employee success and wellness. Participants will engage in best practices, innovations, and strategies.

The day will continue with campus-specific afternoon activities. For Kapiʻolani CC, that means a mission-building summit from 1-3 p.m. via Zoom. As Chancellor Pagotto says, "Because it guides all that we do, there is no more important document than our mission statement. I strongly encourage you to join in this important dialogue." Details and a Zoom link in the calendar can be found on the strategic planning website.

Our award-winning Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP) will be facilitated in the spring and summer of 2022 by faculty colleagues who are experienced online teachers:

• TOPP Tech Basics

March 4-18, 2022 (Spring Break)
Sharpen your basic tech skills in Zoom, Google, and Laulima
Apply online by March 4, 2022

• TOPP Course Planning for Active Learning

May 23 to June 3, 2022 (2 weeks)
Design an SLO-aligned active learning space for your students
Apply online by April 18, 2022

• TOPP Building an Online Classroom

June 6 to July 1, 2022 (4 weeks)
Build an engaging online/hybrid class in Laulima enhanced by Web tools
Apply online by April 18, 2022

• TOPP Applying Digital Accessibility

July 11 to August 5, 2022 (4 weeks)
Join accountability groups to learn together and revise your classes for accessibility.
More details coming soon

Please contact kaptopp@hawaii.edu if you have questions.

Would you like to join a supportive community to collaboratively revise your digital resources to meet ADA accessibility requirements? A NEW PD will be coming in July! "Applying Digital Accessibility" will facilitate and support communities of faculty revising their digital resources/classes together.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global shift to online education (whether we liked it or not) colleges are working to make sense of changes in distance education regulations and "the new normal" when it comes to student support and engagement in the online environment. In this webinar college distance education practitioners will discuss how they have addressed the new distance education regulations at their colleges including concrete steps to communicate those changes and to integrate them into policies and professional development.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88461546826

Other Upcoming ACCJC Webinars

Currently, Kapi‘olani CC has a subscription with Go2Knowledge, which offers Kap‘olani CC faculty and staff free access to dozens of Innovative Educators webinars, both live and on demand (pre-recorded). Many of them are quite good! Here's a sampling to pique your interest:

• Building an Online Community of Learners: Mindset, Content & Strategies

  (Wednesday 3/2, 10:00 - 11:00 am HST)

• How to Develop, Nurture & Enhance Cultural Competence on Campuses (Tuesday 3/15, 10:00 - 11:00 am HST)

• Close The Equity Gap by Teaching Students Metacognitive Learning Strategies (Monday 3/21, 10:00 - 11:00 am HST)

• Creating Inclusive Classroom Environments: Addressing Implicit Bias, Microaggressions & Exclusion (Wednesday 3/30, 10:00 - 11:00 am HST)

• Reimagining Your Online Classroom: Practical Techniques & Innovative Engagement Strategies (Thursday 3/31, 10:00 - 11:00 am HST)

And many, many more. Sign up at Kapi‘olani CC's G2K account page and browse through the offerings.

Back in our December 2021 DE Newsletter, we introduced you to Laulima’s New Content Templates in the CKEditor. This allows you to create attractive content for easier reading. Check out this quick tutorial showing you how to get started!

Ohio State University students developed a list of 10 ways that instructors can use the LMS more effectively and make it student-friendly:

1. Upload course syllabus to the LMS and provide a downloadable file.

2. Upload assignments with clear instructions and due dates.

3. Enter grades into the LMS when grading is complete.

4. Use a consistent mode of communication and mention it in the class.
   
5. Organize course materials into modules according to the content matter.
   
6. Remove unused tabs or pages from the course navigation.
   
7. Organize the course homepage with instructor contact information.
   
8. Utilize clear and consistent naming conventions for all assignments and files.
   
9. Use OER when feasible.
   
10. Leverage the resources and support available from the University.

We’ve heard similar suggestions in our previous student surveys. Join the Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP) this summer and learn how to use Laulima more effectively and facilitate an online learning community.

Our DE Class Coaching efforts have been collegial, collaborative, and constructive thanks to our amazing course coaches and coachees. Everyone involved in the process has also been learning so much by asking hard questions and sharing the answers. Every month, we plan to highlight two Q&As from our Peer Coaches FAQ archives as we believe that some of the information will be helpful for anyone teaching online. This month’s questions and answers are:

• For a Laulima page, what if I use an image for my heading instead? Am I still mandated to use H1 somewhere before I’m able to use H2, or can I begin using H2 for my headings in other sections?

Option 1: You can make your banner image a H1 by adding the code <h1> and </h1> around the image in Source view.

Option 2: Add “Welcome {{firstname}}!” to create Heading 1 under the banner.

• On a Laulima Lessons page, an accordion section heading is coded as H3. Does that mean that anything under an accordion has to start at heading 4?

Yes, it’s important to not skip headings, so any heading text inside the accordion section should begin at H4.

It has a new name! Many of you may have used Adobe Spark for its easy video making tool. Now, you’ll find that same great tool with Adobe Creative Cloud Express at https://express.adobe.com/sp/. There seems to be even more wonderful features including beautiful templates to create social media posts, flyers, logos, collages and more. There are quick tools for removing backgrounds from photos, resizing images, converting images to png or jpeg files, trimming videos and more.

-In For One Who is Exhausted by John O’Donahue

• What Students Are Teaching the Rest of Us about the New Normal (article, Educause)

Sometimes our students "teach" us and, as the pandemic persists, many higher ed students are modeling healthy ways we all can adjust to the new normal. While some of these insights relate directly to online learning, others are more overt and yet they all impact the way we navigate the challenges both in and outside of the classroom. From our students, we can learn the importance of diligent self-care, openness, and above all-empathy.

• Federal Policy Surprises! Updates and a Call to Action (blog, WCET Frontiers)

The just released blog shares the content and concerns about federal policy issues that you should know about, informs you of the steps WCET and the WCET State Authorization Network (SAN) have taken thus far, and looks ahead to the next steps for you to follow and participate in this rulemaking process.

• It’s easy to do (if you know how to do it (blog, Seth Godin)

Every instructional design can be summed up by this statement: Humility in design dances with the arrogance of believing we can help other people move forward.

• DE Newsletter - February 2022
• DE Newsletter - January 2022
• DE Newsletter - December 2021
• DE Newsletter - November 2021
• DE Newsletter - October 2021
• DE Newsletter - September 2021
• DE Newsletter - August 2021
• DE Newsletter - July 2021
• DE Newsletter - June 2021
• DE Newsletter - May 2021
• DE Newsletter - April 2021