Playing POCR @ LPC
Get a Seat at the Table
With LPC's membership in the CVC-OEI Consortium, the college is ante-ing up on the quality of its online courses. And with the impending establishment of LPC's own Peer Online Course Review, or POCR, team, the smart bet is that the ultimate winners will be LPC's students. That's because as more LPC courses meet the quality standards of the OEI Course Design Rubric and get placed in the CVC Course Exchange, our students will not only have a better online educational experience, but they will also have the opportunity to take those elusive classes from other colleges that will help them graduate sooner.
The dealer in LPC's POCR efforts is Counseling faculty member Christina Lee. Christina is seeking fellow faculty to become POCR players who will give feedback to online instructors in a collaborative, supportive process that results in courses meeting the OEI rubric. She is also seeking faculty willing to submit their courses to the prospective LPC POCR team. |
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LPC Instructors Reflect on POCR Training
The CVC-OEI requires all POCR players to be trained before becoming reviewers. Two LPC instructors, Lisa Everett and Toby Bielawski, recently completed the four-week training online in Canvas. In the POCR course, faculty learn more about the standards of the OEI rubric and have the opportunity to review, and give feedback on, an actual course that was submitted to the OEI's Course Design Academy.
"Participating in the POCR course was very valuable," Lisa said. "As an instructor of online courses, I found the in-depth review of each section of the OEI rrubric extremely useful in confirming my own understanding of the rubric and verifying my own courses’ alignment with each section of the rubric.
As a student in the POCR Canvas course, I found myself eagerly awaiting instructor feedback on my assignments, looking to see if other students replied to my Discussion posts and checking my “Grades.” Being a “student” in the Canvas course reminded me how useful the Canvas tools are in building student-student engagement and providing regular instructor-student feedback."
Toby added: "I am so happy I did the course. It was actually less work, per week, than I was expecting -- maybe 4-5 hours. It was so helpful to get to see an actual class. There were lots of things that were impressive about it, especially when I was looking at it from a teacher's perspective, and then, having to judge it through the perspective of the rubric, I could see how there was also a lot of room to improve it. It definitely made me realize how much work is needed on my own courses. But it was inspiring, and made me want to make my classes better!"
If you are interested in joining LPC's prospective POCR team, contact Christina Lee. |
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4 Courses Approved, More To Follow
To date, Christina Lee (PCN 10), Ruth Hanna (GEOL 12) and adjunct instructor Karen Oeh (ANTR 1 and 2) have all had courses approved for quality by the OEI's Course Design Academy. Ten other courses are either preparing for course review or are in the process of review.
Aside from confidential feedback and course design recommendations from fellow online faculty, those who submit courses also receive help from an instructional designer and web accessibility specialist to make sure their courses meet the OEI rubric. Additionally, those courses will be badged for quality in the CVC Course Exchange.
"After my PCN 10 course was reviewed in the OEI Course Design Academy," Christina Lee said, "I slowly worked on updating it so that it could align to the OEI Course Design Rubric. It was a collegial experience working with one of the OEI Course Design Specialists where I did not feel judged but supported in my endeavors. Whenever I had any questions, (the specialist) was quick to respond to my emails or available to meet via ConferZoom. It was a positive professional development experience that I highly recommend to all DE instructors."
Contact Christina to begin the process of getting your course prepared for review and ultimately offered in the exchange. You can also register for an upcoming online informational meeting with @ONE about the course review process. Those meetings take place Feb. 20 from 10-11 a.m., March 6 from 10-11 a.m., and March 21 from 3-4 p.m.
This opportunity is open to all LPC full-time and adjunct instructors who teach a fully online course that is part of an ADT (Associate Degree for Transfer), General Education Transfer Pattern (CSU or IGETC), or CTE (Career Technical Education) program. |
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Spring 2019 OCDP Participants
The most efficient way to get your online course aligned to the OEI rubric is to participate in LPC's Online Course Development Program. In the OCDP, faculty are not only trained on how to teach online, but they also learn how to design and develop a course that meets all of the standards of the OEI rubric.
During Spring 2019, seven instructors are participating in the program. The Monday group consists of Sebastian Wong (EMS), Barbara Zingg (BIO), and adjuncts Tess Brandt (ENG), Frances Denisco (HIST), and Ameena Saeed (SOC). The Thursday group is Irena Keller (PSYC) and Paul Sapsford (KIN).
Look for an email later this semester about joining the program in Fall 2019. Faculty can complete training online at any time. Contact Scott Vigallon for more information. |
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Upcoming Accessibility Trainings
According to the OEI, the biggest issue POCR teams face when reviewing courses is finding content that is not accessible to students with disabilities. LPC offers lots of upcoming help to all instructors who use Canvas.
The Teaching and Learning Center is hosting three web accessibility workshops: Creating Accessible Word and PowerPoint Files, Feb. 19 from 12-1 p.m.; Canvas Accessibility, Feb. 21 from 12-1 p.m.; and Closed Captioning with 3C Media Solutions, Feb. 26 from 2-3 p.m.. Register for any of those three workshops.
In addition, a Flex Day session called Making your Canvas Course ADA-Compliant will be held March 19.
For those who want training online, @ONE is offering new, free, self-paced courses designed to teach faculty how to make content in the following programs accessible: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, PDF, and Canvas. It also has a course in video captioning. Register on the @ONE web site. All faculty also have access to a Canvas course called Creating Accessible Content.
If you need one-on-one help with web accessibility, you can make an appointment with LPC's Instructional Technology Specialist Wanda Butterly, aka The Wizard of Accessibility. Known for her Magic Wand(a), she can help you ensure that all of your Canvas materials are accessible to all of your students.
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 New Gradebook In All Courses
Canvas recently announced that the old Gradebook will be replaced for good this summer with the New Gradebook. Therefore, Chabot and LPC will enable the New Gradebook for all classes after the due date for faculty to submit grades for the spring. Also, with the enabling of the New Gradebook, there will be a new, optional feature called Final Grade Override that will allow faculty to input a different final grade than the one calculated by Canvas. |
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