Supporting Online Learners
Winter 2006, Course 6
Instructor: Anita Crawley
Course Overview:
Online course enrollments are climbing. Frequently retention and success rates in online courses are not as good as those in traditionally delivered courses. Student affairs professionals have a role in reversing that trend. Providing online learners the support services they deserve is a challenge, but most would agree that online students deserve services equal to those available for traditional learners and they should be delivered using the same technology used to deliver their online courses - most commonly electronic delivered via the web. Providing these services at a distance is a challenge, but one that is mandated by the eight regional accrediting commissions. In this course you will learn the scope of online services, about what other institutions are doing to serve this population, and develop a resource to use at your institution. This course is designed for those in direct service Student Affairs positions.
Course Outline:
In this course students will explore resources from the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), discuss resources their institutions currently deliver at a distance and identify priorities for additional services that might be made available to online students. We will brainstorm what students need to know before deciding to enroll, upon starting their first online course, and during enrollment in online coursework? After identifying gaps in services, participants will create one project that will help close the gap between what is currently available to online students at their institutions and what would help enhance the success of online students. The baseline for many institutions is information delivered from the college website. As a group, we will build from this beginning.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, active participants will:
- Understand the role of Student Affairs professionals in supporting online learners
- Understand the Best Practices mandates of the eight accrediting commissions for Student Support
- Identify the scope of support services that might be delivered at a distance
- Identify support services appropriate for students prior to registering, prior to beginning, and during their online course enrollments.
- Create a resource that enhances the opportunity for online learner success.
Individuals registering for CEUs will receive 1.0 CEU upon successful
completion of the course.
Instructor Bio:
Anita Crawley has over seventeen years experience as a community college counselor working at various times as a
Career Counselor, Academic Advisor and in New Student Orientation. With an early interest in technology to enhance the work of student services professionals, she developed seminars, online courses, and web-based tools for use with students.
She has taught an online Career Development course since 1999. Along with counseling and related duties, she has developed the Online Student Services Center and the Orientation to Online Learning Workshop for the Illinois Virtual Campus
and is an online teacher online for several organizations. Anita served as Acting Coordinator of Online Learning and Coordinator of Technology for Student Affairs before relocating to the east coast. She is now a Distance Learning Counselor at Montgomery College.
Anita has earned a certificate from the UCLA Extension Online Teaching Program and is completing work on a M.A in Educational Technology Leadership from George Washington University. She also earned a M.A. in Counseling and Human Development.
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