By Eric Ritholz, Online Learning Coordinator, Edtech
As we enter the 2021-2022 academic year it is clear that online learning, remote learning, hybrid, and HyFlex are becoming a permanent part of academic life. As faculty experience with the tools involved resources have been developed to bring more focus on the practical application in real teaching situations. Towards that end, EdTech has been continuously working to provide information, workshops, and for those interested, more in-depth training programs to support the use of the tools available.
In the Fall semester two in-depth training sessions will be offered:
The Online Learning Initiative 3 week course will be offered as a two-tier training. As a 10 hour refresher for faculty who wish to review the concepts of course design and development of a course. This can also be taken as preparation for submitting a course for evaluation. A certificate is awarded for course completion an additional badge is attached for participants completing additional tasks before submitting their course to the Online Course Evaluation System. A call for participation email will be sent out to all faculty with more information and enrollment will be managed through the Online Workshop system here at Hostos.
The Methods for Online Teaching 5-week course will be focused on the practical application of Online Learning techniques and is derived from the Community of Inquiry Framework developed by D.R. Garrison. In recent years there has been a lot of buzz around these techniques as they foster improved success rates with students in an online or hybrid learning environment. This is a 20-hour course that uses practical exercises and self-assessment to allow for better and more personal development of the methods you wish to improve individually. A call for participation email will be sent out to all faculty with more information and enrollment will be managed through the Online Workshop system here at Hostos.
On a personal note: developing the Methods for Online Teaching course with the Online Learning team has been a real eye-opener as many of the methods discussed are things that I have personally used in the classroom but have never tied together in such a cohesive fashion. I am excited that we will be delivering this training and anticipate that the feedback will be very interesting to those involved and the Hostos Community overall.
