Happy Holidays

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday and a great New Year!

Wrapping up the Term

When wrapping up a semester with your students, there are some administrative duties as well as some best practices for concluding your course with students.

-Back up a copy of the grade book to your computer
- Communicate end of term procedures to learners and consider including the following:
1. How to review final grades
2. How to dispute grades (highlight FERPA and that Learner must contact the instructor)
3. How to reach the instructor outside of the course; last date instructor will monitor course.
4. When learner access to the course is available (14 days after term ends)

- Contact your Chair for:
1. Student issues
2. Academic Integrity issues
3. Grade submission issues

What else do you like to do to reach out to your students one last time?

Karen Kaemmerling
CCCOnline Director of Training and Professional Development
Social Sciences Chair
History Instructor
720-858-2765
karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Sentence Works changes its name to Grammarly

Sentenceworks, the free online grammar checker available to CCCOnline students, changed its name to Grammarly@edu. Check out the new site and features by using the Grammarly@edu link in the Helpful Links widget inside your Desire2Learn classroom.

At the new site, you’ll find the same familiar features you’ve been using along with some new functionality including:
-Even more accurate grammar checking
-Support for more writing genres
-Printable reports

Your Sentenceworks user name and password will work at the new site (http://www.grammarly.com/edu/students). Easily retrieve your forgotten password for Grammarly by clicking on the “Forgot Your Password” link on the login page. Your password will be emailed to your college email account. Do you need a new account? No problem! Click on “Create Account” and fill out the required information.

Support for Grammarly@edu is available online at http://support.grammarly.com/home.

CCCOnline students have several tutorial services available like Grammarly@edu and NetTutor as described on the Student Wiki. What course do you teach and which of the resources do you recommend to students and why? Did you know that we list resource centers on other campuses that might help your students on the wiki? If you are not using these resources now with students, is this something you might consider adding to your courses for spring, and why or why not?

Student Groups in the Online Classroom

You’re invited to our last webinar of the year! Join us for “Creating & Facilitating Groups in D2L” at 1:00 p.m. this Friday, Dec. 3.

In this webinar, you’ll learn about creating and managing groups with the D2L Groups tool and about resources to guide the design and facilitation of virtual team activities.

In the meantime, please feel free to share your experiences with student groups in the appropriate Cultivating Excellence discussion within the CCCOnline Community.

This Week, We Thank You...

We thank you for cultivating excellence in each of your courses!

Enjoy Thanksgiving!

Effective Rubrics, Part II: Using Rubric Tools

Last week, we posted about our Rubrics Teaching Resources: that is, why and how to use rubrics for your own assignments. This week, we’d like to remind everyone about the rubric tools in D2L that are designed to make your grading life easier. Remember, you may choose to use rubrics within D2L’s rubrics tool or within TurnItIn’s GradeMark. (Both can be attached to assignment dropboxes.)

An advantage of using D2L rubrics is the grades transfer directly to the dropboxes; an advantage of using GradeMark through TurnItIn is that you can see an originality report at same time you’re grading. While you are grading with GradeMark, you also can use and re-use drop-in comments from your QuickMark library, and you and your students can toggle between a summary of all these comments, a “general comments” area, and a rubric scorecard.

Are you using these tools? Feel free to share your experiences in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Effective Rubrics

Rubrics in your courses can be helpful in setting clear standards for assignments and helping students to understand those standards. Visit our rubrics resources to see

*sample rubrics you might adopt in or adapt for your own courses,
*a Rubrics Virtual Tour, and
*Virtual Tour Lecture Notes for your reference.

Your own rubric-related experiences and examples are welcome in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnlineCommunity.

Learning Key Chain Webinar

Do your students sometimes appear not to connect to your subject, its materials, or even to you? Learning preferences play a great role in how much and how well we learn or want to learn anything. When we decide to learn something, we pick the key that works for us. A flexible "lock" allows for many keys to access content.

