Opportunities for Increasing Online Student Success and Enrollment

Concurrent Session 8

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Join us to learn how online programs can grow and prosper, even in this pandemic era, by employing recent research and online best practices.  We will also share our institution’s return to in person (with live online elements) and online courses including the planning, successes and opportunities for improvement. 

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Melanie Jackson, Palm Beach Atlantic University-West Palm Beach

Melanie Morgan Jackson Bio Short (50 words) Jackson has as an educator in Kentucky and Florida for almost 35 years, including 9 ½ years teaching computer science in high school, 17 years of senior level experience in higher education administration and 25 years teaching in higher education at the community college and university level. Melanie Morgan Jackson Bio Jackson has served in K-12 and Higher Education in Kentucky and Florida for almost 35 years. She has 17 years of senior level experience in higher education administration, 25 years teaching in higher education at the community college and university level and 32 years serving in KY and FL colleges and universities. Jackson also served 9.5 years in a high school teaching business and computer science for a total educational service of 34 years. Her higher education work experience ranges from a night desk clerk in a university dorm to an adjunct faculty member as well as Registrar’s Office experience in two universities, an adjunct faculty member in computer science and education, a technology help desk technician and a college and university administrator. In addition, her higher education position experience includes employment at a large public university as well as a large private university, small private university and a rural state college in two different states. Jackson has served as a college webmaster, Director of Educational Technology and Director of eLearning. Jackson has also served on several college and university committees (i.e. SACS COC Steering Team, Retention, Technology, Orientation, AVID) and as a leader on state boards (Florida Virtual Campus-Distance Learning and Student Services Members Council Chair, Chair Elect and Secretary, the Association of Florida Colleges Technology Commission Chair and the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities Board for Acadeum). Her passion is student success and increasing student learning, focused on increasing student enrollment, enhancing student success and retention and supervising college employees to aid in providing services effectively and efficiently. Jackson has experience serving on several accreditation steering and QEP teams, developing curriculum and student learning outcomes for courses as well as collaborating with curriculum development teams, employing instructional design and online course reviews for quality. Her most recent professional experience has been focused in the area of developing new technologies and initiatives to support students and the college, such as the recently developed and implemented (college’s first) mobile application (South Florida SC Mobile). In addition, through her years of leadership at South Florida State College in Florida (SFSC), the online course offerings increased 469% and the number of online students increased 1430% over the past ten years. In addition, SFSC increased hybrid course offerings by 244% and increased the enrollment of students in hybrid courses 333% over the past five years. In her three years at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Jackson has doubled the number of online programs and courses. Jackson is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Degree will be in Curriculum and Instruction, Specialization in Higher Education Administration, anticipated dissertation completion Summer 2021. Jackson has a Master of Arts in Education from the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, January 2000-August 2001. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of the Cumberlands, Williamsburg, Kentucky, May 1993, Magna Cum Laude, GPA 3.85, Dean’s List, with additional undergraduate study at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky. HONORS AND AWARDS: • 'Hybrid Course of the Year', Association of Christian Continuing Education Schools and Seminaries (ACCESS), 2018 • 'President’s Leadership Award', Association of Florida Colleges, 2013 • 'AFC Technology Commission Exemplary Practice Finalist', Open Education Resources, 2013 • 'Volunteer of the Year', School Board of Highlands County, 2013-2014 • 'Unsung Hero Award-Region 4', Association of Florida Colleges, 2010 • SFSC 'Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member', 2003 • TeachNet Grant Award Winner, 2002 • Who’s Who Among American Teachers, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002 • APHS Outstanding Faculty Member 1999, 2000 • Florida FBLA Advisor Hall of Fame, Inducted April 1998 • Phi Beta Lambda, College Parliamentary Procedure Team, State Conference Competition 2nd Place, 1990 • Dean’s List, University of Kentucky, College of Education, 1989 and University of the Cumberlands 1990-1993

Co-presenter: Michael Amick, Pima Community College (Virtual Presenter)

Extended Abstract

With over 25 years experience in online higher education, the presenters will share some of their success tips for online programs and online students. Due to Covid-19, many colleges quickly rolled out “online” courses this past Spring, Summer and Fall.  The presenter will share how her leadership aided in increasing the online course offerings at per prior institution 469% and the number of online students increased 1430% from 2007-2017.  The presenter also has grown fully online programs from 5 to 17 in three years.  The presenter has led a 358% growth in the number of online sections and 425% growth in the number of students enrolled in online courses and an 80% growth in faculty teaching online also in three years.

