Online Education Newsletter
Kapi‘olani Community College | September 2022
Fall 2022: Moving Toward Normal
The UH leadership has extended the indoor mask policy for fall 2022, signaling a cautious but hopeful return to "normal." Scanning the campus, we sense that students are happy to be back on campus, joyfully chatting and laughing with friends even behind their masks. As UH makes slow progress toward returning to normal, Kapi‘olani has also headed in the same direction: 26% of classes are now fully in-person and 16% are hybrid, up from 13% in-person and 13% hybrid one year ago. Let's hope for a good balance of in-person and online learning in the near future to meet the needs of our diverse student population.
Last month saw two big surprises for higher education: (1) President Biden announced the long-awaited student debt forgiveness, and (2) an Ohio student won a lawsuit against his college for invasion of privacy during an online proctored exam. We've curated excellent analyses of both news items, so please check them out in the "What We Are Reading or Watching" section at the bottom of this newsletter.
May your semester be full of learning successes. We are in this together--let's continue to learn and support each other.
Pehea Mākaukau E hoʻomaka kākou!
---Enrollment Data---
Students Continue to Gravitate Toward Online Classes
In spring 2022, Student Congress and OFIE surveyed students about their learning and life experiences. 66% of those students worked; another 20% were parents. Flexibility in their schedule is key, which may explain their preferences for online asynchronous classes.
Fill rates for fall 2022 reflect our student needs as well; they are voting with their enrollments. Online classes are 84% filled compared to 72% for face-to-face for the upcoming semester.
For historical trends, check out the latest Kapiʻolani CC Fast Facts Dashboard! Enrollments by modality certainly have changed as a result of the pandemic. Here is a snapshot looking at spring for the past 5 years:
---Summer Professional Development---
A UH Professional Development, Summer 2022: The 8 Habits for Highly Accessible Course Content
From July 11 to August 5, 2022, faculty and staff from across the UH System joined a community of learners to grow and nurture new habits that ensure accessibility when creating digital content. One of the goals of The 8 Habits PD was to help participants to move from theory to practice in safe, small accountability (‘ohana) groups where they could learn, practice, and seek guidance. After 4 weeks of synchronous and asynchronous interactions and personal applications, the participants forged lasting camaraderie across campuses through sharing of ideas and reflections on their practices.
❝ I think making our courses more accessible one step at a time is an important approach. ... What this course is asking us to do involves some challenging steps, but I really like how working together has enabled us to learn from each other and eventually grasp more completely what we can be doing to improve our respective course designs.❞ -UH Maui College faculty
❝ Upon reflecting, I think this 8 habits PD, for me, is about unlearning the 'bad' habits and creating new good habits...❞ -UH Mānoa faculty
❝ What I appreciate about this course is the support network to help implement these new ideas we have and ensure the accessibility in our course.❞ -Hawai‘i CC faculty
Ho‘omaikai (congratulations) to the Kapi‘olani CC faculty who earned their certificates of completion:
Francisco Acoba
Amanda Allison
Aaron Hanai
Arlene May Laeno
Reid Sunahara
--Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities--
UHCC OER Incentive Program for AY 22-23
The UHCC OER leads are offering another systemwide professional development program and awards for modification and creation projects for AY 22-23. Professional development opportunities include textbook review workshops and an in-depth, asynchronous OER 101 course. There is a call for proposals for those interested in modifying an OER resource or creating ancillaries for a TXT0 course, and proposals to create an OER course or textbook to convert a class to TXT0 are also welcome.
For more details and to apply, please see the UHCC OER Incentive Program Announcement. If you have any questions, please contact your campus UHCC OER Grant Program lead or email uhccoer@hawaii.edu.
More OER Professional Development Opportunities in Fall
Go2Knowledge / Innovative Educators 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! Here's a sampling to pique your interest:
Upcoming live webinars:
Onboarding Academic Advisors: Strategies For Success In Changing Times
Live: Thursday, September 8 ~ 8:00-9:30 am (HST)
Improving Student Motivation Using Instructional Strategies, Relationship Building & Mindset
Live: Tuesday, September 13 ~ 8:00-9:00 am (HST)
Recently added on-demand webinars:
FERPA Compliance: Do’s & Don’ts For Frontline Faculty & Staff (60 min)
Creating An Accessible Online Course: 20 Inclusive Design Tips (60 min)
---Helpful Tech Tips---
Digital Escape Room for Active Learning
The hardest part might be coming up with effective questions and answers for a formative assessment. 😄
The Magical Unicorn: Tips to Enchant and Enhance Your Online Class
--Featured Faculty, September 2022--
Name: Kawehi Sellers
Department: Hospitality & Tourism (HOST)
NOTE: Kawehi received the 2021-2022 VCAA Excellence in Online Teaching Award at the Fall 2022 Convocation.
