Kingsborough English
Resources for Faculty at Kingsborough's Department of English
Kingsborough English
Resources for Faculty at Kingsborough's Department of English

ONLINE CERTIFICATION

OVERVIEW

CUNY faculty can be certified to teach online by taking a course at the School for Professional Studies. They may also be certified to teach online by their individual departments. This page provides an overview of the process by which faculty can get certified to teach online by the Department of English at Kingsborough Community College. It is important to recognize that this process will need to be continually updated and revised in order to respond to changing times, technologies, and departmental values. The basic ethos of the departmental certification reflects a process that should be meaningful without being burdensome. Such a process therefore includes multiple paths toward certification, a self-guided evaluation method, and decisions about certification standards and processes that are ratified by departmental vote.

ACCESSIBILITY

Obviously, your course design needs to be usable by everyone. No matter how you get certified to teach online, your first priority is to make all your materials accessible. Students’ needs  for various types of accommodations might not be clear to instructors in online teaching environments. Students may have diverse learning needs and/or unreliable access to necessary resources—such as time, adequate technology, and stable internet connections—all of which create a learning environment that requires teachers to design for a wide range of student needs and realities. 

Be sure that you follow the principles of Universal Design for Learning (i.e. captioning videos, formatting course content and materials to be compatible with screen readers, creating accessible text documents, allowing multimodal communication and assigning multimodal projects/activities, ensuring that PDFs are digitally readable, etc.). Use the accessibility scoring measures of the LMS as much as possible to be sure all of your students can access all of your materials.

PATHS TO CERTIFICATION

This process is self-guided. That means that individual instructors are responsible for choosing the path toward certification that best suits them. Getting certified involves submitting a complete reflection & documentation to the English Department organization on our college’s Learning Management System.

There are many paths to departmental online certification. Regardless of the specific format you choose to document your certification, everyone will do two things:

  1. Reflect on how their online teaching includes the “course elements” from the English Online Certification Committee (EOCC) rubric (below); and
  2. Document those “course elements” in their own teaching.

The reflection could take many forms:

  • a single prose document
  • annotations on teaching artifacts
  • a screencapture video tour of teaching artifacts or course shells
  • a slideshow that walks viewers through your teaching
  • other

Please use the approach that feels most intuitive and accessible to you!

The documentation should be drawn from your teaching artifacts; the following are examples of teaching artifacts you might draw on in order to document how the course elements are present in your online teaching practice:

  •      your online syllabus (whole, or portions)
  •      screenshots/videos of relevant parts of your course shell
  •      links to instructional videos you have made for students
  •      a sample week of your course that you think demonstrates the course elements
  •      other

There is no predetermined list of teaching artifacts you must use for documentation. Instead, the idea here is to show evidence from your course(s) that illustrate(s), alongside your reflection, how you approach each course element in your own teaching.

GUIDELINES FOR ONLINE COURSES

THE COURSE OVERVIEW
The overall design of the course is made clear to students at the beginning of the course. A course overview and introduction let students know what to expect and provide guidance on how to successfully begin the course and move through all course structures. The course shell via the college’s LMS is organized and designed so that students can easily navigate, move around the course space, complete assignments, and follow the flow of your lessons easily.

Entering an online course for the first time can be disorienting and confusing. The organization and design of your course in an online environment (asynchronous, synchronous, or blended online classes) help students to follow your unique pedagogical approaches for an entire semester.   It is helpful when instructors label and name items, and organize and customize their course menu and shell in clear and  intuitive ways.

You can customize, organize, and name items on your LMS course shell menu for easy and intuitive navigation and which makes sense for your course. You can also organize your lessons by segments of time– weeks, units, or modules–to make the flow of the course easier to follow. And you can clearly label and name videos, assignments, content, and lessons as they pertain to lessons, drafts, units, due dates, etc.

THE COURSE INTRODUCTION
The course shell design includes a clear starting point for students, and  provides an overview and introduction to how the course will run. Introducing students to the geography of an online course, and providing a course overview and introduction, orient students to the course. Inform students about how to get started and get them oriented with your course shell within the first day or so of classes.

Here are some ways to make a great course introduction:

  • Create a “welcome, start here” front page for your course shell site that includes starting tasks, relevant course information, and key documents (i.e., syllabus).
  • Provide students, during a synchronous session, with a live “tour” of the online course site.
  • Pre-record a video tour of the site.
  • Construct language explaining the geography or overview of the course on an essential document (I.e., syllabus).
  • Create an introductory section (“folder”) somewhere that is visible and easily locatable, perhaps within your weekly module page.
  • Create a menu item  solely for introductory information that includes relevant course information.
  • Provide students with a getting started  checklist in an announcement, on the “Welcome Students – Start Here” page,  at the top of your weekly lessons/modules  sections, or include the checklist on the syllabus or course schedule.
  • Initiate communication using KBCC class groups (and/or you could create a “task” on the “Welcome Students – Start Here” page,  where students send you an email from their KBCC student email account).