 

Many online course design and instructional best practices are still being used in institutions as they return to in person learning due to those learners who are at risk, ill, isolating or quarantining and must participate in class in a “live online” format.  The presenter will reveal strategies to be sure students online or hyflexing in are not left behind. 

 

As more higher education institutions offer more courses fully online, it’s important that instructional designers, faculty and others in academic leadership understand some of the recent data regarding online learning students.  The presenters will share information on the number of students enrolled in fully online programs and institutions with fully online programs using the data points from Public, Private and For-Profit institutions. We also plan to share recent demographic data on today’s online student (average 60% female, 64% white, 59% employed full time, 55% single, etc.) as well as data on the current age groupings of online students.  We want to engage our audience to further explore the recent research which shows one in three online students have been out of school five or more years.  

 

The presenters will share success tips for online students such as virtual course orientation experiences (credit and non-credit) as well as some of the key pieces online students need to know such as: how to access the written record of their degree plan (advisor or degree planning system) and self-regulation and more specifically planning is crucial to the success of online students (Inan, Yukselturk, Kurucay & Flores 2017). 

 

A key to a successful online program would be to employ an early alert system (i.e. learning analytics-quickly determine student needs and provide needed service, prioritize students who are most “at risk” and auto send personalized emails or text messages to students-(Lawson, Beer, Rossi, Moore & Fleming, 2016)). A second key to a successful online program would be to employ Instant Notifications.  These can be a powerful method to instantly communicate with students (directly to their mobile device).  Institutions should use notifications built into their LMS (i.e. when quiz will close, when papers are due, when grades are posted).  Institutions may also employ instant notifications tool such as blackboard connect and activate notifications in the college/university’s mobile app.

 

Successful online colleges ensure their students work towards taking ownership of their college academics and experiences.  Students may do this in a variety of ways:

  • research additional financial aid options, scholarships and questions
  • learn how to use the college system to register for classes 
  • students need to make the connection between their coursework, program, major and career (Levy & Polnarie, 2016)

 

Research shows that successful online programs employ a variety of academic engagement strategies which may will lesson student isolation and increase reflection and metacognition such as:

  • chat (virtual office hours, weekly test review, peer feedback on writing assignments) (Melkun, 2012)
  • personalized information based on student performance-conditional release & intelligent agents-controlled release of news item, content, quiz, etc. based on performance on previous tasks or other actions, for instance, create two news items (passing and not passing). not passing may receive additional remediation content

 

For online courses and programs to be successful, student success must be at the heart of the entire college/university.  This will be evident via:

  • institutional effectiveness and college planning is critical to online learning success of students and programs
  • student/faculty interaction-research shows that increased faculty contact/student engagement is a key factor in student success online-avid and creating engaging courses
  • curricula infusion and systems approaches-students get a big picture of main topics in their course and major how those fit well together (and perhaps how they fit with other course main topics)-align with “real world” topics and careers
  • shared student affairs and academic affairs collaboration and mutual goals (Levy & Polnarie, 2016)

 

Finally, our presenters will explore ways to increase online student enrollment.  They will share recent reflections and research on:

  • overall online enrollment continues to grow (Burns and McCormack, 2020), (Clinefelter and Aslanian, 2018)
  • ensure course quality is comparable to f2f courses and publicize that along with the flexibility of online learning
  • determine why the need/interest in online course/program growth
  • online learning students will follow other successful online learning students (Allen, Seaman, Poulin & Straut, 2016)
  • find grant money (Manchin, 2013)
  • use data to determine which courses are growing (wait list data)
  • reach out to those former online students and see what else they may be interested in taking in the future (amazon approach)  
  • allow students no limit on registration of preferred courses (experienced online students get first choice of online courses/sections) (Christensen, Howell & Christensen, 2015)
  • determine what are the faculty inhibitors to online learning (i.e. need more financial compensation for tenured faculty to develop online learning so there are increased offerings in course sections and in a variety of course offerings/programs(Ortagus & Stedrak, 2013))
  • engage community advisement groups to aid in development of curricula and program offerings, especially valuable in allied health, public safety and applied science disciplines
  • develop marketing plan 