Join us for an interactive webinar on Friday November 5th at 1pm with Leecy Wise. Participants will explore how they learn and teach best. The webinar will provide instructors with a broad perspective on how students might prefer to learn. The webinar will introduce instructors to new ways of presenting content and engaging students with a variety of learning needs and abilities.

No registration required, just join us at https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008363&password=M.7535BE50A6EE6D4A8B14AFA1F589FE

How do you customize content in your courses to meet different learner preferences? Share with us techniques you use or want to try in the Cultivating Excellence Blog in the CCCOnline Community before or after the webinar.

Quality Time: Teaching Students to Fish

“Do we give students the fish, or do we teach them to fish?” often asks Donna Hall, Design Team Coordinator, regarding assignment design. In our classes, the answer may vary based on the course and the type of assignment, but as part of our overall goal to develop students with skills in information literacy, research, and writing, we want to teach our students to fish.

One type of assignment I like to employ in my classes is student-generated content. History is a very broad subject and rather than dictating every detail they are expected to learn in long lectures, I guide students to select topics that fall within certain parameters but interest them. They share their final product with classmates in a discussion or other tool. The students not only learn content from each other’s projects but get to compare their assignments to the work of others in a conscious or unconscious self-evaluation.

One example is a research and writing project that requires students to locate primary and secondary sources on a historical term. In a discussion, they post a brief description of the term, their cited sources, and what we will find useful at each source. Additionally, while working on the discussion, students may ask the instructor or each other questions about sources, citation, or content, building a sense of community. What I have noticed is that by doing the project openly and seeing each others’ examples of how they put research and writing together, the quality of the individual student’s work greatly improves and they become self motivated to be experts on their piece of content.

Want to learn more on student-generated content? Here are two web resources to get you started: http://senerlearning.com/projects/student-generated-content
http://senerlearning.com/category/blog-topics/student-generated-content
Please share with us student-generated content assignments you employ in your courses in the CCCOnline Community Cultivating Excellence discussion.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Research and Writing Toolkit Webinar

Have you ever wished for a set of quick links to assign to your students for brush-up help on research skills, avoiding plagiarism, or writing in general?

We’re happy to say we’ve been working on such a project, and we seek your feedback! Come to our webinar at 1:00 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 22, to learn about the Research and Writing Toolkit and share your thoughts.

Quality Time: Fostering Information Literacy

Do your students tend to rely on Wikipedia or Google for scholarly research? If so, and if this concerns you, you’re certainly not alone. As we face vast amounts of information so instantly, easily accessible, our encouraging students to examine how they locate and use that information becomes increasingly important – if increasingly difficult at times.

Our CCCOnline Librarian, Mary Cash, defines information literacy as “the set of abilities that allow a person to recognize a need for information, to search for and find the necessary information, and to best know how to use that information.” The Association of College and Research Libraries stresses information literacy’s worth as forming “the basis for lifelong learning” and empowering learners with “greater control over their own learning” (read more at the source here). In addition, information literacy has garnered a fair amount of recent attention from educators at all levels.

Our question to you: how do you address information literacy in your courses? If you have found particular activities or assignments to be effective, please share with colleagues. Post your comments in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Visit the Recorded Webinars

Each month we conduct at least one webinar on pedagogical or technical skills. On Friday Oct 1, Turnitin joined us to do their presentation from the conference. As was true at the conference, the presentation was very well received by the attendees.

BUT, what can you do if Friday at 1pm doesn’t work for you? ANSWER: We record our webinars and post them on the wiki Webinar Archive page within a few days of the event. Over the last couple of years we have built quite a list of resources on a variety of topics that you may enjoy.

My favorite part of listening to a webinar is that I can pause the presentation, speed it up, rewind it, or stop it and return to it later. I can also run the webinar and try what a presenter is demonstrating immediately in my sandbox course.

