Through the leadership of California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI), all 114 California Community Colleges have adopted Canvas as their learning management system. Our systemwide move to Canvas enables our colleges to leverage the economy of scale and utilize resources more effectively. Moreover, part-time faculty who teach at more than one campus can now focus more of their time on teaching, as opposed to designing courses in multiple platforms. And, most importantly, our students who learn at more than one college will have a more consistent experience, which is particularly important as CVC-OEI expands access to online courses through cross-campus enrollment. Furthermore, our systemwide adoption of Canvas unites all of us — CCC faculty, staff, administrators, and students — to work towards the common goal of learning how to best utilize Canvas to support the needs of our diverse student population.

Last year, in pursuit of this goal, American River College in the Los Rios District in partnership with CVC-OEI and Instructure, hosted Can•Innovate 2017, a conference for faculty, staff, and administrators who use Canvas. Roughly 237 CCC educators attended that event.  This year, on October 26, 2018, @ONE (The Online Network of Educators), which serves as the professional development arm of CVC-OEI, hosted the 2nd annual Can•Innovate —this time in the form of a free online conference. 

Why a Free, Online Conference?

The decision to design Can•Innovate with a virtual program was made to support the needs of our CCC educators, comprised of 60,000+ faculty (70% of which are part-time) and approximately 30,000 classified staff and administrators. Leveraging what we learned from CCC Digital Learning Day, we designed the day to ensure everyone with a desire to learn and grow had the opportunity to do so.

In partnership with an advisory committee of faculty and staff, a robust online program was designed and delivered entirely through ConferZoom. The final program consisted of 19 sessions presented by 29 speakers including CCC faculty, staff, and administrators; national thought leaders; representatives from CVC-OEI ecosysystem, Instructure, and CCC supported tools; as well as a student keynote speaker, Natalie Miller. Attendees were provided 3 options to participate:  

1. Online — from one’s own device
2. On-Campus — from one of the 32 group viewing rooms across the system
3. On-Campus -- from one of the 5 regional hubs

The Outcomes

Can•Innovate 2018 was well-attended by faculty, staff, and administrators from across the state. Some highlights of the attendee data are:

• 5,870 advanced online session registrations (duplicated headcount)
• 3,285 session attendances (duplicated headcount)
• 1,131 people attended.
• The large majority of attendees (87%, n=982) participated online from their own device, while 7% (n=76) attended from an on-campus group viewing room, and 6% (n=41) attended on-campus at a regional hub.
• Attendees represented 108 out of 114 California Community Colleges (94.7%).
• The event attracted a diverse group comprised of: 76% faculty — split by full-time 42% (467) and part-time 34% (374) 12% classified (127) 7% administrators (78) 1% students (7) 4% other (46).

A 4.4 Star Event

A total of 270 attendees (40%) responded to the evaluation survey, providing us with rich user experience data from which we plan to learn and improve. Most of the evaluation responses (226 or 83%) came from those who attended online. The large majority (76%) online attendees indicated that convenience was the main reason they chose to attend from their own device, followed by “it is how I learn best” (6%), I live too far from a hub (6.6%) and my campus did not coordinate an on-campus viewing room (5%). Overall, attendees (all types) were very satisfied with their experience. Attendees gave their overall Can•Innovate experience an average 4.4 out of 5 stars. The distribution is shown below (all attendee types included):

★ ★ ★ ★ - 155

★ ★ ★ - 85

★★ ★ - 24

★ ★- 4

★- 3

Online attendees were slightly more satisfied (average 4.46 stars, n=226) than group viewing room attendees (4.28 stars, n=38) and hub attendees (3.85 stars, n=7). The data collected from the open-ended questions support high satisfaction levels. Those who attended online cited flexibility, the ability to learn without traveling, and efficiency as the top drivers of satisfaction. It is worth noting that these similar to the reasons students site for taking online classes.

Participants who attended from on-campus sited an appreciation for being able to converse with colleagues during and between the sessions, and on-site subject matter experts expand upon the presentations. Below are excerpts from the open-ended comments:

What did you like best about attending online?

