Description: Southeastern’s Center for Instructional Development and Technology has a student led social media team that strives to find ways to reach our online community and help them feel connected to our institution. In this panel, you meet students and staff who serve on this team and hear about the initiatives they have taken.

Facilitators: Christala Smith and Max Hamblin (Southeastern Oklahoma State University)

Description: Are you hesitant to call on your college students in class? Are you looking for a way to include more students in your synchronous online discussions without embarrassing anyone or causing anxiety? This presentation will help you develop a method for increasing student engagement and participation in your class in a non-intrusive manner. Most college instructors are looking for ways to bring learner-centered pedagogy and high-impact practices into the classroom, especially strategies that prioritize diversity and inclusion. This session will help you to build relationships and trust with your students in a short amount of time, and more students will be actively engaging in classroom discussions. The percentage of students participating in your class will dramatically increase! If you’re looking for a way to move from a traditional lecture format to more of a discussion format, this session is for you!

Facilitators: Tracy Jackson (Tulsa Community College)

Description: Women are often underrepresented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) professions. Without access to equitable opportunities to explore careers, acquire interdisciplinary contents, and develop the 21st century skills that can further impede women’s abilities to participate in the highly competitive global workforce; and succeed in fast-growing, STEM-related emerging careers (e.g. analytics, data science). This multi-tier STEM Career Builder grant (2018-2021), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), aims to discover what partnership models, strategies, and innovations can effectively support female high school teachers and students through the research, development (R&D) and implementation of five multi-tier interventions: (1) teacher professional development (PD), (2) a summer academy, (3) job shadowing, (4) mentoring, and (5) internships, and research fellowships.

Facilitators: Dr. Joselina Cheng, Alexia Benson (University of Central Oklahoma)

Description: Group work in many college courses is necessary but often difficult due to scheduling, time constraints, and other demands on student schedules. In this session I will demonstrate the procedures and technologies I have implemented in my upper-level Project Management course throughout the 2020-2021 school year that have yielded outstanding results for students. By setting simple guidelines and utilizing some basic frameworks for structure and expectations, group work can be transformed from stressful to successful.

My student feedback about groups includes comments such as “We were all very satisfied with our group and decided to continue with this group going forward.” and “This is probably the best experience I’ve had with a group during my time at OSU.”

Facilitators: Simon Ringsmuth (Oklahoma State University)

Description: Online learning can be very impersonal and distant. In our program, which is totally online, I’ve found a method that allows for professional dialogue among classmates who are taking graduate level courses and who sometimes feel overwhelmed with returning to college in order to complete an advanced degree. This method revolves around spending an extra hour (after class) getting to know my students on a personal level and letting them share about what’s causing them stress. Judging from the emails I’ve received from students, this approach has yielded positive results and has been very rewarding for all involved, including the professor.

Facilitators: Dr. Todd Williams (Southeastern Oklahoma State University)

Description: Online students miss out on the informal interactions which are typical on campus. In a F2F session, students and professors have non-course related talks which relate the professor as a person to the students. Everything from current events to (sometimes awful) jokes are shared. Heightened because of COVID – students need more interactions. Students want more interactions. The human is a social being and the isolation from online classes can be minimized (not eliminated). You can add these to your online course without trying to be a standup comic.

Facilitators: Dr. Marty Ludlum (University of Central Oklahoma)

Description: Has anyone ever said to you that online education does not have as much quality or rigor as face-to-face instruction? Have you struggled to provide and intelligent reply? Are you concerned about the quality of your online course during the recent, and rapid, conversion to remote instruction? If so, this topic is for you! This session will provide a blueprint for establishing quality measures, gathering data, seeking student and faculty input, and building a process for continuous improvement to help ensure quality in your online environment. Examples will be given as well as lessons learned, from a recent start-up of an online program track.

Facilitators: Nancy Gwin (University of Central Oklahoma)

Description: This session will provide an overview of un-grading, a movement in both K-12 and higher ed to put the focus on feedback, not grades. The goal: increase motivation, decrease stress, and advance learning by providing students with actionable feedback instead of number/letter grades.

Presenter: Laura Gibbs (University of Oklahoma)

Tuesday, April 7, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Central

Description: Best practices to keep students involved and moving through an online course.

Presenter: Akram Taghavi-Burris (University of Tulsa)

Monday, April 6, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Central

Description: This presentation will cover proven strategies to set-up faculty, their students, and their departments for success in online courses. The use of data-driven decisions, mobile course design, mobile content development, implementing OER, and the engagement-edutainment of students will be demonstrated from online science courses across Oklahoma. This presentation will empower you to achieve higher enrollment, higher student completion rates, and higher personal satisfaction in your online courses – while having a blast!

Facilitators: Kenny Tapp (University of Central Oklahoma)