BEING AN ONLINE TEACHER
As an online instructor, you need to establish and maintain presence. In a face-to-face classroom setting, instructor   presence happens naturally, but in an online environment, more deliberate strategies are necessary to help students “see” their instructor and feel connected to the course. Customize and personalize your course so that it reflects your pedagogy, course theme, and personality (by writing in your voice (formally or informally),  include graphics, images, multimedia, colors, videos, links,  html code, etc).

Here are some ways to establish your presence as an online teacher:

  • Introduce yourself on the “Welcome Students – Start Here!” page with a short bio and photo of yourself.
  • Introduce yourself through a short pre-recorded video, linked or embedded where your students will find it easily at the beginning of the semester.
  • Introduce yourself during your first  synchronous live session.
  • Introduce yourself through an  “announcement” and use the announcement feature regularly to talk to your class (through written prose, short videos, audio recordings).
  • Maintain presence by sending regular announcements to your class (either through video or audio recordings, or through written prose).
  • Maintain presence by embedding or linking videos within your lessons and activities.
  • Provide feedback to students using audio or video (screen capture software).
  • Send students personalized emails (via KBCC email), videos, or audio recordings to check-in on students or update them on their progress or status in the course.

HOW TO COMMUNICATE COURSE GOALS
What students will learn to do throughout the course and what they should be able to accomplish by the end of the term should be really clear to them. Providing clearly stated objectives/outcomes to students offers them insight into the foundation upon which the rest of the course is based, makes learning expectations clear, and gives students an opportunity to conceptualize, individualize, and actualize learning and progress.

Ways to communicate learning goals to students (in addition to stating them on your syllabus):

  • State the objective(s) at the beginning of each module/unit,
  • Include objectives on assignments or activities,
  • Express objectives  during synchronous sessions,
  • Express objectives  in a video the instructor has made.
  • Express objectives  in a weekly announcement. 

FEEDBACK AND GRADING
Feedback and grades, both formative and summative, are integral to the learning process and are designed to advance and evaluate student progress in the course ultimately toward achieving the stated course goals. The course activities, feedback, and grading are critically important, and being clear about how you give feedback and how grading works in your course is obviously really important to students. Feedback helps students to contextualize the activities, assignments, and assessments as supportive of stated learning objectives or competencies. Keeping students aware of their learning and progress throughout the course is key for online learning. Low stakes formative assessments, paced throughout the course, as well as guidelines woven into all activities, keep students on track and help students build toward larger summative assessments.Offer teacher feedback in various forms, and integrate  various forms of assessment, including self- and peer-assessment into activities.

The course grading policy and schema are stated clearly and, if numerical, should adhere to KCC’s official alphanumeric grade equivalences. (see pages 47-48). The syllabus or course information must include a clear grading policy. To be clear about feedback and grading, list, and make easily accessible, overarching goals as stated on the syllabus as well as distinct grading policies. In addition, grading policies for successful drafts and finished essays, discussion posts, peer interaction should be clear, the relative weight in the final grade  of each assignment & assessment should be clear, and you might offer rubrics, adaptable and particular to assignments and activities, or even make collaborative creation of rubrics part of your course.

Here are some kinds of feedback in ways that keep students clear about how they’re doing and what progress they’re making:

  • Formative comments on student work in progress
  • Summative comments at the end of projects & assessments
  • Responses based on rubrics (which can be added to all assignments in the LMS as well as posted in the Course Menu)
  • Mutual creation of rubrics, grading contracts, or other assessment agreements
  • Responses to student questions on Discussion Boards, Journals, Blogs, or other low-stakes formats
  • Various types of metacognitive, reflective writings
  • Self-reflective overviews of drafts
  • Portfolio reflection essays, done in stages
  • Peer review & evaluation →  Reflection on peer commentary

MANAGING STUDENT INTERACTION AND SOCIAL LEARNING ONLINE
The instructor provides learners with opportunities to engage with the instructor and one another through a process that builds a robust online community of learners. The course provides opportunities for interaction that encourage active and social learning and cultivate  community. The course provides many opportunities for interaction and rapport. No less than in a face-to-face classroom, the presence of others in the community should be known and felt. To encourage interaction, and social learning, instructors should build spaces for students to collaborate and learn from one other, fostering self-direction, independence, and shared responsibility for learning.