• It is the most convenient way for the PT faculty to be included in P-Dev., so thank you for offering it online.
• I was paying full attention unlike face to face where you can fall asleep.asy to schedule and sign up for the classes that fit time schedule.
• While there were many in attendance the facilitators and moderators made the experience feel very singular and personal.
• I loved the fact that online was not just an afterthought; it was the point of the conference!
• I like learning and as an online teacher/ remote worker having a sense of community meets a need.  
• I did not have to commute.
  
• I liked the on-demand expectation of online events and seeing questions by my peers  answered in real time during the event!
• I didn't have to miss work, I just picked sessions to fit in my schedule.
• No waste of time / money / carbon traveling to a conference (or even my campus), and the efficiency of the Zoom presentations that were all business and well moderated
• Such dynamic presenters with innovative ideas to spark our imagination.

What did you like best about attending in a group viewing room?

• We added other sessions and an open lab. Faculty liked being able to choose. We also held our event in 3 classrooms with glass windows that faced a center gathering space. It helped to be able to look in each room to see what was going on, how many were in there, etc. We could see if the webinar had started even from outside the room.
• Having the opportunity to discuss the material with my peers as we watched it.
• Getting out of my office! Camaraderie, opportunity to explain/assist things with others, and pizza.
• Networking with my school's Canvas admin and her input during the different presentations.
• We were able to use the 15 minute breaks to review the session content for participants, clarify, answer questions, and describe how we can help with whatever was being presented.
• I think our participants really enjoyed being able to participate in a communal setting and be able to ask questions.

What did you like best about attending at a regional hub?

• Well organized.
• Being at home and in good hands for hand-on training Being with my colleagues.
• Chance to connect with others.

What did we learn?

For all the talk about student equity, it's also really nice to have opportunities for Teacher/Instructor equity as well. Online Conferences without exorbitant fees or limiting travel arrangements are the way to go - Thank you! — Elli England (@Toxicgrin)

Free, online conferences are a new form of professional development provided by CVC-OEI/@ONE. With each event, we seek to learn and improve. Can•Innovate has reconfirmed the value of untethering professional development from a time and place. By granting faculty, staff, and administrators the opportunity to learn and grow without needing to travel, more people are served and more students will benefit. Here are some of our key takeaways:

• Most of those who responded to the survey indicated that they learned about Can•Innovate from a campus announcement, which stresses the importance of building relationships with those who coordinate professional development across the system.
• Just over a quarter (27%) of respondents indicated this was their first time participating in an @ONE professional development offering, reinforcing the widespread impact of untethered professional development.
• Nearly half (46.5%) of respondents said they received flex credit for attending the sessions, which was a preference we identified from CCC Digital Learning Day and the reason we required registration at the session level for Can•Innovate. This granular registration process creates more steps for users and more links to manage, but there was no evidence in the conference evaluation data that suggested this process was problematic.
• Use of a Twitter hashtag (#CanInnovate18) proved to be an effective way to enable connections across campus. More than 700 Tweets were sent with the hashtag, promoting the sharing of feedback and resources, photos of viewing experiences, and reflections about the day. We hope more of you join in on Twitter in the future (follow us @ONEforTraining).
• Sharing across campuses opens eyes to new ways of thinking and breaks down silos. Professional development must utilize technology to deliver content and connect people. Professional networks are central to professional growth.
• Professional development must be designed with equity in mind. Attending traditional conferences is a great way to learn and connect with peers, but proportionately few educators in our system have the resources to fund conferences. Part-time faculty play a critical role in supporting the needs of our students and are often unable to attend on-campus professional development events.
• This untethered professional development model lightens the load of those on campus who coordinate professional development while providing attendees with options to participate in a way that suits them best.

If you have any thoughts about our Can•Innovate findings, we’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below or reach out to me directly.

… and mark your calendar for our next untethered event, CCC Digital Learning Day, which will be held on Thursday, February 28, 2019! Let us know what topics you’d like to learn about by contributing in our social upvoting forum, which is open until November 30!