If you haven’t checked this resource out lately, please do so. If you have ideas for additional webinar topics that you would like this year, please post your comments in the CCCOnline Community’s Cultivating Excellence discussion; look for thread “Visit the Recorded Webinars”. Also, please share which webinars you’ve found most helpful and informative whether you attended in person or listened to the recording. We love getting feedback and want to schedule these events to best meet your needs.

Also, check out the Upcoming webinar page for events we have scheduled this fall.

Research and Writing Toolkit: Your Input Wanted!

Have you ever wished for a set of quick links to assign to your students for brush-up help on research skills, avoiding plagiarism, or writing in general?

We’re happy to say we’ve been working on such a project, and we seek your feedback!

Here is a link to our archived presentation at the faculty conference; also please note this direct link to the Research and Writing Toolkit.

Finally, in the corresponding CCCOnline Community discussion, we would love to hear your answers to any of these questions:
1) What subject do you teach and how would you use the RWT in your course(s)?
2) Which particular RWT resources would you find most helpful?
3) After you’ve reviewed the current RWT: do you have suggestions for content or layout?

Thank you!

Using TurnItIn: Upcoming Webinar

We heard great feedback about TurnItIn’s presentation at the CCCOnline Conference, but if you missed it, please note that Renee Bangerter and Jan Gilboy of TurnItIn graciously have agreed to present for us again. They will join us at our Webinar next Friday, October 1, at 1:00 p.m. on Elluminate.

This Webinar, titled “TurnItIn’s Markup and Plagiarism Detection Tools: The Mechanics and Beyond,” will address basic how-tos and answer your technical questions. We also will discuss how to use these tools constructively in your courses (i.e., interpret plagiarism results on OriginalityCheck, use this plagiarism detection as a learning tool, and use the markup tool, GradeMark, effectively).

Until next Friday, we would like to gather your questions: what do you want to know about TurnItIn? If you have TurnItIn experience you would like to share, we’d like to hear from you, as well. Please post your ideas in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnlineCommunity.

CCCOnline Faculty Conference this Friday!

We are very excited about our CCCOnline Faculty Conference

Constructing Quality: Expand your Toolbox!

Here is some helpful information to help you arrive on Friday September 17th at Arapahoe Community College.

-If you missed registration and still want to attend, please stop by the non-registered table that morning at M1900 to ensure you receive training credit for attending.
-Please visit this website for directions to ACC and maps of the campus http://www.arapahoe.edu/about-acc/locations/campus-maps
-Parking lots are open and free for our attendees. There are no permit restrictions in any parking lots.
-The dress is casual. In fact, to go with our Construction theme, we encourage you to wear jeans.
-Your first stop will be registration which starts at 8am in M 1900, the main cafeteria area at ACC.
-We are providing breakfast and lunch items, however, the budget for this free conference is very limited. If you have special dietary requirements, please be prepared to at least supplement or bring your own food.

Thank you to our session presenters for preparing and presenting at this year's conference. Their time makes the conferences a valuable experience for us all each year. And thank you to our sponsors, D2L, Turnitin, NetTutor, and Techsmith.

For more details about the conference sessions and the overall event, please visit http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Teaching_Resources_-_Presentations_-_2010_CCCOnline_Faculty_Conference

See you Friday!
Please contact me with your questions at Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Online Discussion Management: In Search of Best Practices

While conducting discussions in our online courses, we occasionally may find student comments that detract from learning or strain the classroom environment. Such comments, veering off topic or swerving into inappropriateness, create a dilemma for the instructor: how to mediate such discussions, and when, in certain circumstances, it might be appropriate to delete student posts.

While CCCOnline instructors might start with the general Mutual Respect Policy in their syllabi, they may wish to elaborate upon this in their own classes. Thus, the below is intended as practical advice for instructors, who might consider one of two approaches to communicate discussion expectations to students. The first is a syllabus-bound piece on discussion content that would specifically clarify expectations and guide instructor action in this arena. The second is a course lesson that would engage students in the subject of appropriate discussion practices.

