{"id":20396,"date":"2025-08-25T13:23:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T18:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/?p=20396"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:25:10","slug":"best-practices-for-online-teaching-quality-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/best-practices-for-online-teaching-quality-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Best Practices for Online Teaching: Quality Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many of you know, the market for online classes is growing. Even students who live on campus want the option of taking at least one online class per semester. That is why Valpo has chosen to work with Quality Matters<\/a> (QM) to help our faculty design the highest quality online courses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we hear from three Valpo faculty who have taken QM training on campus and who are using the principles in their courses. Mandy Brobst-Renaud <\/strong>(Religion) values QM for helping her improve the accessibility of her courses. Joe Zart<\/strong> (CONHP) likes the idea of using QM\u2019s peer review process to take a close look at his courses from the students\u2019 point of view.  Sedefka Beck<\/strong> sees QM certification as a way to highlight the quality of our online classes both for our own students and those in the wider marketplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Amanda Brobst-Renaud (Religious Studies)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandy has been teaching online asynchronous classes for Valpo for the past five years. Her summer classes often fill up, with between 18-30 students. Most of Mandy\u2019s knowledge about online teaching has come through trial and error. So when she took her first Quality Matters course on campus this year during the summer, she found that a lot of the QM principles were best practices that she had already figured out for herself.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, she learned how important it is to hold at least a couple of synchronous sessions with students in order to check in. She also learned to space out her assignments evenly over the semester and to clearly signal any deviations from that pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandy also stopped posting lectures online.  She found that even when she cut longer lectures into smaller chunks, students would watch the first one or two and then stop.  So now she posts only 5-6 minute orientation videos while most of her class takes place in Perusall, an online site where students can read, post comments, and respond to others\u2019 posts right on the assigned text.  Mandy regularly joins the fray by commenting on posts or posing further questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other practices she uses that align with QM are making expectations for students crystal clear, ensuring that everything in the course is accessible, and above all, the idea that the fewer clicks it takes for students to get to something, the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the QM workshop, Mandy was glad to get a chance to examine someone else\u2019s online course using QM\u2019s rubric.  Looking through that course gave her ideas for making her own course landing page more welcoming and visually appealing, with quick links to important documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that QM emphasized that Mandy tries to do in her online courses is to repeat things in several places. For example, she might post information about an important assignment in her Simple Syllabus, in the module where the assignment takes place, and again in an announcement,  because she finds that students access the course in many different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandy has always been concerned about accessibility for her online courses. Taking the QM course has made her even more intentional about that. She now makes sure that all her images have alt text <\/a>that describes the image and that her text can be read by a screen reader, making her course accessible to the visually impaired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going forward, Mandy plans to submit her summer courses for QM certification. She is also considering taking the QM Peer Review course, so that she can review colleague\u2019s classes as a form of community service.  This is not unlike reviewing journal articles for publication in your field. However, unlike journal reviews,  QM actually pays Peer Reviews, so you can earn  $200 for every course review you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Joseph Zart (CONHP)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Zart has been developing online courses for Valpo\u2019s nursing program for several years now. In fact, the College of Nursing and Health Professions (CONHP) is a leader in online courses at Valpo. When Joe took a QM class on campus this past year there were 7-8 other CONHP faculty taking it with him. Joe says that at this point most, if not all of their faculty teaching online have taken the QM course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe is interested in QM because he thinks anyone would benefit from having another set of eyes on your class, both to brainstorm new ideas and to make sure you are on the right track. What he especially values about QM\u2019s approach is that they get you to look at your course through the eyes of the students. This is a good way to see what can be improved and what students need to navigate your course effectively. Joe also values the idea of consistent excellence in online courses. He think it is harder for students when courses don\u2019t provide the same basic and consistent information in their course design and structure.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After taking the QM class, Joe made several changes to both of his summer courses. He moved to a module system, reduced the number of clicks students need to get to important materials, and he has varied his learning materials, embedding more media and YouTube videos in order to engage learners in multiple ways, beyond just text.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe realizes that course development is not a one-and-done proposition, so he will continue working with QM to improve our CONHP online and hybrid courses. He plans to submit at least two of his summer courses for an official QM peer-led course review. He also plans to attend the 2025 QM Connect Conference<\/a>.  There he hopes to meet with other faculty to talk about the latest research in creating outstanding online courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sedefka Beck (Economics)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sedefka Beck has been interested in online teaching since she taught as an adjunct in an online course at another university in 2014.  Before she could teach that course, she was required to take an orientation to online teaching that included course design as well as tips for interacting with students regularly in the online environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to improve her online teaching further, Sedefka not only signed up for the very first QM workshop offered at Valpo, but she also applied for and received via the CELT committee a Higher Education Teaching Online Certificate<\/a>. This Quality Matters (QM) program provides an opportunity to enhance your online teaching skills through seven facilitated courses from \u201cGauging Your Technology Skills\u201d to \u201cCreating a Presence in your Online Course.\u201d [Editor\u2019s Note: You can still apply for this certificate via CELT. See the link above.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course that Sedefka found most helpful was \u201cEvaluating Your Course Design.\u201d This session prompted her to look more closely at her own course objectives and rework them so that they are both measurable and actionable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sedefka is now eager to get her MBA online course QM-certified. Her one concern was whether she could continue to modify the course after it is certified. QM understands that we are always tinkering with our courses, so their policy is that you can change up to 20% of your course without needing to get it recertified, and certification is good for five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sedefka is glad to see that Valpo is going all in on helping faculty improve their online and hybrid courses through QM. However, she is surprised that the pace of online teaching is not moving faster here. She knows from her own experience that when we offer summer online courses, we serve not only Valpo students, but also students from other universities through the Acadeum<\/a> program. Those students can take courses anywhere, so getting our courses QM-certified will put Valpo in a much better position to compete in that market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Would you like to join these Valpo colleagues in learning about principles that could improve your online courses? Then join us for our next QM workshop, \u201cApplying the QM Rubric\u201d (APPQMR), which takes place on Friday, September 26. Here is the link: VU Upcoming Workshops<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL\u00a0 As many of you know, the market for online classes is growing. Even students who live on campus want the option of taking at least one online class per semester. That is why Valpo has chosen to work with Quality Matters (QM) to help our faculty design…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[82,102,203,115,121],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-20396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40","tag-faculty-development","tag-instructional-design","tag-online-teaching","tag-pedagogy","tag-quality-matters"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"crutz","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/crutz\/"},"featured_img":null,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"Profile":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"crutz","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/crutz\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL\u00a0 As many of you know, the market for online classes is growing. Even students who live on campus want the option of taking at least one online class per semester. That is why Valpo has chosen to work with Quality Matters (QM) to help our faculty design…","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["2025<\/a>"],"unlinked":["2025<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["faculty development<\/a>","instructional design<\/a>","online teaching<\/a>","pedagogy<\/a>","Quality Matters<\/a>"],"unlinked":["faculty development<\/span>","instructional design<\/span>","online teaching<\/span>","pedagogy<\/span>","Quality Matters<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 8 months ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 25, 2025","modified":"Updated on September 25, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 25, 2025 1:23 pm","modified":"Updated on September 25, 2025 9:25 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20396"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20401,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20396\/revisions\/20401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20396"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=20396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}