What courses do you teach online?
I’ve taught all of my classes online: HOST 100 – Career and Customer Service Skills, HOST 101 – Introduction to Hospitality Tourism, HOST 261 – Events Management, HOST 280 – Hospitality Management, HOST 265 – Destination Planning and Management, HOST 293 Internship. I usually teach HOST 101 and 261 consistently and I’ll be adding HOST 150 – Housekeeping Operations to my repertoire this Fall.
How long have you been teaching online and what made you decide to teach online?
I started teaching asynchronously online in Fall 2012. Looking back, I’m a little embarrassed. Let’s just say, I’ve come a long way. I was the newest faculty in the department back then and I told my department chair, “why not?!” I’m always up for a good challenge.
What is your favorite part about teaching online?
My favorite part about teaching online is empowering each and every student to be the best version of themselves! In a face-to-face class, it’s easy to get intimidated by others or to just sit back and allow other students to participate. I mean, I’ve done that before as a student. However, in an online environment, my shy students can blossom…they have the opportunity to contemplate and craft their responses.
What is the most challenging part of teaching online?
The most challenging part of teaching online is separating work from my personal life and personal time. I don’t have a traditional work schedule. I think of a new idea while cooking dinner, I’m on my computer. I can respond to student discussions at 5:00 am or 11:00 pm. The flexibility is great, but my workday doesn’t end. It’s okay though, students benefit from my challenge when I respond to their emails before I go to bed. 😆
What surprised you about teaching online?
Students are so resilient and persistent. Community colleges naturally attract non-traditional students and at first I thought, “can a non-digital native navigate through this online environment?” The answer is unequivocally YES! I have been pleasantly surprised at the positive feedback I’ve received from my older students.
What is your favorite Web tool/technology?
Just one favorite? It has to be a tie between Kahoot! and Quizizz. The best feature of both of these is the audio encouragement (the music) and audio feedback when you get it right or wrong. Students of all ages are pretty receptive to using these tools to help them understand the ideas and concepts. Many of them replay for the fun learning experience and I couldn’t ask for more.
---What We Are Reading or Watching Now---
Biden Administration Announces Long-Awaited Student Debt Forgiveness, Signals End of Student Loan Payment Pause | Policy Matters (August 2022) (web content, UPCEA)
The long-awaited student debt forgiveness included a few surprises.
Special Edition: The Ohio "Room Scan" Case (blog, Cheat Sheet)
By now, we’ve all heard about an Ohio student who sued his college for invasion of privacy (room scan) by an online proctoring service. Unfortunately, many reports misrepresented or presumed the details and the judgment of this court case. This blog article breaks down the case to clarify what really happened and what the college got wrong. Please read the entire article.
The author’s conclusion: All public colleges and universities should consider: (1) developing and enforcing a standardized, written university policy that removes discretion from professors as to how remote-proctored tests are administered; and (2) obtaining written consent from students to room scans and all facets of the remote-proctoring process, at the start of each semester (well in advance of test administrations).The art of filler word removal (blog, Descript)
Did you know that Descript is an amazing tool that not only helps with video captioning but also allows editing the video through editing the transcript? One fantastic feature of Descript is “Remove filler words” which edits out um, ah, uh, etc. from the transcript and the video at the same time. But turns out that some filler words are actually helpful and natural-sounding so don’t cut out all of them! Try out the Descript tool and read this blog to find out the “science” behind good and bad filler words.
Teaching a Course as a Narrative Arc (article, Faculty Focus)
Students will better connect to the instructor and coursework with “stories that both induce feeling and help us to understand what we are feeling” (Noddings, 1996). Stories offer a “connect the dots” aspect to learning by providing structure and meaning for students (Bolkan, 2021). They also improve attention during class and retention of the discussed material (Kromka and Goodboy, 2019). How can you create a storyline for your course that will engage and motivate your students?
---DE Newsletter Authors and Compilers---
ʻIwalani Koide
Hawaiian Language Kumu
Melissa Nakamura
Co-chair, Faculty Senate DE Committee