This summer, we had the opportunity to deliver an outstanding multi-week summer institute to a select group of faculty members at Texas State University. The first week kicked-off with a variety of speakers with daily themes, including Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Cultural Competence, Instructor and Student Voices, Active Learning and Interaction, Zooming for Inclusivity and Copyright/Fair Use, and Multimedia in a Multi-modal World. Keynote speakers included Dr. Patricia Young from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Dr. George Veletsianos, Canada Research Chair, from Royal Roads University in  Victoria, BC, Canada, and Dr. Richard Mayer, Distinguished Professor, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. I had the pleasure of working with each of these presenters in preparation for the institute, and each are outstanding professionally and personally.

 

In addition to the Keynote speakers, which was open for the entire university to attend, faculty and staff from various departments in the university also presented to the participants on related topics.  During the presentation week, participants met with their instructional designers to reflect on what had been discussed and presented and engaged in goal-setting activities, including identifying what was doable and what their next steps should be. They presented these on Friday afternoon to the whole group.

The remainder of the 9 weeks was spent meeting individually and in small groups with assigned instructional designers to enhance previously created courses or create new courses based on their goals. These courses had to be 100% ready-to-teach by August 6. A virtual Oscars-style showcase on August 6 was conducted and mc’d by ODEL’s Mary Anderson. Each participant had created a video showcasing their course sites or participated in an ID led interview. Each received an award in a category befitting their work.

Participants were asked to complete two surveys during the institute. The first survey was to get feedback on the institute’s keynote speakers, faculty and staff speakers, the goal setting worksheet and discussion, the additional webinars, and their understanding and attitude moving forward. Ten out of the 11 participants completed the survey. All marked agreed or tended to agree with the statements for each day:

• The keynote speaker contributed to my understanding of student and course resiliency.
• The Q & A with the keynote speaker contributed to my understanding of student and course resiliency.
• The faculty presentation contributed to my understanding of course and student resiliency.
• The staff presentation(s) contributed to my understanding of student and course resiliency.
• The goal setting worksheet and discussion with my ID contributed to my understanding of student and course resiliency.

Additionally, all agreed or tended to agree with the statement, “The separate webinars on Tuesday and Thursday contributed to my understanding of student and course resiliency” and all but one either agreed or tended to agree with the statement, “I have a clear understanding on how to proceed to reach my goal.” Finally, all ten agreed with the statement, “I’m looking forward to working on my course with my instructional designer over the next 8 weeks”.

Participants lauded the event and the activities within the event when asked what they liked best. One participant wrote, “It’s difficult to pick 1 thing. The selection of other attendees with the programming made for a special week. I was able to connect w/the attendees even through Zoom and I didn’t expect to find other like-minded faculty as part of the institute. The programming was just excellent. Varying the heavy “intensive” days with the T/R lighter days with 2 webinars helped so much. It’s hard to do a typical intensive because there’s no time to rest or process. Even though I had a lot of demands during the week, I appreciated the lighter days T/R and a chance to catch my breath. The keynotes were really terrific and the panel discussions were great, too. THANK YOU SO MUCH for creating this event, planning it, conducting it virtually and after an exhausting and traumatizing year. There was an abundance of care from start to finish. I’m very appreciative to be a part of this. Thank you all!”

 

Suggestions included more breaks, more time with instructional designers, and more hands-on activities.

The second survey was administered at the end of the institute following presentations. Only 7 of the 11 participants responded. All 7 chose “Agree” with the following eight statements:

• Overall, I am satisfied with the Summer Institute.
• I would recommend future ODEL Summer Institutes to others.
• I am proud of the work I have done during this Summer Institute.
• I plan to apply what I’ve learned during this year’s Summer Institute to future course design.
• I feel confident that I have the knowledge and skills to develop quality online course materials.
• Overall, the depth of information in this Summer Institute was about right.
• The work with my instructional designer/course developer was invaluable.
• I found the group meetings with my instructional design consultant

 

All chose “Agree” (6) or “Tend to agree” (1) with the following statements:

• I was able to make progress toward’s my goals set during the first week of the Summer Institute.
• I liked the format of the final showcase.

All chose “Agree” (5) or “Tend to agree” (2) with the following statement:

• I feel ready to teach the course I have developed during the Summer Institute.

Finally, 4 people “Agreed” and 1 person “Tended to Agree” with the statement, “I found the use of MS Teams for collaborating with my instructional designer to be helpful”, while 2 chose “Tend to Disagree”.

 

One participant commented, “I don’t feel completely ready but this summer was very demanding, professionally and personally, for me. What’s important is that I feel much more at ease about teaching my class and more confident about what I’ve done than I would have without the SI. Also, for MS Teams, I don’t like this tool for collaboration. I appreciated how my ID was willing to use Zoom and other tools to work together.”

Participants commented they enjoyed the kick off week and meetings with IDs for collaboration and feedback the most. When asked what they disliked, only 2 comments were made and included not being able to meet in person and concern about the amount of work that needed to be done in such a short period of time.

It’s important to note that participants did also receive stipends for their work in the institute. Surveys were completely anonymous.

It was really such a pleasure to be a part of the planning for such an amazing event. It all came together very nicely. A couple of days after the conclusion of the institute, one participant, Dr. Cristian Lieneck gave our team a shout out on LinkedIn:

I want to thank Michelle Read, Ph.D., CFD and the entire Office of Distance and Extended Learning (ODEL) team at Texas State University for engaging me in their 2021 Summer Institute these past 9 weeks! Efforts contributed to improvement of our BHA degree’s Healthcare Financial Accounting online course site and further enhancement of students’ learning experiences for complex math-related modules.