Here are some ways to utilize a variety of interactive LMS and web-based tools:

  • Utilize a variety of interactive LMS and web-based tools |
  • Discussion boards
  • Blogs
  • Group-organizing functions as part of LMS (“Groups”)
  • Group projects, such as video creation, power-points, and multimodal texts
  • File-sharing
  • Shared source-finding
  • Web-based tools where students can communicate with each other about content, lessons, and collaborate on activities or assignments (Perusall, Google Drive/docs, Eli Review, Padlet, etc.).
  • Create a stable Q&A section on the site (e.g. on the menu).
  • Create a stable study space for groups of learners to meet (perhaps through a Discussion Board thread or an open Zoom or Collaborate room) that is accessible to students on the course shell throughout the term.
  • Offer weekly, monthly, or random check-ins or Q&A  sessions (via chat, Discussion Board, video conferencing, etc).

USING ONLINE TEACHING MATERIALS
Try using a wide range of written and visual resources for teaching and assignments. Other teaching materials, besides, of course, written descriptions of assignments, might include instructional videos, screenshots and images embedded in written instructions to support student comprehension, etc.

Be aware of using resources that are appropriate to the goals of the course and that do not violate copyright laws. For some faculty, in a face-to-face class it is somewhat easier to explain concepts and instructions to students and to gauge student understanding and response. In online settings, faculty need to offer especially clear instructions and lessons that take the asynchronous and remote setting into account. Assignments should be designed with the online environment in mind and offer learning opportunities especially relevant to digital learning. In most English classes, faculty use a variety of low- and high-stakes reading and writing assignments to create collaboration, interaction, and socially-constructed learning environments for their students. Online courses should offer this same range of assignment types via a variety of instructional tools available on the LMS and other web-based platforms.

Here are some ideas of what to use to support your teaching online:

  •  Blogs
  • Individual or group reading annotations
  • Discussion Board forums
  • Collaborative work in Google Docs
  • Longer paper assignments on Blackboard assignments or Turnitin
  • Peer review assignments on Turnitin, Google Docs, Perusall, or a number of other platforms

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Although faculty are not required to address the following course elements as part of this self-certification dossier, these elements are nonetheless recommended for effective online courses.

HOW YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS WILL COMMUNICATE ONLINE
The instructor’s communication plan for classroom response time and feedback on assignments is clearly stated. Having a clearly stated communication plan benefits both the instructor and students. When a time frame is specified for email communication and when assignments will be graded and returned, instructors can effectively establish presence and counter the unspoken assumption that they are immediately available to meet learner needs at any time of day or night. A stated communication plan sets reasonable boundaries and expectations for the instructor and learners.

A statement or description on your syllabus, on the front page of the course site, and embedded in the language of assignments are all sensible places to set clear communications policies and boundaries. Consider setting clear boundaries for email communication availability, email response time, feedback availability on assignments, virtual office hours, etc.

USE A COLLEGE & COURSE POLICIES SECTION
Relevant college policies, campus resources, and student support resources should be referenced, explained, and/or made available to students via your course site. Online students experience college via the course sites their teachers create. Therefore, students can most easily find various types of support resources if they are  linked somewhere on those course sites. College policies (i.e., Academic Integrity, student conduct, Office of Equal Opportunity) can be part of the course syllabus, linked or written in prose, or specifically brought to the attention of students by collecting them into a section or folder on the course site.

Faculty should consider listing the following information in a section of their course site:

  • Counseling services
  • Access Resource Center
  • KCC Student LMS Helpdesk
  • Access-ability Services
  • CAWS Writing Tutors
  • KCC Library
  • Women’s Center
  • Men’s Resource Center

FLEXIBILITY
Faculty should consider offering options for communication, coursework and interaction to accommodate students who have limited face-time to devote to synchronous interaction. Students may enroll in online courses largely in response to scheduling pressures or conflicts. By providing various avenues to communicate with the instructor and complete and engage in coursework, students with inflexible schedules will have an equal opportunity for success.

The principles of Universal Design for Learning suggest flexibility:

  • Offer short, purpose-driven synchronous sessions
  • Use Discussion boards, Blogs, Wiki, and file-sharing tools to offer asynchronous options for all students
  • Create groups for projects, and provide  these groups with a selection of digital tools to collaborate asynchronously.
  • Hold intermittent optional live  sessions or Q&A sessions.
  • Create a group chat
  • Offer drop in hours