Distance Education Newsletter
Kapi‘olani Community College | July 8, 2021
Relax and Recharge!
--Professional Development Opportunities / Celebrating Good Work--
Register NOW for Kapi‘olani Summer Camp! (August 2-5)
Kapi‘olani Summer Camp is on again this summer for August 2-5, and it’s a great opportunity for some professional service! Last year, we hosted 43 sessions, and 291 participants joined us for this virtual, Zoom-based event from across the UH System and beyond. We’re hoping to make an even bigger splash this year with some summer professional development fun for everyone!
This year's event will still be a free, zoom-based format but without replays available afterward. All activities will be happening in real-time for maximum engagement. Don’t miss out on networking with subject matter experts and colleagues from across Hawai‘i and beyond!
Feel free to share this news with your admin, colleagues, students, friends, or family members. You can preview the 2021 program here for session descriptions.
Check out the Kapi‘olani Summer Camp website to learn more about this professional development event. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the summer camp counselors at sumrcamp@hawaii.edu
We hope to see you in August!
Your friendly Kapi‘olani Summer Camp counselors ⛺️
TOPP Final Presentations by the Summer I 2021 Cohort — Join Us!
Please join the Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP) Summer I 2021 cohort as they showcase their newly designed online classes next week! They have just completed 3 modules of TOPP beginning in May, and they are ready to share their creative pedagogical and technology-integrated course designs. The presentations will take place on:
Tuesday, July 13th, 10 to 11:30 am
Wednesday, July 14th, 2 to 3:30 pm
Thursday, July 15th, 10 to 11:30 am
Everyone is welcome to join one or more sessions featuring faculty from various UH campuses. Join us at https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/8258413394.
2021 Tech Boost
Join us for a multi-campus day of fun!
Wednesday | July 21, 2021
8:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.
Learn about a variety of learning technology tools. The event starts with a tech slam to give you a peek at the featured tools and will continue with tech lab sessions that include hands-on activities for participants.
Featured tools include: Edpuzzle, Handwritten Grading in Google Classroom on an iPad, Slido, Flippity, Google Slides Tips, and Bitmoji.
For more information, view the 2021 Tech Boost Overall Schedule.
organized by: Hawai‘i Community College, Honolulu Community College, Kaua‘i Community College, Maui College
CC Global Summit (Free Virtual Conference)
The registration will open at the end of July. If you’re interested in attending, please subscribe to their newsletter to receive more updates.
Free Webinars!
Currently, Kapi‘olani CC has a subscription with Go2Knowledge, which offers Kap‘olani CC faculty and staff free access to dozens of Innovative Educators webinars, both live and on-demand (pre-recorded). Many of them are quite good! I like to listen to the early morning ones while I'm getting ready for work. Here's a sampling to pique your interest:
Upcoming live webinars:
Examining Asynchronous & Synchronous Strategies for Active & Engaged Learning (Tuesday 7/13, 7:00 - 8:00 am HST)
How to Quickly & Easily Create Online Video Lectures for Micro-Learning (Wednesday 7/14, 9:00 - 10:00 am HST)
Lessons Learned from COVID-19: How to Adapt, Overcome, & Enhance Higher Ed (Wednesday 7/21, 7:00 - 8:30 am HST)
Recently-added on-demand webinars:
Teaching Online: Best Practices for Synchronous & Asynchronous Delivery (60 min)
Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance while Maximizing Online Instructional Time (60 min)
And many, many more. Sign up at Kapi‘olani CC's G2K account page and browse through the offerings.
--Online Andragogy / Useful Tech Tools--
--Important Policy Update--
Kapi‘olani CC’s Definition of Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)
Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) is a requirement for our DE classes, and it’s an essential part of the federal DOE’s definition of what makes a class or program “Distance Education” (as opposed to “Correspondence Education”). Recent federal negotiated rulemaking sessions have revised the federal definition of RSI, and accrediting agencies (including ACCJC) are coming out with revised regulations to take this newly-revised definition of RSI into account. ACCJC’s revised DE regulations are set to take effect in July of 2022.
In preparation, Kapi‘olani CC has drafted an institutional definition of RSI in alignment with the federal definition. This RSI definition passed the Faculty Senate on April 5 and was approved by the administration on April 12. Now it’s time to share it with the Kapi‘olani CC DE Community:
Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) is a requirement for Distance Education (DE) classes at Kapi‘olani Community College. In meeting this requirement, instructors are responsible for interacting with students on a predictable and regular basis. They monitor students’ academic engagement and success, and proactively engage in substantive interactions with the students. These interactions occur in at least two of the following ways:
Providing direct instruction (ie. instructor-created videos, slide presentations, or other instructional materials or meeting with the class synchronously online)
Providing feedback on assignments (preferably individualized)
Providing information and/or responding to questions
Facilitating group discussions (including discussions that utilize Web 2.0 tools such as Padlet, FlipGrid, collaborative creation tools, etc.)
Engaging in one or more of the following instructional activities:
Sending announcements, reminders or nudges to students
Holding synchronous group or individual conferences
Assigning and facilitating peer feedback
Assigning and facilitating group projects
Assigning and facilitating student-led instruction (student presentations, student-led discussions, etc.)
Sharing individualized course performance, progress, and/or early-alert reports with students
If you have questions or comments about this definition, or about RSI, we’d love to hear them! Contact Leigh at ldooley@hawaii.edu.
--The Cool Stuff at the End--
What We Are Reading, Listening to, or Watching this Summer
- How Does the Delta Variant Figure into Schools' Opening Plans? (article, Education Week)
The Delta Variant is 50% more infectious than the Alpha Variant, which is already 50% more infectious than the original COVID-19 virus. It is expected to lead to exponential growth in infection rates, especially in communities with low vaccination rates and/or lax masking. In addition, vaccines are less effective against this variant. This means that schools reopening to in-person interactions will have to remain vigilant.
- Here's a List of Colleges that Will Require Students or Employees to Be Vaccinated against COVID-19 (article, Chronicle of Higher Ed)
This list of 572+ campuses across the nation, public and private, includes the UH System colleges.
- Why, Post-pandemic, Your Campus Needs More "Super Courses" (article, Chronicle of Higher Ed)
Super Courses, highly effective in engaging students and creating self-directed learners, are those which include elements such as: centering not on topics but on big, important questions or problems that spark intrinsic interest; promoting collaboration; encouraging productive failure; focusing on learning by doing; investing students with a goal that is larger than the class; etc. They may contribute to the possibility of a positive future.
- Three Tips on How to Help Your Students Study Online Effectively with a Smartphone (article, Faculty Focus)
This article discusses how real students are using their smartphones to study, and offers instructors tips on how to tailor learning materials to make this approach more effective for maximizing learning.
- 8 Tips for Educators Dealing with Digital Fatigue (article, EdTech)
Useful tips include delegating work to students, minimizing the number of online tools you use, setting aside a dedicated space for teaching, etc.