Analysis of eCore Instructor Responses for Spring 2010

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Satisfactory Instructional Results

• Many instructors reported positive and quality interaction with students.
• Instructors indicated there was high achievement on exams.
• There was a good turnaround time on grades and responses to students messages.
• Instructors  reported positive results with use of additional technologies such as Voice Board and narrated lectures.
• Students did well as a result consistent weekly deadlines for unit assignments.
  

Course Challenges & eCore Action Items

Reported Challenges	Action Taken by eCore Administrative Services
Redundant assignments and heavy	Garden of eCore Faculty Subject Discussion Areas
Cheating on exams	Revision of Academic Dishonesty Policy & Form eCore Testing Coordiantor coorespondence with approved testing sites
Instructor Presence in Discussions	Monitoring of instructor postings Weekly notification of low isntructor postings
Inactive links	Change Request Form
Students inability to cite properly	eCore placed proper example of citation in U.S. History course template

eCore Instructor Plans for Improvement

• Provision and update of participation grade througout the term
• Increased encouragement to students in discussion topics
• Improve return rate of papers to within one weekas per MOU
  
• Focus on course outcomes for course planning.
  

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1. My timeliness of response
2. Overall Effectiveness
3. Course Retention
4. Discussion Participation
5. Connections made through one-on-one chats with students
6. Good quality interaction with students
7. Helping students through the writing process went really well
8. Impressed with the way students listened, applied what I taught them, and discussed. 
9. Interactions with and feedback to students went well in this class.
10. Covered some insightful and timely discussions on the topic of American government. 
11. Professor frequency in responding to student questions and concerns.
12. There was a great deal of interaction between myself and the students.
13. Students were generous and seemed to like the course. 
14. Discussions were better than usual this semester. 
15. A weekly check-in kept the students involved and aware of the assignments each week. 
16. Students werebetter able to reember Wednesday due dates, which were included in the calendar.
17. Better arrangement with students completing all the practice assignments for the chapter, and then going back through the entire chapter to complete the web-sam activities. 
18. Discussions provided us with a forum to discuss material in preparation for quizzes, papers, and exams
19. Discussions allowed us to explore with rigor specific details of philosophy which went beyond the scope of what the students were expected to learn in an 'intro' course.
20. Quizzes and the exams went well, and were effective in determining if the students were meeting the objectives for the course.
21. Midterm and Final exams were good idea.
22. Organization of materials
23. Instructor's willingness to assist students.
24. Contacting those students who were struggling did a lot to boost morale and reduce the number of withdrawals
25. Students considered that the course objectives were met.
26. Pace of the course was good.
27. The assignments fit the content of each unit well.
28. Able to participate more fully in discussions, which was helpful to students.
29. Most students were happy with the course as a whole.
30. The students were engaged.
31. Discussions went well
32. Good turnaround time in responding to emails, questions posted in Discussions, and assignments.
33. Students felt encouraged to express their thoughts and opinions.
34. Students were encouraged to express respect toward others.
35. The guidelines for the grading of discussion posts were clear.
36. Discussion boards/voice boards went fairly well. 
37. Puttting students in groups of three worked well.  S
38. Students were driving the discussions and not myself. 
39. Students have the option of doing [WebSam and the Practice section] on the Enfoques website when they want to as long as it is completed on the assigned date. 
40. The discussions and class interaction went well.
41. Overall
42. Students understanding their assignments and responsibilities.
43. Requirements were spaced appropriately
44. Provided appropriate instruction and feedback
45. Students were able to navigate through the material with professor assistance
46. Plenty of professor interaction
47. Homework was returned in less than a week.
48. Students also seem to like the recorded lectures provided for them to view.
49. Good rapport with most of the students. 
50. Students sent e-mails thanking professor for the extra help given to them.

What was problematic? What needs to be improved?

