The Online Learning and Teaching Innovation Committee has been serving the Engler College of Business for several years, providing a means whereby best practices and faculty insights can be shared not just within the committee, but also across the entire College.
The College first started offering online courses in 1997, which quickly evolved into the online MBA. A few years later, complete online majors in Marketing and Management were offered, followed by other majors within a few years. Dr. Jillian Yarbrough, Assistant Dean, Clinical Assistant & Virginia Engler Professor of Business Management, is Chair of the committee.
The fall semester brought a new sub-committee from within this committee, whose purpose is to focus on the various types of student engagement in online classes. Yarbrough, along with Drs. Humpherys, Ramos-Salazar, and Gerlich, comprise this group that was commissioned by Dean Abdullat.
There are three types of engagement: student to professor, peer to peer, and student to university. While engagement can be relatively easy to happen in campus-based classes, there are challenges in the online arena, especially along the time and distance continuums. It can be difficult engaging at any level when students are physically separated and logging in at all hours of the day.
One of the charges of this sub-committee is to quantify engagement along those three dimensions, and then perform a self-assessment of how we are doing. To that end, a survey will be deployed among online students this fall to measure their impressions of engagement, followed by a faculty survey in the spring semester. In addition, members of the sub-committee are methodically visiting one-on-one with all faculty in the College to share what each is doing to foster engagement. In so doing, insights can be gleaned and a general inventory of methods assembled.
“Our sub-committee has the purpose of being a communication hub, where we’re going to go individually one-on-one with the faculty to learn what they are doing,” Yarbrough explained. “Should we as a team member also have an idea that might be beneficial to them, we will share that with them. We plan to bring the collective ideas back so that they can be made available to everyone.”
Another goal is that we up our game,” she continued. “When I came here in 2016, I was so impressed with the commitment to excellence in online learning. That has stayed the same. We are trying to identify what it is the faculty needs to remain at the highest level.”
Yarbrough contends that ongoing dialogue will collaboratively support and enhance our online teaching techniques. Given the variability between learners, as well as between faculty members, this is no small task. Each faculty member utilizes their skills uniquely, with some excelling in leading discussion boards, but others fostering teamwork. The result is a tapestry of engagement that will vary across the curriculum.
“We are already excellent online educators, but that is a dynamic title. By next year, if we have not done anything, we are mediocre online educators,” she said with a tone of caution.
To that end, the task force as well as the entire committee seek to continuously improve student engagement, as well as improve the overall process of online delivery.