In the 6 1/2 minute video below, Wendy Bass discusses the value of using weekly, informal videos in her online teaching. The videos provide students with a brief preview of the new module and a sense of who their instructor really is, promoting her social presence.

Additional resources:

• 3C Media Solutions
• ConferZoom
• Humanizing Online Teaching & Learning, a 4-week online professional development course

Please click the play button below to listen to Don Carlisle reflect on how and why he records audio feedback in Canvas to enrich his online students' learning. Or read the transcript below provided or access the interactive transcript.

Tables can be a useful way to organize certain types of content visually. But tables add an extra layer of complexity for students using a screen reader device which means it’s imperative your tables are formatted properly. Never fear! The Canvas Accessibility Checker is here to save the day.

What if you could meet regularly with peers from neighboring community colleges to share solutions and ideas about online education?  For faculty and staff at California community colleges located in southern border counties, this wish has come true.

The San Diego/ Imperial County Community College Association (SDICCCA) has an Instructional Services subcommittee on Distance Education that was founded in late 2012.  The subcommittee is made up of Distance Education representatives from nine community colleges in the San Diego and Imperial County area.  SDICCA members meet at the San Diego Community College District offices on the first Friday of each month. Together, we discuss and provide leadership on DE issues such as practices for supporting and preparing faculty and students, strategies for improving student retention and success, as well as effective practices for meeting accreditation requirements and state/national distance education regulations.

Finding My Community 

As the new DE Coordinator for Palomar College, I just started attending these SDICCA meetings this year and I have learned so much from the other long-time members of the group.  For example, since community colleges are making compliance with accessibility laws and regulations a big priority this year, we have explored ideas for handling vendor software that is out of compliance.  Here are a problem and proposed solution that I have taken away from my experiences. Many mathematics instructors use MyMathLab in their online classes and, currently, MyMathLab does not meet the minimum acceptable standards for accessibility.  SDICCCA members shared with the group other software that may be substituted such as Knewton or MyOpenMath, which has some accessibility issues but not as many as MyMathLab.

In our last meeting, each college DE representative shared something about the various software packages they were using to support DE classes.  Together, we discovered:

• Many colleges in our region are looking at third-party tools to augment the discussion board feature in Canvas. These tools include Harmonize and Notebowl, which deliver more social learning experiences with multimedia integration.  Also, VoiceThread is already being used by some for multimedia discussions and student-generated projects.
• Palomar College is making use of Proctorio, a remote way to proctor exams and it was noted that Proctorio is available at no-cost to those at  OEI consortium colleges.

In addition to discussions around key themes, members share concerns about DE issues, report back to each other on what is happening at the state level, and they give an annual presentation to administrators to help them understand the benefits of online education, as well as the challenges we confront in expanding this teaching modality.

I highly recommend that other regional community colleges form DE groups of their own.  The sharing of ideas, concerns, and technology with each other are extremely beneficial! 

Physical classrooms are part of our elementary school memories. Remember the ABC’s in the classroom, that scenic inspirational poster, or that poster from a Highlights Magazine?  How about other instructional posters, graphs, and seasonally decorated bulletin boards?  Now, remember how some teachers were better than others?  Why?  What attracted you to the classroom?  The teacher?  The subject?

While some of us might articulate a memory, some of us might be able to remember the feeling of being in a beautiful classroom. What did beautiful classrooms represent?  Most likely, it represented a teacher that cared. Is this relevant to an online course?  Yes.  Research suggests that the aesthetics of an online course impact how students judge the course’s usability and credibility within moments of accessing the course (David & Glore, 2010). https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter134/david_glore134.html

Caring is radical. And that type of radicalism is beautiful.  Adding beauty to our learning environments sends the message to students that we care about their learning, our subject matter and their success.

Jump to higher education and our learning environments change.  We do not have an individualized classroom.  The walls do not belong to us or our discipline. So how can we make both our physical and virtual learning environments beautiful? How can we demonstrate we care about our learning environments, subject matter, and student success?  Through the practice of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning.

