Spring 2014 Edition
Faculty Spotlight
A New Way of Looking at Online Courses
By Steven Grosteffon
Professor of Mathematics
Do you remember the
first time you saw a
Magic Eye illusion? I do.
I was sitting in a high
school teachers’ lounge
back in the 90s, thinking
that someone was trying
to play a joke on me.
With a little bit of guidance, the illusion
came into focus and I was able to truly
appreciate what I was seeing. As the title of
the book shown on the right so aptly says, I
had just found “a new way of looking at the
world.” Over the past couple of years, I’ve
been teaching mathematics fully online. I’ve
enjoyed the experience but success has
been somewhat of an illusion. In this article,
I will share how attending an Applying the
Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) workshop
has renewed my passion, by giving me a
new way of looking at online courses.
Discouraged by lower than expected
retention and success, I jumped at the
opportunity to attend an APPQRM online
workshop over the holiday break. It was
enlightening and eye-opening. First of all, I
was able to experience an online class from
a student’s perspective; I had never taken
one before. It also brought to light the clear
distinction
between course
design and
course delivery.
Quality Matters
defines course
design as the
forethought and planning that a faculty
member puts into a course, and course
delivery to be the actual teaching of the
course, the implementation of the design.
The focus of the workshop was on course
design, using best practices to ensure that
assessment and measurement, instructional
materials, learner interaction and
engagement, course technology, learner
support, and accessibility all work together
to help students achieve the desired
learning outcomes.
Since attending the workshop, I’ve been
using the accompanying Quality Matters
Rubric Workbook for Higher Education to do
a self-assessment of my courses. It has been
humbling to discover my shortfalls but
refreshing to have clear directions on how
to make improvements; each specific review
standard comes with an annotation for
implementation. For example, I used to
feature videos of interest on my