While all this advice is intended to help keep discussions productive and to deter problems, should you face a post that is a candidate for deletion, here are some important notes to keep in mind: 1) Before removing a student’s post, you should talk with your Program Chair (unless the post is so problematic that it calls for an emergency delete). 2) Keep careful records if you do remove any posts: at the Dean’s request, you must either copy and paste the posts in question to a document you can save in the course, or copy and paste the post into another discussion topic closed to students.

Approach One: Discussion Content Management in the Syllabus
The ebb and flow of even the most closely guided discussions naturally depends upon individual personalities and group dynamics; this is clear to instructors with face-to-face classroom experience. Moving beyond the official classroom in an effort to understand discussion management, we might consider a very large, active world of discussions on the web: the blogosphere. As reader-generated posts are vital there, and controversial topics abound, it seems relevant to check “best practices” in that world. After reviewing content policies of two prominent blog providers in light of the unique nature of the online classroom, we suggest the following could be useful to faculty.

A general piece on Discussion Content for online classroom discussions could include a request for polite, professional conversation with a warning that posts may be deleted, at the instructor’s discretion, if they are
-Profane or vulgar,
-Violent or threatening, abusive or personally insulting,
-Advocating illegal activity or spreading spam or viruses,
…and on the more innocuous side,
-Duplicate posts,
-Off-topic, or more fitting for another forum, or
-Containing sensitive information (questions about individual student grades or performance).

Works Consulted
“Blogger Content Policy.” Blogger. Google. 8 Sept. 2010.
“Terms of Service.” WordPress.com. Automattic. 8 Sept. 2010.

Notes on sources:
1. Blogger.com has a Content Policy governing blogs; their “Content Boundaries” include child safety, hate speech, crude content, threats, illegal activities, and spam. They also include an interesting caveat: “Please note that when applying the policies…, we may make exceptions based on artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific considerations or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.”
2. WordPress.com lists contributors’ responsibilities, defining “contributor” as one who “operate[s]…, comment[s], post[s] material…or links on the Website.” It goes on to explain that content in question must not be unethical, “unwanted commercial,” “pornographic, libelous or defamatory,” threatening or violent.

Approach Two: Invite Students to Engage the Subject
Another approach to managing online discussions is to invite students to consider the subject themselves. Northern Arizona University’s e-learning Center demonstrates an example lesson (1) in which the instructor asks students to take self-assessments about communicating online (2) and, afterwards, discuss what they think are the “unwritten rules for communicating online.”
An instructor might summarize students’ remarks in a concluding post and would likely end up with a good workable Discussion Content piece for the syllabus.

Works Cited
“Quality Checklist.” e-Learning Center. Northern Arizona University. 8 Sept. 2010.
Watson, Julie. “Study Skills for University.” Materials Bank: a collection of teaching materials. Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies at The Higher Education Academy, University of Southampton, UK. 8 Sept. 2010.

Notes on sources:
1. e-learning Center at NAU: See 1.3.2 on “Quality Checklist” for a screen shot of the lesson mentioned above.
2. The self-assessments mentioned above (titled “Communicating online”) and referenced on NAU’s example lesson are found here.
3. “Study Skills for University”: The full page of lessons (including “Communicating online”) in one click is here.

What do you think? We invite you to post your comments in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Quality Time: Goal Post # 3 (Establish Community)

We don’t want our students to feel as alone in the stands as this fan does. We need to establish early a shared goal for their successful completion of the course.

Goal: Establish a sense of Community.
Question: How do you encourage your class to feel like a “team” or community of learners?

