DIGital Structures: NOTES FROM “FOUNDATIONS FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING ONLINE”

The “New Normal” on the delivery and conduct of teaching and learning in universities may be a fully online classroom environment while community quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic is imposed. Hence, faculty members must learn new skills and adapt to the online platform to successfully deliver their courses and effectively assess students’ performance and achievement of learning outcomes. Free online courses hosted by universities such as Arizona State University Continuing Professional Education (ASU-CPE) are readily available and must be taken advantage of by the faculty.

“The Foundations for Excellence in Teaching Online” hosted by Arizona State University Continuing Professional Education (ASU-CPE) is a self-paced learning course designed to share strategies for designing and teaching online courses. ASU uses Canvas as their Learning Management System (LMS). Hence, some of the tools of Canvas are used in this course. All assignments are optional in this experience. If you choose to participate, assignments are submitted to the designated area of Canvas. This course has optional activities that will not be graded but required for completion. This course uses discussions called "Community Forums" for comments and discussion about the course topics. Participants are encouraged to respond to the posts of other participants, but participation is completely optional. Participants submit assignments so that he/she can read the submission of the other participants, learn from their submissions and also comment on their submissions. The online course website: https://asuce.instructure.com/courses/2656

I am sharing the notes taken from the online resources and videos shared in the website. Module 0 highlights two important points in an online course offering

1. There should be an ACADEMIC INTEGRITY POLICY where the student must attest that all work submitted or posted will be original work and adheres to the policy. Here is part of the ASU AIP:

"I have read the ASU Student Academic Policy (Link to website) and certify that all assignments submitted in this course (including papers, presentations, discussion board posts, quizzes, tests, exams, and laboratory work) will be my own original work and that any words, ideas, or data from other people that I include in my work will be properly attributed to their sources. I understand that I am not allowed to resubmit assignments previously submitted for a grade in another course or in a different section of this course. I understand my written work may be submitted for analysis by anti-plagiarism software and may be archived to prevent future academic policy violations......"

https://subjectguides.nscc.ca/AcademicIntegrity

2. A SYLLABUS QUIZ is a strategy to ensure the key concepts of your syllabus are understood by your students. This strategy is very appropriate in an online course since you will really force the students to read and understand the syllabus. Possible questions about the syllabus that you may ask : (a) What are the Course Learning Outcomes, (b) What are the course assessments and how do they contribute to the final grade. The quiz can be enumeration, multiple choice or check boxes. Incentive points may be given.

Actually, you may also combine the Academic Integrity Policy and Syllabus Quiz in one non-graded assignment. This activity can be done during the first week of the course.