Kate Demarest, CPA
Carroll Community College
Greetings from
Carroll Community College
Kate Demarest, CPA
Professor, Accounting
Assessment and Program Analyst
Why go hybrid or online?
 Build enrollment
 Generate additional revenue
 Free up tight resources
 Engage learners
 Create flexibility
But…
 Higher drop rates
 Lower grade distributions
 Concerns about rigor
 Questions about student integrity
Chronicle of Higher Education
July 18, 2011
Community-College Students Perform Worse Online Than Face to Face
By Ryan Brown
Community-college students enrolled in online courses fail and drop out more
often than those whose coursework is classroom-based, according to a new study
released by the Community College Research Center at the Teachers College at
Columbia University.
The study, which followed the enrollment history of 51,000 community-college
students in Washington State between 2004 and 2009, found an eightpercentage-point gap in completion rates between traditional and online courses.
Although students who enrolled in online courses tended to have stronger
academic preparation and come from higher income brackets than the
community-college population on the whole, researchers found that students who
took online classes early in their college careers were more likely to drop out than
those who took only face-to-face courses. Among students who took any courses
online, those with the most Web-based credits were the least likely to graduate or
transfer to a four-year institution.
Before you start
Do I have the resources?
 General technology skills
 Responsiveness to email
 Learning management system
 Institutional support
 Tolerance for ambiguity
Getting started
Course learning objectives in the classroom
=
Course learning objectives online
=
Course learning objectives in a hybrid class
Developing a course platform
 Build your own
 Blackboard, Moodle, Angel, etc.
 Publisher site
Build your own
 Customized solution
 Limited cost to the institution
 Lots of time for you, your TA, or an instructional
designer
 Limited functionality
Blackboard, Moodle, Angel, etc.
 Common student experience across courses
 No additional cost to student
 Built-in gradebook and discussion board
 Some integration with publisher content
Publisher site
 Lots of content and assessments
 Discussion board and gradebook with some publisher
solutions
 Additional learning support (varies widely by product)
My experience
FrontPage
Blackboard
MyAccountingLab
Designing your course
For each student learning objective,
 how will students be introduced to the concept?
 how will students learn the material?
 how will you assess learning?
Choosing the right course design
Multimedia learning
Choosing the right course design
Help when students are“stuck” or don’t know the next
step.
Choosing the right course design
 Multiple learning activities
 Multiple assessments
 Opportunity for additional help
Required or optional?
“If the MyAccountingLab homework
were not required, I would not do it. I
would also probably fail the class.”
Sheila Huskey,
Principles of Accounting 1
and 2
More student feedback
“With MyAccountingLab, I can
complete homework anywhere I have
internet access. Although, I still consult
my text frequently, I find that I can
learn just about everything in the text
(general concepts) by use of
MyAccountingLab and it's resources. I
think it is saving my back, since I don't
have to struggle with carrying the large
textbook around all the time.”
Tom Cossentino,
Principles of
Taxation 1 and 2
Best practices for online classes
Keep in touch
Be a trail guide
Best practices for online classes
Get real about collaboration
 Algorithmic problems on homework and tests
 Proctored final exams
 Individualized assignments
Best practices for online classes
 Feedback, feedback, feedback!
 Email response time
 Feedback on written assignments
 Regular professor -> student contact
 Non-digital connection
Best practices for online classes
 Be clear about:
 Email response time
 Turnaround time for grading
 Accepting late work
Best practices for online classes
 Don’t forget the feedback loop!
Design/redesign
your online
course
Identify
opportunities for
improvement
Implement your
design
Collect data
What about hybrid classes?
What is a hybrid class?
Designing your hybrid class
 In the classroom:
 Introduce new concepts
 Review difficult
concepts
 Integrate
 Apply
 Take tests
 Online:
 Interact with
multimedia learning
aids
 Complete homework
and assignments
 Take tests
Questions?
Kate Demarest, CPA
Professor, Accounting
Assessment and Program Analyst
Carroll Community College
Westminster, MD
kdemarest@carrollcc.edu