While specialists in online education, such as instructional designers and administrative leaders, help carry out online courses and programs strategically, it is the faculty whose voice, wisdom, and human connections make online learning successful. In this episode, hosts Kelvin and Tom discuss the importance of this faculty voice and valuing.

Hosts Tom and Kelvin are joined by guest Dr. Julie Mendez to consider how to overcome challenges faced by STEM faculty who might be resistant to teaching online or blended courses. Spoiler: It’s about faculty talking to faculty!

From her time as CAO of Davis College, guest Dr. Cristi Ford joins Kelvin and Tom to talk about the impressive work of Rwanda’s Akilah Institute in providing educational access to women via a combination of blended learning, competency-based education, and international partnership.

Guest Shannon Riggs joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss her book “Thrive Online” and a key principle that, when pursuing quality, regardless of online, blended, synchronous, or in-person course modality, “it really always comes back to design.”

Join hosts Kelvin and Tom for a consideration of the need across higher education to collaboratively wage a campaign of accuracy to repair the damage done to the reputation of online education during the remote instruction response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Student evaluation of instruction is often contentious. In this episode, guest Dr. Barbara Zorn joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to share findings from a data mining research study of end of term evaluations from 60,000 online courses. Research in this area guides our field in using these evaluations effectively.

In this episode, join Kelvin and Tom for a discussion of how “blended” is likely to permeate higher education institutions far beyond the bounds of blended learning course design. Ponder the opportunities afforded by blended campus workplaces and blended co-curricular experiences in the post-COVID era.

Stakeholder communications are especially important during a crisis. What do you do when communications are misinterpreted? Hosts Kelvin and Tom talk through COVID-era communication strategies. This episode is the sixth in a mini-series of monthly “field reports” offering collegial advice in getting through the current era of “remote teaching” necessitated by COVID-19.

In this episode, special guest Dr. Richard Zraick joins Tom and Kelvin to discuss how teaching faculty can care for their voices despite inordinate vocal use online and f2f during the COVID-19 era. Great episode for sharing with teaching faculty colleagues who aren’t regular listeners!

Tom and Kelvin talk through giving voice to and gathering data from all faculty and student constituents to evaluate effectiveness of remote instruction. This episode is the fourth in a mini-series of monthly “field reports” offering collegial advice in getting through the current era of “remote teaching” necessitated by COVID-19.