Abstract:

This presentation will describe choices made by a cohort of ten Computer Information and Sciences faculty members who, over a period of an year and a half engaged in weekly online collaboration, completed an online course faculty certification, and transformed their courses into an online delivery mode. Choices describe best practices for synchronous and asynchronous activities, options adopted to guide students through hands on activities, and online proctoring.

The presentation will cover recommendation and shared lessons learned from course design to measuring to course offering activities that foster active learning and student engagement. In addition, it will offer faculty and student recommendations for how to foster a sense of community among cohorts of online graduate program students.

Resources and lessons learned will be shared from an additional field, Biology and a comparison will be offered between the online course development experiences and choices implemented by the 2 departments’ initiatives.

Keywords:

Computer sciences, STEM, biology, faculty development, online course development, student engagement, active learning, information sciences and online teaching.