University of Waterloo 2009 Update

From OUCEL Wiki

University of Waterloo

Distance Education (DE) & Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Joint Report

Triumphs

CTE

•has a new website with an area on Teaching with Technology [1] that includes blended learning

•developed a questionnaire to specifically target students’ feedback on the online and face to face portions of their blended courses.

•got an official definition of “blended learning” OK’d by Associate VP academic

DE

•name change from Distance and Continuing Education to Centre for Extended Learning and from Distance Education to Waterloo Online.

•developed a set of quality guidelines for DE courses

•began reorganization process

•began two new online masters degrees

•designed and began implementing a new online course template that governs look and feel and standard components of all our online courses

•beginning mobile learning investigation

Challenges

•Angel has been purchased by Blackboard; must reassess LMS choice

CTE

•Getting recognition that developing a blended course deserves some kind of support (e.g., teaching release)

DE

•supporting instructors who wish to use Turnitin, recently adopted on campus

•dealing with increasing numbers of courses

•managing workloads and meeting deadlines in situations where instructors don’t meet project milestones