2022-2023 SF State Univeristy OCS ePortfolio

Proposal Summary:  In the post-remote teaching environment, conversations around learning modes and interest in online teaching are much more prevalent than they were pre-pandemic. COVID-19 created an unexpected opportunity to expand the conversation around QLT and quality online teaching and learning at SF State through the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning’s (CEETL)’s QLT professional development offerings. Many instructors on our campus engaged with our offerings during the pandemic, so that our campus developed a shared pedagogical vocabulary. This year as our campus transitions from iLearn (SF State custom version of Moodle) to Canvas, we felt the best way to support our faculty in quality online courses would be to develop programming that focused on bringing everything they learned about quality online from the old LMS to the new one. 

2022-23 Goal 1: Use the Canvas transition to focus on implementation and embedding of research-based practices from QLT professional development. Activities will include:  Designing and facilitating a professional development course to support faculty in transitioning their courses to Canvas with a focus on quality online and hybrid learning and teaching best practices.

Online Course Services Lead(s):
It was yet another challenging year for the CEETL/QLT team as we continued to lose more staff, none of whom were replaced, including QLT Project Manager Deb Perry.  

• QLT Campus Coordinator/Lead:  Crystal Wong 

• QLT Project Manager: Heidi Fridriksson 

• QLT/CEETL Faculty Lead: Dr. Jackson Wilson 

Supporting Campus Partners

Summary of Previous OCS  Accomplishments

In previous years, particularly during the COVID pandemic, our OCS professional development teaching reached many faculty:

• 500+ faculty completed our Teaching through Transitions course (full course focusing on the bichronous and hybrid learning modes)
• 400+ faculty completed our Teaching New & Newly Returning Students course
• 175+ faculty completed our Video for Online Teaching & Learning microcourse
• 100+ faculty completed our Universal Design for Learning microcourse.
• 121 faculty earned a QLT Online PIE (Pedagogies of Inclusive Excellence) Certificate for completing all of the following professional development: The QLT Online Teaching Lab, JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusions) PIE Institute and a Teaching Square.

2022-23 Goal 1 Accomplishments: The CEETL Instructional Design team designed Bridging Canvas, a fully online, self-paced and asynchronous course designed to support faculty in transitioning from iLearn (SF State custom version of Moodle) to Canvas. There are currently 150+ instructors enrolled in the course and the course continues to remain available for faculty to self enroll. To support faculty implementation and embedding of research-based practices for quality online learning in transitioning to Canvas, we focused on: How organization & navigation is different in Canvas versus iLearn (Moodle); how humanizing different is in Canvas than in iLearn (Moodle); how fostering student interaction is different in Canvas than in iLearn (Moodle); how you design for UDL in Canvas; how is assessment different in Canvas than in iLearn (Moodle).

2022-23 Goal 2 Accomplishments: We launched our Canvas Coaches program with 9 Canvas Coaches in November 2022. We promoted the Canvas Coaches program to SF State faculty widely as a group of faculty who are excited to share their experience with other faculty as they transition to Canvas and created a module within our Bridging Canvas course to provide a central online location for the program. From November 2022 – April 2023, Canvas Coaches: Held weekly office hours sessions; conducted 1-1 consultations with faculty; created videos for an asynchronous online showcase; created template courses to share with fellow faculty.

Student Online Quality Assurance Impact Research 

This year’s SQuAIR study is a qualitative study focused on bichronous learning.  Whereas the asynchronous learning mode and even the synchronous learning modes are relatively well established, the combination of these two into a fully-online learning mode that included both synchronous and asynchronous online learning was rarely applied to SF State course sections in the class schedule until the period of Emergency Remote Teaching associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.  During the 2021 academic year, 1,274 courses sections taught by 489 unique faculty used a bichronous learning mode.  A purposeful sample of 16 instructors were interviewed.  The data from these interviews could be analyzed to answer multiple research questions, but the first manuscript focused on the definition of bichronous learning.  The goal is to investigate how instructors understood the term and how they developed their course based on that understanding of the term.  Analysis of the results identified that instructors teaching courses labeled as “bichronous” in the class schedule did not consistently understand what the term meant. One of the primary areas of confusion was a conflation of bichronous (fully online) with hybrid (partially in-person and partially online).   Faculty made different choices about the percentage of the course that was taught synchronous versus asynchronous; however, the most common configuration was to split the time between these two modes with a weekly synchronous class session.  An examination of the asynchronous and synchronous learning activities and assessments included a variety of characteristics.  One learning activity that was challenging for some to easily identify as either synchronous or asynchronous was the need to meet in small groups that were required to frequently meet in real-time (i.e., via Zoom).  On the one hand, it could be considered a synchronous class activity, since the students were required to regularly meet synchronously with other classmates.  Alternatively, the learning activity could be considered asynchronous because the instructor did not specify when the small groups needed to meet.  Another issue that was identified was whether the course could be considered bichronous if synchronous class sessions were optional.   Instructors sometimes recorded the sessions and provided alternative asynchronous learning activities to provide students flexibility; however, this provided the opportunity for students to take the bichronous course completely asynchronously.  The recommendations from this study focus on how the definition for bichronous learning can be developed and expanded so that students, faculty, and administrators have a consistent understanding of what bichronous learning is and what it is not.  The manuscript is currently being submitted for peer-review.

Accessibility/UDL Efforts

All of our QLT/OCS course offerings over the years have included information about how to integrate accesisbility and UDL into our course design. This year, we built a module into our Bridging Canvas course titled: How do you design for UDL in Canvas? 

Next Steps for OCS Efforts 

• Continue to offer programming to faculty as Canvas becomes the new campus Learning Management System. Programming will be revised to a post-migration context of supporting faculty increasing their sophistication of Canvas usage through course redesign and effective use of LMS features in ways that facilitate high quality online and hybrid courses.
• Conduct SQuAIR research on hybrid & online course effectiveness by extending last year's study on bichronous teaching and learning at SF State and in higher education in order to further insights that inform QLT programming and engagements based on faculty perception and practices around bichronous teaching and learning.