Auburn Online leads the way in high-quality online learning experiences

As fall 2020 approaches and online instruction at Auburn continues, units around campus are hard at work creating high-quality online learning experiences for students. One unit at the forefront of this work is Auburn Online. Housed in the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, Auburn Online has partnered with faculty for nearly five years to purposefully plan and create innovative online learning.

Recently, Auburn Online collaborated with the Department of Foreign Languages in the College of Liberal Arts to redesign Elementary Spanish I and II online courses. The Auburn Online team started by researching online foreign language learning and identified best practices which include the need for instructor presence, extra grammar practice and opportunities for engagement and interaction between students. In addition, it became clear that the four elements of foreign language learning—reading, writing, speaking and listening—needed to be captured within the course.

With their research findings top of mind, the course redesign began. Each module in the course starts with an engaging video where the faculty member introduces the module’s subject matter. Next, students work through module pages filled with interactive practice activities following four formats: reading, writing, speaking and listening. These interactive practice activities in Canvas are in addition to practice activities students must also complete using a third-party provider called Contraseña, a platform Spanish faculty were already using before the redesign.

“When we began working with the Department of Foreign Languages, we hired language experts to work alongside the instructional designer and faculty members for our Spanish and German courses,” Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center, said. “The instructional designer serves as the instruction expert and works on designing and organizing the course while the language expert creates interactive activities in Spanish and ensures the content is accurate."

Finally, the module finishes with two discussion posts that allow students to interact with each other. One discussion post asks for a written response, allowing students to practice their writing, and the second asks for a video response, allowing students to practice their speaking. At the end of each module created by Auburn Online, students are asked to reflect and provide feedback on what worked and what didn’t work in the module. Although the course just launched this summer, early feedback from students and faculty has been positive.

“The newest version of my course takes us to a whole new level,” Stephen Irwin, Elementary Spanish professor, said. “This summer term is the first time using the new format, so it’s too early to assess how it will impact student learning, but I am very eager to compare the data because we really have put a top quality product out there to help students succeed in Elementary Spanish at Auburn. I am so proud of what we created.”

Irwin isn’t the only faculty who recently adjusted his course for online learning. In mid-March, Auburn faculty were tasked with switching to remote instruction halfway through the spring semester in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of careful preparation, Auburn recently announced four options for instructional delivery for the fall 2020 semester.

Amy Conway, the instructional designer responsible for the Elementary Spanish course redesign, notes how Auburn Online plans to move forward.

“Moving into the fall, Auburn Online is adapting and adding services to meet the current environment,” Conway said. “Now that all faculty have some online teaching experience, we have started to receive requests for help with adding interactive elements to online courses and making it more appropriate and richer for the online environment.”

To support these requests, Auburn Online recently created the Online Teaching Showcase. An open Canvas course, the Online Teaching Showcase allows Auburn faculty to browse incredible examples of the engaging and interactive content and learning tools Auburn Online has created for courses across disciplines. Many of the interactive content can be imported into faculty’s own Canvas course in just a few steps. The growing list of interactive content includes:

- Customizable interactives such as timelines and 360-degree virtual lab assessments

- Assignment scaffolding pages for scheduling virtual office hours, working in groups and creating effective presentations

- Science, math and engineering activities such as a virtual exhibit hall

- Social sciences and the arts activities such as a virtual theatre tour or creating instructor presence in foreign language courses

- Business activities including interactive accounting problems.

In addition to the Online Teaching Showcase, Auburn Online instructional designers and Biggio Center faculty developers are available to consult with faculty and explore the four options for instructional delivery, including blended and HyFlex learning.

“The work Auburn Online and the Biggio Center does to support faculty and create innovative online courses is more important now than ever,” Ali said. “We are being extremely purposeful in planning for online instruction and remain excited about the many ways our Auburn colleagues are rising to the challenge of remote instruction.”