4 Attributes of Caring

Geneva Gay's book Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice propose that we focus on "...caring for instead of caring about the personal well-being and academic success of ethnically diverse students... caring for is active engagement in doing something to positively affect [success]“ (Gay, 58). According to Gay, caring is:

1. Attending to person and performance.  Teachers model personal values such as patience, persistence, and responsibility while incorporating skills such as self-determination throughout their curriculum.  "In other words, culturally responsive caring teachers cultivate efficacy and agency in ethnically diverse students".
2. Action-provoking.  It is not dumbing down rigor.  To the contrary, caring teachers demonstrate respect to students, provide choices and "...are tenacious in their efforts to make information taught more understandable to them.  
3. Prompts Effort and Achievement.  Supportive instructional styles incorporate reciprocal experiences, such as providing students feedback reflecting our stories, can improve cognitive understanding between the students and the instructor. (Let them know they are not alone in their learning process.)
4. Multidimensional responsiveness.  Caring is a process.  “Caring is anchored in respect, honor, integrity, resource-sharing, and a deep belief in the possibility of transcendence, that is, an unequivocal belief that marginalized students not only can but will improve their school achievement under the tutelage of competent and committed teachers who act to ensure that this happens” (69). 

Applying care to our learning environment requires passion, empathy, and effort, and a collective commitment to provide all students with the individual support they need to succeed.  Through the use of Canvas and course design, we can let our students know we care for them.  We can ensure their learning experience will be safe, fun, informative and successful by intentionally making the design inviting and beautiful.  Just like caring for elementary school teachers and their classrooms, we can take extra time to make our Canvas pages beautiful too. 

Let’s Take a Tour!

Trying to reconnect with my childhood learning memories, I decided to attend an elementary school to interview a teacher and see her classroom - Mrs. Marisa Torres (Ok yes.  She’s my cousin). She shared with me her way of showing she cares for students, their learning and their overall environment.

Mrs. Torres designed a classroom that feels safe, fun, informative and adventurous with no competition.  Behavior expectations, academic goals, and resources were available for students to take risks while feeling safe.  Yet she went above standards in her learning environment to send a message to her students that she cares and that they matter.

But she can’t do this alone.  She needs inspiration.  Because her school only covers about 10% of the materials in her class, she needs inspiration from her colleagues, other colleagues, online via Pinterest and then her family. Ultimately, Mrs. Torres wants her students to feel like they are walking into a second home.

Her process represents the effort and process we have to do to make our course shells beautiful.  We need inspiration, colleagues, communities of practice and the CCC Family. 

Let’s Get Started!

We may not be experts in HTML, photography or even course design, but we can make an effort.  Where to begin?  Right here on the @ONE blog!

Here are my favorite Posts about making courses beautiful:

• Byte-sized Canvas episodes by Helen Graves:
  • Ready to Beautify Your Canvas Pages? Here’s How
  • There’s No Place Like Home 
  • Before You Add Video to Your Course–Watch This! 
• You Had Me At Hello, by Brianna Kuhn
• Creating beautiful FREE Graphics in Canva for your online course, a webinar archive by Angela Gomez-Holbrook

Tip! Register for the free Can•Innovate session with Tracy Schaelen this Friday, October 26 at 2pm to learn to use Canva to create beautiful graphics for your Canvas course.

Ever have students who seem to think “online” means self-paced? They want to zoom ahead and they’re asking you about Module 8 in the third week of class. Ensuring students are working on the material at the same time is one aspect of building a sense of community. Canvas has a nifty little feature that will help you do just that.

The Current State of Support for Our Fully Online Students

If you haven’t done so already, take the time to pretend you are a fully online student and try to navigate the many tasks that students need to do on a regular basis. What do you find? Are the services available to our online population equitable to those that are available on-ground at their college campus? What is the web presence like of your college's critical student services?  Which students are utilizing the services and which students are not and why? These are the many questions that we must ask when evaluating our distance education programs. On my campus, online course offerings are the first to fill but in turn, they have inferior success rates than our on-ground courses. Many times these students find themselves staring at a closed door looking for support that is limited.