 

In addition, our presenters will share how they are using “safety” technology systems to aid in institutional communication and processes (i.e. daily health alerts, security notifications, severe weather alerts and contact tracing).  Finally, we will discuss current educational trends and issues such as virtual office hours, cross listing courses, workload calculations, attendance policies (considering Covid),  and how technology can assist faculty and educational support team members. The presentation will include information on several free and low-cost instructional technology tools to aid in teaching and learning (i.e. use https://youcanbook.me for scheduling faculty in person or virtual office hours).  

 

The information in this educational session will be shared via PowerPoint slides and web links from our institution (slides will be posted online with the URL given at the presentation start) as well as posted on the conference web site.

 

While our research on these topics have provided many answers to questions we seek, we believe we can learn much from others.  So we may engage the participants, the presenters will employ the following Engagement Strategies for our Audience:  Carousel Brainstorming (creating a poster on key topics) combined with Jigsaw. This activity will be followed by the Gallery Walk so the groups can rotate around the room and all participants may take notes from the tools/strategies they need to learn more about. After all groups have rotated through all the posters, participants can ask each poster’s creators questions if they feel they need even more information or clarification for a point of confusion.  We also plan to employ a few Stand Up Survey’s in the beginning of the presentation.  Depending on room set up, time  and Covid safety considerations we may alternatively employ other participant engagement methods such as Turn and Talk, Kahotz and a Wordle.net exercise. Throughout the presentation we also plan to offer several interactive question and answer sessions.

 

Works Cited

  • Allen, I., Seaman, J., Poulin, R. & Straut T. (2016). Online Report Card: Tracking Online Education in the United States. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved From http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED572777.pdf. 
  • Burns, Sean and Mark McCormack. Fall Planning for the New Normal: Moving Higher Ed Online. Research report. Louisville, CO: EDUCAUSE Research, September 2020. Retrieved October 1, 2020 from 
  • Christensen, S., Howell, S. & Christensen, J. (2015). Six Ways to Increase Enrollments at an Extended Campus. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 18 (4).
  • Clinefelter, Dr. David and Carol Aslanian (2018), “Online College Students 2018 Report: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences”, May 23, 2018,  Retrieved January 2, 2020 from  www.learninghouse.com/OCS2018
  • Inan, F., Yukselturk, E., Kurucay, M. & Flores, R. (2017). The Impact of Self-Regulation Strategies on Student Success and Satisfaction in an Online Course. International Journal on E-Learning, 16(1), 23-32. Waynesville, NC USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved From https://www.learntechlib.org/p/147296/.
  • Lawson, C., Beer, C., Rossi, D. Moore, T. & Fleming J. (2016) Identification of 'at risk' students using learning analytics: the ethical dilemmas of intervention strategies in a higher education institution. Educational Technology Research & Development. Oct2016, 64(5), 957-968.
  • Levy, M. & Polnarie, B. (2016) Academic and Student Affairs in Collaboration: Creating a Culture of Student Success. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York and London. 
  • Manchin, J. (2013) Manchin And Rockefeller Announce Nearly $535,000 For Online Science Courses At West Virginia State University Training, Research And Development Project Will Bring Best Online Education Practices To University. States News Service, Sept 20, 2013.
  • Melkun, C. (2012). Nontraditional Students Online: Composition, Collaboration, and Community. Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 60(1), p.33-39.
  • Ortagus , J.& Stedrak, L. (2013) Online Education and Contingent Faculty: An Exploratory Analysis of Issues and Challenges for Higher Education Administrators. Educational Considerations, 40(3), 30-33.