Distance Learning at Delgado Community College

Distance Learning at Delgado Community College

College Mission

Delgado Community College provides a learning-centered environment in which to prepare students from diverse backgrounds to attain their educational, career, and personal goals, to think critically, to demonstrate leadership, and to be productive citizens.

To realize delivery on this mission, the Delgado College Community is dedicated to:

·  The worth of each individual;

·  Lifelong learning and the pursuit of knowledge;

·  Excellence in teaching in an accessible student-centered environment;

·  Meeting the needs of a changing workforce;

·  The cultural diversity of our students, faculty, staff, and administration;

·  Public trust;

·  Personal and professional integrity and accountability; and

·  An understanding of and responsibility to community, state, nation, and world.

Background

Prior to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, distance learning operations at DCC consisted of a limited offering of independently designed and delivered online courses (Blackboard interface) and interactive television courses (ITV) sprinkled across academic programs. In some of them, more than 50% of program courses could be taken via one of these methods. More faculty were attending Blackboard workshops every semester, and many of the online classes have been extremely successful, however fragmented the program itself may be. But our Blackboard administrators have for some time pointed out the need for more comprehensive faculty development in Elearning techniques and instructional design. The time has come to substantiate a thorough program rationale, purpose and policies, methods of instruction and learning assessment, integrated student services, faculty and student preparation for successful distance learning.

Present Circumstances

Given the demolition/reconstruction required of the College’s damaged physical infrastructure (5-year minimum in some cases), the dramatic impact on our student population (17,500 – a projected 7,500), as well as the College’s additional budgetary obligations (mandatory cuts across the board and tuition reimbursement for displaced students), DCC’s revenue has plummeted while expenses have and will continue to soar. The financial situation has warranted furlough measures for a substantial number of classified and imminent furloughs for non-classified employees from 11/7/05 – 1/22/06 as a “layoff avoidance measure,” as per institutional policy on financial exigency.

Recent Internal Responses to Need

Meanwhile, in an effort to resume operations as quickly as possible following the storm, a core team of responsive DCC administrators, IT staff, and faculty transformed our standard semester offering into a compressed, eight-week experience of distance learning. This semester currently consists of 160 sections with over 2,500 enrollments, representing more than a 100% increase in the number of courses and the number of instructors participating in teaching/learning at a distance. This increased emphasis on distance learning methodologies has placed an excessive burden on our resources’ abilities to meet the needs of learners, yet future expansion is planned and expected. In response, the IT and Faculty Development departments have risen to the occasion and created the following support:

·  A new, FACULTY ONLY, Yahoo groupdedicated to conferencing between online faculty, plans to incorporate online workshops in the chat room: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DCCBC/settings?mode=1

·  A shortonline workshop (1-3 weeks) on Best Practices andUseful Sites for teaching online

·  A semester-longonline course in Effective Online Teaching

·  Ongoing onsite Blackboard training

·  Off-site Blackboard tutorials available at www.edtech.neu.edu/blackboard/using

·  A new partnership offered by the Merlot organization (www.Merlot.org) provides

o  Syllabi

o  ready-to-use instructional modules or courses

o  online teaching techniques,

o  experienced "buddies" to work with

·  Suggestion to use the www.utexas.edu/world/lecture for models of syllabi, courses, creative assignments, online student participation, and page design

·  Round-table discussionson Classroom and Student Management Issues

·  Workshops by three of DCC superstar online instructors

·  Open hours to drop by Blackboard Support Staff for any issues or concerns, including testing/assessments and communication tools

·  A walk-in computer lab with work stations for students taking on-line classes

Critical Factors to Address

As a result of this crisis, it is vital that DCC remains responsive to our learning-centered mission while moving quickly to develop the distance learning rationale, training and support that has increased so significantly. To continue to provide high quality education opportunities, we need to mobilize quickly on the following:

1.  Complete a “substantive change” prospectus for approval by the commission on colleges

2.  Develop effective distance learning instructional competency in 150 faculty

a.  Basic computer skills

b.  Creation of web based documents

c.  Use of the learning management system

d.  Pedagological techniques for DL outcomes/assessment

e.  Distance learning instructional design

f.  Legal issues with regard to copyright

g.  Legal issues with regard to ADA

3.  Locate and coordinate staff to perform the training

4.  Locate instructional designer to work with content experts in creating high-quality interactive, web-based learning materials

5.  Design and implement a more comprehensive system of policies, procedures and guidelines

6.  Design and implement necessary student services to support distance learners

7.  Design and implement an outcome assessment/quality assurance system