SMCCCD Recommendations for Teaching Online

Per the current American Federation of Teachers 1493 contract 2016-2019 Links to an external site. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU):

“The District and AFT agree that a faculty member interested in receiving District designated training in how to develop an online distance education course will receive training if it has been determined by the appropriate administrator that the training is appropriate, applicable and necessary. Upon completion of the training, the faculty member will receive a stipend in the amount of $1,500 for the equivalent of a twenty-five (25) hour training. A faculty member developing a new distance education course, or significant restructuring an existing distance education course, shall receive, with prior approval of the appropriate administrator, funding to support educational development in the use of new technology not to exceed $1,500. The funding shall be paid upon the offering of the new or restructured course.”

 

Recency of Training

Faculty who teach online are required to keep their online teaching skills up-to-date by participating in training at least once every three years. Division Deans maintain the right of course assignment.

Compensation Eligibility

Faculty members may be eligible for compensation for online education training if they complete any of the following:

  • SMCCCD Canvas training “Quality Online Teaching and Learning (QOTL 1 or QOTL 2) - compensated at 25 hours at special rate
  • CSM Regular and Substantive Interaction self-paced course (RSI) - compensated at 5 hours at special rate
  • Develop at least 80% of an online or partially online course that is aligned with the Online Education Initiative Course Design (OEI Links to an external site.) and Peralta Online Equity Links to an external site. rubrics and has gone through the Peer Online Course Review (POCR) process.

In order to receive a certificate of completion for QOTL 1, you must complete at least 80% of one partially or fully online course. Having you online course developed to 80% completion before you begin teaching the course will help you and your students be a more successful. This 80% completion means that you are implementing the standards listed in the OEI Course Design Rubric Links to an external site. and will deliver your course through Canvas. 

You must have successfully completed QOTL 1 in order to take QOTL 2. QOTL 2 is designed for you to continue enhancing your online teaching skills. It is a 25-hour course (usually offered over 5-6 weeks) and you will be asked to consider not only how you teach online, but how you design and scaffold your course content, provide feedback to students. You will have ample opportunities to engage with your peers and discover new online teaching techniques. There is a final culminating project (a video) that you will create for course completion.

What Constitutes 80% of a Course for QOTL1 Completion?

After the last week in QOTL1, you will submit your online or partially online course to a Peer Online Course Review (POCR) Review. You course development shell will be reviewed by your peers.  The POCR team will include:

  1. A member of the CSM DE Team (DE Coordinator, Instructional Designer, Instructional Technologist),
  2. the CSM Instructional Accessibility Specialist, 
  3. and a certified and trained Peer Online Course Reviewer (POCR), ideally from within your Academic Division. 

These three reviewers work with you, the faculty (online or partially online) developer, to ensure the course meets the OEI Course Design Links to an external site. and Peralta Equity rubric Links to an external site. standards. A member of the DE Team, a POCR reviewer, and the Accessibility Specialist will celebrate with you for all the areas where your course meets or exceeds the rubric standards. One of our Instructional Designers will be available to assist you aligning any areas that do not yet meet the rubric standards.

Before you submit your course for a review we expect about 12-13 weeks of modules for a 16-week course. If your course is organized by Topics or Units, 80% of those Canvas modules must be completed before you begin the course review process. A completed Module includes the following items:

  • Course content (lectures, video /audio, readings, etc.)
  • Activities (projects such as a wiki or Web search, or collaboration on a Google document, etc.)
  • Discussions (which are not writing assignments and within which the instructor intends to interact with students during the time the discussion is active. This is one of the ways to ensure that Regular and Substantive Interaction is occurring.)
  • Assessments (essays, exams, reflections, and/or chapter summaries). These should include details about how the instructor will give feedback beyond just a score or grade, and details about when and how students will receive feedback. Assessments should also include grading rubrics.
  • Some sort of alternative regular interaction besides just email (which could include, Chat, Conferences tool, where you could give a lecture, or study session, or other real-time communication tools or even the use of a collaborative document in Google, etc.)
  • If you use Publisher Materials such as: Connect, Mind-tap, etc.: Peer Online Course Reviewers will need access to the publisher materials to see how your course shell is integrated with the publisher’s material.  

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