What Online Support Should Look Like

Online support should be equitable to services offered in person.  As an example, on my campus, we have a financial aid lab for students to get help with their FAFSA or navigating their online financial aid portal.  Is this same support available to our online student population? If not, how can we provide this resource to our online student population? Maybe the solution involves leveraging the staff that currently work in the financial aid lab but have them utilize Cranium Café to offer the same services remotely. Additionally, we offer many workshops on all topics on campus but nothing online except for the orientation.  What if we recorded all of our workshops and made them available online? Or better yet provide a distance option for students to participate remotely with our students that are on-ground.

Online Support Supports All Students

Online Mental Health (MH) services provide anonymity, creating a safe environment to receive services. Once a student has participated in MH services online they may be more likely to reach out for additional support in person. In addition to MH services, other support services like tutoring, other health center services, special resource center or other services may have a stigma attached to them and preclude students from seeking help in person where they may feel comfort in reaching out online.

Inclusivity

This means providing the tools and support services for all of our students regardless of their background or how they are taking their courses. Online students must also be included in all of our equity conversations.

With all the buzz around Guided Pathways, how are we implementing the concepts of the 4 pillars for our online students?  Online students also need to be able to enter the path easily, have clarity in their path, have the support to stay on their path and to also ensure their learning on the path.

View Don's 12-minute video above to learn more about how he uses OpenStax.

Reflections on My Student Days

I remember being a student. I am a first-generation student that put myself through school. I bounced in and out of school for many years, because, for me, working full-time and going to school ended up being infeasible for many years. This was before online classes existed. I would get a class here, and another there, and my progress was painfully slow. I remember the journey well and I also remember the astronomically high costs of textbooks. Often, my textbooks would be double or even triple my tuition.

One year, I remember that I sold my entire music CD collection on eBay just to buy my Biology and Chemistry textbooks. It was a sizeable music collection. I remember the assembly line I made in my room with envelopes and tape. I had 100’s of CDs.

When I approached 30, I was able to dive fully into school. I worked when I could, and I rented rooms from people to keep expenses as low as possible. I relied on financial assistance (loans) all the way through grad school.

Becoming a Teacher

When I became a teacher in 2008, I vowed to keep costs as low as possible for my students. I always used previous edition textbooks, and I remember the conversations with the bookstore managers about the difficulty of obtaining previous editions. I also remember checking Amazon, eBay, Half.com, and Barnes and Noble to be sure there would be plenty of copies available for my students and that the price was below 40 bucks (preferably closer to 20). So when fully developed, high quality “open” textbooks became available, some with ancillary materials, I jumped all in.

Getting Started with Zero Cost Textbooks

I started using my first zero cost textbook one year ago. I am here to tell you that I would never go back to a paid textbook. Six of my seven courses this semester are zero cost, OER (Open Educational Resources), and I am constantly hearing from students about how much they appreciate it and that it makes a difference to them. Not only are the materials available at no cost, but they are also of high quality, and are available on a multitude of platforms. They can be flexible in a way that traditional products cannot. Unlike when I used a premium textbook, using an OER textbook allows my students to:

• Choose between using n online or offline copy
• Choose from a variety of formats (pdf, epub, HTML, etc.)
• Search the text within the materials
• Access the textbook from a variety of devices

Unexpected Outcomes

I still use a single textbook as the “backbone” of my course and to ensure that we all have a common reference. Having said that, because I am using open / zero cost textbooks, I am also able to include more than one textbook. In my OER courses, I have 3 different zero cost textbooks available to students. I am amazed at the pedagogical power, flexibility that having more than one explanation on a topic provides for students. I get weekly feedback from my students praising the ability to read another textbook’s treatment of a topic. Some students prefer one textbook over another and use it exclusively. While others simply use two textbooks to enhance their understanding.

Of course, there are significant costs in time and energy to the instructor in the adoption of a new textbook. But the effort is more than worth it. Students have their books on day one, there are no textbooks to order at the bookstore, there is no need to maintain a copy at the library, and the material is available for anyone at no additional cost to the student. Not only is it easier to use, but you will also be doing your students a great service by removing this barrier to entry and having access to the textbook (and more) on the first day of class.