1. Testing sites not giving the correct instructions to students
2. Students did not make required appointments to chat.
3. Contact with delinquent students nearly impossible.
4. Had to beg for information--could not get phone numbers or skype names from students
5. Redundant assignments.
6. Students do not always consult the announcements to follow instructions regarding exams, assignments, and so forth. 
7. Group work remains a challenge-- some students do not put in as much of an effort as much as others. 
8. Retention rate declined this semester
9. Students are still having problems with citations on the essays
10. Some assignments on the Supersite caused a lot of anxiety and confusion for even the best of the students. 
11. Need to be more careful as to which activities are assigned, making sure that the directions are very clear. 
12. The students prefer to have a model included with the instructions. 
13. Need to continue to develop the capacity to reach or 'speak to' a greater percentage of my students
14. Cheating on exams.
15. eCore should consider supplying proctors with the computer software to not allow students to cheat on their exams.
16. Students feel they needed to have some sort of study guide for the mid term and final exam.
17. The quizzes, at least some of them, have incorrect answers.
18. Very low participation in the evaluations
19. Many students get behind because they cannot afford the materials in a timely manner.
20. Certain modules are very hard for the amount of time assigned to understand it and complete it successfully (just one week).
21. The course work is very heavy.
22. There were two inactive links
23. Grading time for essays in English is always an issue
24. Increasing number of requests for incompletes from students (one a section as opposed to usually none).
25. Grading is too hard.
26. Low instructor presence on the Discussion Board
27. The calendar was problematic for some students in regards to locating it. 
28. Students not responding back to my emails or posts. 
29. Students not doing assingments/quizzes and then complaining about the fact that they didn't know about it.
30. Response time for emails.
31. Labs need to be returned a shorter amount of time.
32. The labs like the homework have to be graded by hand and are also time consuming to grade.
33. Discussion posting in both content and frequency.
34. Students have to be made aware that [this] class has a Calculus prerequisite and does contain much math work.
35. Class could use some video lectures showing how to work some problems.
36. Detailed comments on portfolio and paper assignments, and doing that on each submission typically took quite a long time. 
37. Students who suddenly stopped submitting work. 
38. Wish there was a way to communicate to the eCore administrators how oftenprofessor works with students on the phone.
    
39. Course was too difficult
40. Pace of assignments and discussions were not reasonable.
41. Specific communication with students regarding the amount of work necessary to succeed in this course and the nature of the course should be done as early as possible
    

What do eCore faculty plan to change the next time they teach this course?

1. Include a picture (or pictures) in some communications in an effort to make the course more personable.
2. Might downplay some assignments over others, in an effort to make some unit work simpler.
3. Create a "journal" discussion board in which to place personal contact info and students can write something about themselves, concerns, and uniqueness personally.
4. Continue to do individual conferencing
5. Provide a one or two hour block of "open house" time to chat, trying different hours to do so.
6. Allow more time for the final research unit and to adjust for the redundant assignments.
7. Incorporate the new COLA initiative into my course to help measure course objectives and goals.
8. Try out some new discussions. 
9. Call students by their first name when emailing/posting
10. Place a segment of an historical article to demonstrate to the students proper historical citation format.
11. Use the students' names in the discussion boards. 
12. Make sure that I am adressing the COLAs when planning next semester
13. Offer my own 'grammar hints' for each semester for the concepts that seem to be more challenging.
14. Limit the number of discussions per unit
15. Make it clearer to the students what concepts and arguments they are expected to know.
16. I am going to create study guides as noted above.
17. Focus student attention to the crux of each Lesson
18. Continue contacting those [students] who are falling behind.
19. Make a list of those who are taking online courses for the first time to keep a special eye on their progress and check in with them frequently.
20. Encourage them to submit evaluations
21. Ask the libraries to add course lab materials on reserve in their collections so that students would not need to purchase it.
22. Find suitable video clips that can help visualizing the exercises.
23. Give deadline extensions without penalties to lighten the course load.
24. Try giving credit to those [students] that comment on difficult questions and give their own meaningful tips on solving problems using the Technical forum.
25. Provide students with participation grade updates as the term progresses
26. Revise the rubric used for Discussions to make it somewhat easier to get better grades in that area.
27. Make more Discussion comments visible to everyone, in addition to filling out the rubric for each student's posts.
28. Make the calendar easier to find and specify some dates more clearly
29. Make some statements in the syllabus more clear in regards to grading.      
30. Return papers faster (less than one week).
31. Be more encouraging to students during discussions.
32. Provide students with as positive of an experience in the shorter session
33. Improve discussion postings and lab grading.
34. Record some worked examples (video and sound) from the textbook.
35. Students need more detailed instructions on how to use GALILEO and an information sheet may help.
36. The discussion board will be modified to reflect students' concern about the pace of the discussions and the amount of discussion posts required.