The purpose of this document is to establish quality standards for online and mixed-mode courses. These quality standards are listed under college, faculty and student educational values. Educational values are anything that these three groups hold in high esteem as it pertains to the educational process. Each of these educational values provides a framework for quality standards.

The values are designated by the ##.## format (e.g., 14.2). Under each value is the quality standard for that value. It is designated by the ##.##.## format  (e.g., 14.2.1).

The quality standards will be used to:

1. Train full-time and part-time instructors for online and mixed-mode course development, management and assessment.
2. Assess the quality of online and mixed-mode course development and management.
3. Provide benchmarks for excellence in teaching online and mixed-mode courses.

Specific issues:

1. What is meant by “timely manner”?
    

   1. Return of course content evaluations: two weeks or less. The only exception is in 10.3.1 and 12.4.2. This deals with course content evaluations that are given within the last two weeks of the course.

   2. Updating student grades: depends on the method used. If an instructor uses the Testing Center for proctored exams versus another instructor who gives exams online, the time period between exam completion and posting the exam scores will vary. Instructors are to inform students in writing of their policies regarding when student scores will be posted. The period from the point of tabulating the score and the posting of the score should not exceed five working days. If it does, the instructor will communicate this delay to students. (See 10.3.1)

2. What is meant by “characteristics of the audience (or students in your class)”? (See 13.3.x)
    

   1. One of the beginning evaluations that instructors make prior to designing their instructional methodology is to know who they will be teaching. This is typically called “audience analysis.”

   2. It can be as simple as understanding the demographics (age, gender, race, etc.) or it can include an awareness of the (1) employment or higher education aspirations of your students, (2) who is working already and where, and (3) reasons students are enrolled in the course. There are other considerations, but this provides an idea of what is involved in “audience analysis.”

3. Although these quality guidelines are comprehensive, they may not fit within certain curriculums. Therefore, instructors, department heads and deans need to determine when certain quality standards are appropriate to their curriculums. These exceptions must be justifiable.

4. What is meant by “transfer learning to the workplace” (See 15.2.2)? Concepts and applications that are learned in a course need be taught in such a manner to effectively allow student success in applying these concepts and applications to new situations. Learning transfer is important in all courses where early-learned concepts are necessary to comprehend before learning later-learner concepts. In terminal degree programs and transfer programs, the ability to transfer learning concepts from one course to another or from a course to a jobsite scenario is imperative for the student’s future success. The Center for Teaching Support can provide appropriate training for any faculty member.

   Instruction defined (Merrill, 2002)  is not just information” but is product  of the following

   i.          activation of prior knowledge

   ii.         Demonstration of information

   iii.        Opportunities for application and practice with feedback

   iv.        Purposive ¹scaffolding of new integration of new knowledge to promote transfer

   v.         All wrapped around a real-world knowledge to promote transfer

   II.             (Wiley, 2005) states that all the above are necessary, but not sufficient. Instruction must include “interaction”.

   “In architecture,scaffolding is a temporary structure workers stand on or hang from during construction of a building. Scaffolding lets workers reach places that would otherwise be inaccessible.

   In education, scaffolding is structure which support learning and problem solving. Scaffolding can include helpful instructor comments, self-assessment quizes, practice problems, collections of related resources, a help desk. Woolfolk (2004) defines scaffolding as:

   ‘clues, reminders, encouragement, breaking a problem down into smaller steps, providing an example, or anything that allows the student to grow in independence as a learner.’

   Scaffolding can be anything a teacher can provide in a learning environment that might help a student learn. Scaffolding may be optional, such as a library available to be used. The same scaffolding may be provided to all students or teachers my offer customized scaffolding to individual learners.”

   http://teachvu.vu.msu.edu/public/designers/learning_elements/index.php?page_num=5

5. What is meant by “adapt course content to the students’ personal experiences”?  (See 15.3.1) The depth to which a student learns a concept or application is positively correlated with the relation students can make between concepts and their personal experiences. Learning occurs not only vertically but horizontally. Learning tied to personal experiences broadens the learning of the student. Although some content is theoretical and not as applicable to the student’s personal experiences, efforts should be made to relate those concepts that are applicable to some student personal experience to enhance student learning.

6. What is meant by “peer-review program”? (See 23.4.2)  The college, at the date of this white paper, does not have a formal peer-review program. The research on evaluation of quality online courses has consistently mentioned “peer review” as an important element of evaluation. Please see The Center for Teaching Support for more information regarding peer-review evaluation.

7. TTC  provides a Readiness for Education at a Distance Indicator (READI) (See 11.1) you can use for evaluating your student’s incoming skills ( http://www.tridenttech.edu/1260.htm ).

8. As of the date of this white paper, a college policy regarding “academic integrity” (See 12.5.x) cannot be found in either the TTC Policies or the Faculty Handbook. Until this is resolved please look at http://www.tbcc.cc.or.us/student_policies.html for an example of an academic policy.