Are you Ready to Go Open?

For my Economics classes, I use OpenStax supplemented with other open economics textbooks that I have found at The Open Textbook Library. Here are some of the many sources for OER textbooks that I hope you will browse:

• For a robust, one-stop OER resource, check out Cool 4 Ed, a resource provided by the CCC, CSU, and UC systems. 
• The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) 
• OpenStax at Rice University (I use OpenStax as my “main” textbook in my Economics courses)
• College Open Textbooks “We have the most comprehensive listing of open and affordable textbooks on the web, with over 600 sorted by academic discipline.” 
• The Open Textbook Library, College of Education and Human Development | University of Minnesota
• Lumen Learning 
• Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 63 different sources and contains 160,433 records.
• 2012 Book Archive, Creative Commons licensed, freely downloadable 

Personalized learning is recognized as crucial element of student-centered teaching. But with 30, 40, 50 students in your online class, how the heck are you supposed to accomplish it?! Here’s one way you can help close learning gaps and support greater success among all your students.

For years, @ONE has advocated that effective online courses should include a student readiness assessment. I begrudgingly included one in my online courses because it is a practice endorsed by leaders in the field, but felt like a hypocrite each semester as I assigned the readiness quiz to my students. In my heart, I felt readiness assessments were antithetical to my teaching values. Let me explain.

The assessment I used was similar to the Online Readiness Questionnaires used by UNC Chapel Hill and Penn State, or the Online Readiness Self-Assessment used by Stanislaus State. There are multiple iterations of these readiness tests online. The ability to easily share resources (which can be such an asset to online educators) meant that a single model of readiness assessment proliferated across institutions, resulting in very little variety in the content of readiness tests. These cookie-cutter assessments, often developed by highly competitive 4-year universities, ask the question, “Are you ready for online learning?”

While this may seem like a reasonable question, the assessments are designed to separate students into two buckets, the ready and the unready. The students deemed ready are encouraged to take online courses, and those deemed unready are discouraged from participating in online learning. Ostensibly, this type of readiness assessment helps students make informed decisions about the learning modality that is best for them, gently guiding them to the best fit. The reality, though, is problematic. These types of self-assessment may not be reliable or valid indicators of students’ actual abilities, as our answers may be biased toward the response that seems most desirable. In addition, for students who are taking the assessment seriously, the approach is culturally tone-deaf.

The cultural problem with this approach is two-fold. First, the community college students who are dissuaded from taking online courses after taking a readiness assessment developed by 4-year universities are precisely the community college students who may be most in need of the flexibility offered by online learning, such as working students and students with families. Second, the students deemed “unready” have the most to gain from taking a well-designed, supportive online course (more on this later).

Examining Assumptions

I encourage you to take one of the readiness assessments linked above. What you’ll find is a series of questions that gauge a student’s:

• Self-Direction
• Learning Preferences
• Study Habits
• Technology Skills
• Computer Equipment

Behind these categories, however, are several assumptions that need to be examined.

Assumption #1: Successful Online Learners Must Be Self-Directed and Self-Motivated

A host of questions in traditional readiness assessments focus on ideal traits for online learners that support a myth that online learners are doing their work in isolation. For instance, questions like “I’m good at setting goals and deadlines for myself” seem to suggest that online courses don’t include clear learning goals or tools for alerting students about upcoming deadlines. The onus for staying on track is placed clearly on the shoulders of the student.

This myth is amplified in online education by the embrace of andragogic learning principles--the belief that college students are (or at least should be) self-directed adult learners, and if they are not, they are somehow deficient. The reality is, however, that many college students are on the way to being self-directed, but they may need support from teachers and peers along the way.

Assumption #2: Learning Online Is Fundamentally Different from Learning in Person

I want to place the emphasis here on learning. Traditional readiness tests ask questions such as “My learning style usually requires a structured lecture at its core,” or “I have to read something to learn it best.” Questions like these suggest online courses use a single modality--usually text. The reality, however, is that advancements in course management systems have made it easy to archive course material in multiple modes, from text, to audio, to video (including synchronous, live video conferencing). All courses across the spectrum--in-person, hybrid, and fully online--can now use systems like Canvas to streamline student access to course materials presented in a variety of modalities, with benefits to teaching a web-enhanced or flipped class being universally reported for many years. Let’s bust this myth for good, because online courses don’t narrow the options for teaching and learning--they increase them.

The assumption that online learning is fundamentally different also distorts a major characteristic of all learning in higher education--the fact that the majority of the studying and learning students do in all college courses is outside the classroom. Readiness tests often ask, for instance, if students are willing to spend 10-20 hours per week on a class, if they have a quiet place to study, or if they can work with distractions, suggesting that only online learners must study at home, while in-person classes don’t require study time outside of the classroom, distractions and all. We would never stand at the door of our in-person classes, asking students if they have the time and a distraction-free work place before allowing them entry to the class, so why are we doing this in our online classes?

Assumption #3: Online Learners Need Technology and Tech Savvy

This is, perhaps, the most problematic of the assumptions made by traditional readiness assessments. Questions that reinforce that students should own a new computer with high-speed internet access privilege wealthy students, and disproportionately discourage students who need financial aid. Some readiness assessments go so far as to suggest online students should not rely on campus computers or share a family computer. In addition, when readiness assessments ask if students have someone to help them with technology problems, they underscore the ways cultural capital, or lack thereof, affects the options available to lower-income students who may not have peers or family members to assist them with technology, an issue researchers such as Peter Sacks brought to the forefront of higher education over a decade ago.

When students of lower income are discouraged from taking online courses because of older technology, there is a problem. This problem is exacerbated, however, when students are asked to draw upon social connections to troubleshoot technology issues. Moreover, the focus on access to course materials via a computer with internet access overlooks an interesting trend in technology--a growing number of students access some, if not all, of their online course material via their mobile devices. The shift in technology use warrants a close look at our belief that desktop computers are the most effective tools for accessing online information.

Viable Alternatives

When I first started teaching online, the traditional readiness assessments felt wrong in my gut. Some of you may experience a similar feeling at the thought of allowing underprepared students to take an online class. Let me offer some evidence to reassure you that struggling in an online class is better than being dissuaded from taking the course.

In their comprehensive analysis of online learning outcomes in California Community Colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California (2014) noted that there is a persistent success gap when comparing completion rates in online courses to in-person courses. However, taking online courses “is strongly associated with improved long-term success rates” (Online Learning and Student Outcomes in California’s Community Colleges, p. 12). The PPIC report concludes that there is significant long-term value in taking online courses.

Guided Pathways

The 2017 Distance Education Report notes that we are “embarking on a comprehensive approach to redesign the community college student experience through the Guided Pathways framework. Guided Pathways helps put the PPIC report and student readiness for online learning into context by reinforcing the notion that all students, regardless of modality, should have access to courses that include integrated basic skills, on-boarding, advising, and instructional support.

The Four Pillars of Guided Pathways

A New Paradigm

The Guided Pathways framework, which focuses on long-term goals, recognizes that students are not in two buckets--the ready and the not-ready. Instead, all students deserve and receive individualized support along the way. In this paradigm, a readiness assessment is not designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but rather can be used to help students, instructors, and counselors identify areas in which students may need additional support.

The Online Education Initiative’s “Quest for Success” breaks with traditional readiness assessments by offering students a deeper, more nuanced assessment of skills they may need for online learning, and then following up with a series of interactive learning modules that allow students to gain practical skills to support their long-term success. Rather than locking some students out of the benefits of online learning by separating them into a ready or not-ready buckets, the “Quest” program assumes all students are on a learning pathway, and meets the student where they are by supporting them in their online courses.

