Report on Braden S Type B .200 Sabbatical
Report on Braden’s Type B .200 Sabbatical
Statement of Purpose and Objective
The purpose of this project was to convert the content TA 306 Diversity and Drama into an online section. The course had been approved to be offered online, but it had been difficult to find time to do a full and pedagogically sound conversion of this course in order to maintain the utmost academic standards and maintain parity between our on-ground offering of the course and a potential online offering. The lectures, discussions, and other assignments for this course were converted to formats which were compatible with the Los Rios Course Management System, D2L.
The objective of this project was met. The course materials were converted and the course is currently (Fall 2014) being offered in an online format.
Detailed Description activities:
1) Conversion of Lectures
The course’s 12 2-3 hour lectures were video recorded and edited using Camtasia into videos with PowerPoint. These videos were submitted to be closed captioned through the Distance Education Captioning and Transcription grant (DECT). All lectures are fully transcribed and closed captioned. This provides students with lecture presentations both for different learning modalities, differing bandwidth restrictions, and accommodating students with disabilities.
In addition to converting the lectures for TA306, I also re-recorded and edited the 21 hour and a half long lectures for my online section of TA300 Introduction to the Theatre. All of these lectures have been updated, re-edited, and submitted for closed-captioning and transcription.
A total of 70+ hours of lectures were recorded, edited, transcribed, and formatted for use in online sections through this .200 Type B Sabbatical.
2) Conversions of In-Class Discussions
This on-site class is structured with 15 in-class discussions. These include supporting documents which were provided to the class to stimulate discussion as well as group work to prompt participation in discussions. This material was digitized (and expanded) to facilitate online discussions through D2L.
3) Create and populate D2L course shell
The number one finding of my dissertation study was that students succeed more in online instruction when the course structure is clear, well laid out, complete (i.e. not being populated on the fly), and has information which is accessible from multiple vantages (i.e. there are multiple and interlaced ways to navigate through a course). The course shell of the D2L Ta306 was fully populated with all materials for the class before the Fall 2014 semester started.
An appropriate method of evaluation.
From the request: “The number one method of evaluation will be that there should a complete and fleshed out D2L section at the completion of this project ready to be scheduled.” The section went live in August for students to take the online section this semester.
A plan for sharing the results of the project.
As a part of the Fall Flex workshops, I presented two workshops on the methodology which I used to convert my lectures into online videos, edit them, and deliver them to students.
Respectfully Submitted,
Charles “Kale” Braden