Possible solutions:
*Encourage students to add a profile picture. It doesn’t have to be a picture of themselves but rather something representative of them. Don’t forget to use one for yourself!
*Identify common interests, career paths, and goals among students in the introduction and provide a space for them to “huddle,” like a Student Lounge.
*Ask veteran online learners, in the introduction discussion, to coach “rookie” online students with tips about how to be successful in an online class. This might include providing technology tips or study hints.
*Provide “study hall” discussions where students might peer review assignments, post their assignments as student generated content, or collaborate on a group project. (Be sure to mark such discussions as student-led.)

What do you do in your classes to encourage a sense of team camaraderie? Please share your icebreakers and other community–building methods in the CCCOnline Community.

Do you have other goals that you try to achieve the first week of class? What are they and how do you achieve them? Please post your ideas in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Quality Time: Goal Post # 2 (Opening Lines of Communication with Students)

As we “take the field” the first day of class, we want to communicate with our students that we are available to answer questions, provide more detailed directions, and help them be successful in our courses.

Goal: Open lines of communication with students should be established early in the term.

Question: As you kick off the new semester with your students, how do you open the lines of communication so to avoid “sacks” and “fumbles” during the term?

Possible solutions:
QA Requirements
1. Send a welcome letter internally in D2L and externally using student roster
2. Post welcome News Announcement
3. Introduce yourself in your Introduction discussion AND respond thoughtfully to each student’s initial introduction post

Other Ideas:
*Share some tips of your own for success in your course and include open ended questions in the introduction discussion about the syllabus, course layout, or e-book. One tool students might find useful is this time calculator from Virginia Tech.
*Create an audio/video of yourself welcoming students to class and giving them some initial instructions about how to maneuver in the course.
*Conduct an Elluminate session the first week of class to answer students’ questions and provide a tour of your course.
*Provide discussions that encourage students to communicate regularly with you and each other about the course and assignments. Some options are:
1. Coffee Shop where students might post technology questions and course content questions.
2. A midway discussion that asks “How’s it going?” The instructor and students can provide each other tips about how to be successful with the course and assignments. This helps identify areas of miscommunication and “dropped balls” before the end of the game.
3. A wrap up, debrief, or “post-game show” discussion that asks students for feedback about the course layout, assignments, and technology incorporated. Be positive and ask for more detail from students who post negatively.

We are eager to hear your ideas and suggestions on this topic. Please post your comments in the appropriate discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Quality Time: Goal Post # 1 (Students and the Syllabus)

For the next two Wednesdays, we will include at this location a “Goal Post.” This little series is intended to provide suggestions and encourage conversation about how to start your semester smoothly.

Our first topic is about familiarizing students with your course policies and procedures.

In this arena, we observed some noteworthy practices in your summer courses; a few of them are included below under “Possible Solutions.”

Goal: Students, as they "warm up" for the course, need to read and understand the syllabus.
Question: How do we coach our students on the significance of the syllabus?
Possible solutions:
*A syllabus quiz
*A syllabus or “scavenger hunt” assignment to be submitted to the dropbox
*A short video or audio file reinforcing key points of the syllabus
*A series of syllabus or course policy questions in the Student Introduction Discussion
*A special discussion topic to verify that students have done the introductory housekeeping. This topic could require students to post that they have indeed read the D2L Quick Start Guide, participated in the Introduction Discussion, and sent you a test e-mail or test dropbox assignment. The topic may also be a place for you to highlight certain critical course policies or course tools.

What do you think? We welcome your ideas and encourage you to contribute to our related discussion in the CCCOnline Community.

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Faculty Conference Registration is now open!

Time to roll up your sleeves and join us for the 2010 CCCOnline Faculty Conference Constructing Quality: Expand your Toolbox.

Go to the 2010 Faculty Conference wiki page for:

-Registration
-Conference Details
-Session Descriptions
-Conference Schedule
- A fun graphic created by CCCOnline Flash Developer, Beth Kitts. Can you identify the voice she used?

Can't wait to see you there! I'll be the one in the red tool belt.
If you have any questions about the conference, please contact me directly at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu