Dr. Vajira Manathunga
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
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"Though this is the first time that I have been engaged in conducting online classes, I was impressed by the response that was encouraging and supportive. On my part, it was a unique opportunity for me to learn about quality improvement methods for online classes through Quality Matters Courses. Through my online teaching experience, I found that challenges posed in online teaching are different from traditional classroom teaching. One of the main concerns in online classes is quality.
Distance Education provided me with a unique opportunity to learn about quality improvement methods for online classes through Quality Matters courses. Quality Matters put emphasis on course design and provide a detailed rubrics to measure the quality of online courses. The experience gained though the teaching, made me rethink of redesigning my online classes for next semester and use Quality Matters principles as my guidelines. l would like to express my gratitude to the Distance Education for giving me this opportunity. I enthusiastically recommend this for anyone who looks for ways and means to improve the quality of their online classes. This will also help APSU to increase its pool of QM certified peer reviewers."
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QUALITY MATTERS PEER REVIEWERS
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Congratulations to the following faculty members on becoming Quality Matters Peer Reviewers this November!
Dr. Jiang Li,
Computer Science
Dr. Vajira Manathunga,
Mathematics
Dr. Ling Wang,
Education
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Do you use innovative technology in your course or research? Showcase it at Ed Tech Day 2018! Ed Tech Day allows our campus community to explore and engage with emerging technology through exhibits and demonstrations. Want to suggest a vendor? Email info to
online@apsu.edu. Want to be a presenter?
Submit an application using this link. Save the date for March 14th, 2018!
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INCREASE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
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Are you looking for ways to increase student engagement in your course? Check out Lynda.com’s brief course titled “
Learning How to Increase Learner Engagement” to get some ideas for your F2F, hybrid, or online course. Use your APSU enterprise username/password (single-sign on for your email) to log in and start viewing the course.
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During the week of November 6-10, Distance Education celebrated National Distance Learning Week with several activities including a speaker in our Educational Intelligence Visiting Lecture Series, a Twitter contest, and an NDLW Booth with give-a-ways!
Here is some information from our Twitter contest which asked APSU students "Why do your learn online?"
95 contest entries
4,066
impressions
588 total engagements
Random Chosen Winners
"Learning online allows students to take things at their own pace. Also, they can ask questions without worrying what everyone will think."
"I learn online so that I can pursue additional educational opportunities yet still maintain my lifestyle and full-time job"
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EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE LECTURE SERIES
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Educational Intelligence = Aptitude + Motivation + Opportunity + Persistence
Starting in the Fall of 2017, Distance Education began hosting a monthly visiting lecture series on a variety of topics related to educational intelligence. Refreshments are provide and all faculty, students, and staff are welcome! Please visit our
Lecture Series website
for more information. *If accommodations are needed for any events listed above, please email
online@apsu.edu.
Jaime Casap, Google
"Innovation and Iteration in Education"
February 21, 2018
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
MUC Ballroom
William Ryan, Ryan Consulting, LLC
"Competency Based Education: Focused on Student Success"
Speaker & Workshop
April 25, 2018
10:00 a.m. - 12 p.m
UC 303/305
Look what people are saying about our lecture series...
"The presenter demonstrated a firm grasp on subject, and the translation gap between students, college and workforce."
"I liked how active he is and how hyper he is, His passion for this topic is amazing."
"Very good topic! Love how interesting it was!"
"Such helpful and easy to implement take-a-ways were provided during this lecture"
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APSU began offering Winter Term courses in 2012. Since 2012, there has been a steady increase in course offerings and student enrollments during Winter Term. A 2017 Winter Term student satisfaction survey indicates most students are satisfied with services and the overall Winter Term session. Winter Term would not be the success that is without the contributions of the departments and faculty that teach in the term.
We would like to make you aware of the following changes to the 2018 Winter Term semester.
- The 2018 Winter Term academic calendar will change from 5 weeks to 4 weeks.
- Winter Term will begin on December 16, 2017 and end on January 15, 2018. This schedule change was made so that students registering for Winter Term could continue to use their Spring 2018 financial aid.
- All students are able to register for two Winter Term courses. Registration opened November 8th.
- D2L Brightspace will be down from 8:00 a.m. December 28th - until 8:00 a.m. December 29th.
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D2L DOWN TIME DURING WINTER TERM: NO COURSE COPIES DEC. 14-28, 2017
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D2L will be down for 24 hours beginning at 8:00am CST on Dec. 28 through 8:00am CST on Dec. 29 for maintenance.
If you are teaching Winter Term courses, please copy your content or have Distance Education copy your content prior to Dec. 14.
Distance Education will be enforcing a mandatory “course copy freeze” from Dec. 14 to Dec. 28. This mandatory course copy freeze is necessary to ensure successful migration of your Winter Term course content and student data.
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INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN UPDATES
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Distance Education's Sr. Instructional Designer Dr. Tracie Campbell has accepted an Instructional Design position at Eastern New Mexico University. We are excited for her new journey and wish her the best of luck!
A note from Dr. Campbell: “I cherish these years that I have spent working, learning, and laughing alongside our APSU faculty and staff. It’s been a wonderful experience that has allowed me to grow both professionally and personally. Thank you all for being my APSU family! I will miss you!"
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” -Walt Disney”
If you worked with Dr. Campbell in the past and need instructional design assistance, please contact our other Sr. Instructional Designers Pari Bhatt (
bhattp@apsu.edu) and Anna Loftus (
loftusa@apsu.edu).
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Austin Peay State University is a member of WCET. WCET is nationally recognized as one of the most informative, reliable and forward-thinking organizations regarding the role of technology and innovation in higher education. As an institutional member of WCET, faculty have access to WCETNews which produces a compilation of national news related to higher ed and technology in three categories, academic, technology and policy. Another resource is WCETDiscuss which is WCET’s moderated list for discussion. This provides an opportunity for faculty to share exchanges on a wide range of issues with colleagues across the country from institutions of all sizes and sectors.
To subscribe, email Sherri Artz Gilbert
(
sartzgilbert@wiche.edu
), WCET’s Assistant Director of Member Services. Provide your name, title, department, and your email. Sherri will subscribe you to wcetnews and/or wcetdiscuss.
WCET’s website is full of useful resources related to
WCET’s primary focus areas
: Emerging Technologies, Faculty Success, Student Success, Policy & Regulations, and Institutional Success. Examples of current issues include adaptive learning, credentials for 21
st
Century, accessibility, academic integrity, IoT and VR, and state authorization. Visit WCET at
wcet.wiche.edu/ for more information.
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FACULTY SPOTLIGHT NOMINEES
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Do you know a faculty member who has taken strides to improve their online courses? Nominate them for our next Faculty Spotlight! Please contact
online@apsu.edu with your nominee and a brief description of why you think they would be a great fit for Distance Education's faculty spotlight!
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As a reminder, Distance Education now offers department-wide training sessions! We can come to you, or you can come to us. We offer training in many different subjects including accessible syllabus, D2L, ePortfolio, and more. Request a department-wide training by emailing
online@apsu.edu.
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DISTANCE EDUCATION SERVICES
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We are here to help you and your department! Please check out many of our services below. Visit
APSU Distance Education
website for more information!
- Quality Matters Course Review
- Closed Captioning Services
- DE Support Desk technical support
- Instructional Technology training (TurnItIn, D2L, Examity online proctoring, Respondus)
- One-on-one and group instructional design consultations
- Innovative approaches to content delivery
- Multimedia resource assistance
- Online student assistance
- Online learning compliance and regulation
- Data reporting for DE
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STAY CONNECTED WITH APSU DISTANCE EDUCATION!
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