There is a caveat. The assessment portion of “Quest” is longer and more time-consuming than the 5-minute traditional readiness tests (and well worth the time), and there are a variety of follow-up modules from which to choose. Some campuses may choose to use the “Quest” program as an orientation to online learning. Others, however, may ask instructors to integrate the program into their online courses. Assigning students to complete the entire “Quest” program as part of your class may lead to information overload. To meaningfully support students, teachers and counselors should intentionally assign specific modules, and perhaps even tailor assignments to their course.

For instance, in my Communication courses, I ask students new to online learning to complete the first two modules, which focus on developing online learning skills, but allow students who have successfully completed an online course to choose from any of the other 9 modules. In our first week’s discussion, students share what they have learned from the modules, and develop learning communities to support one another. In a private reflection to me, each student is asked to identify an online learning skill they have mastered, and one in which they feel they may need support. I, in turn, use their reflections to tailor my support.

Are You Ready?

Traditional readiness assessments reinforce unrealistic and harmful assumptions about online learning, but the tools to push against these assumptions are in our hands. The “Quest for Success” program is an open educational resource free to all California Community Colleges. In addition, the CVC-OEI’s @ONE offers professional development courses to help faculty and instructional designers develop mobile-friendly, media-rich, accessible courses that include robust teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. We need to stop asking if students are ready for online learning--the continued growth of online courses clearly indicates they are. Instead, we should shift our focus to our courses and support services, asking, instead, if we’re ready for online teaching.

Want to get a closer look at the Quest Tutorials? Check out Introduction to Online Learning

You walk into a room. There is a wall in front of you that is full of buttons and colorful signs and little screens with cute animations playing on them. There is an exit behind you and there are no other doors or windows in the room. You hear a voice from nowhere saying, “Welcome! Click a button to begin!” You look closely at the wall and see that the buttons will take you anywhere you want to go or give you anything you need for the journey. You think to yourself, “Wow, all these choices, which should I choose?” Lol! Okay let’s be honest, how many of you just went back in time to the days of Zork?

If you think about it, our online classrooms are not much different than the exploratory world of adventure games. And while the exploratory aspect was fun, how long did it take us to find the right path to success?

Long, long ago, in a cyberspace far, far away, I first started teaching online and had a mindset that I would give the students a link to everything I thought they might need to succeed in my course, basically an all-on-one-page approach. In doing so, I created that wall of buttons and consequently gave my students too many options. Yes, the options were all useful, but I was presuming that the student would know which button to select, and when. The result was that the student did not have a clear path to success and I had a lot more work on my keyboard trying to reduce their confusion by explaining which way to go.

Then along came the NEXT button in Canvas!

Let Me Show You The Way

Before I completed the OEI Course Design Academy, I thought I had a great online class. The experience humbly led me to learn otherwise. In partnership with Helen Graves, my OEI Instructional Designer, I discovered a new way to design my course to clearly guide my students and remove the ambiguity they met with the all-on-one-page approach.

Now, each week my students enter my online world and are greeted with a link to the first page in the module for that particular week. From that point on, all they need to do is click the NEXT button to know exactly where I want them to focus and what the next project, discussion, quiz, or assignment will be. I still use pages to customize the world and have my colorful signs and animations, and I also use a Bitmoji character to create a personal connection. And speaking of animations, I use an online product called Vyond (formerly GoAnimate). Vyond is a user-friendly way to create animations to present important course related information. Below is a video I created to show my students how to navigate my online course.

Turning the Page

Using Canvas pages within modules enables the NEXT button and allows me to create a specific pathway to success in my course. It doesn’t lessen the rigor or dumb-down the assignment, but it does remove the uncertainty of what the student needs to do next or where they need to go.

And to make it a more enriching journey, I add pages to introduce weekly topics with animations and provide a wrap-up page that includes links to other relevant sources; all of which utilize the NEXT button to keep the students moving forward. And, of course, any links to outside sources open to a new window, so that way students keep their place in the classroom and don’t get distracted.

If you’re a faculty member at an OEI consortium college who is thinking about participating in the OEI Course Design Academy, I strongly encourage you to do so as it has greatly improved my online course design. I also suggest that you leave your ego at the door and keep your mind open for new possibilities! Lol!