Faculty Online Certification Program

The Faculty Online Certification Program prepares faculty to design a fully online course and is offered completely online. This program is co-facilitated by Cindy Hay, Instructional Designer in the Instructional Technologies, and Dr. Megan Bradley, Associate Professor in Psychology.

Scheduled session(s): Registration typically closes up to 2 weeks prior to the session start date.

• May 20, 2013 - July 3, 2013
• September 31, 2013 - November 15, 2013

Please note: Enrollment priority will be given to those scheduled to teach an approved online course in the semester(s) most immediately following the program session date and to those who meet the prerequisites described (read how to prepare yourself). You will be notified shortly after the close of registration about your enrollment status.

About the program:

This program is entirely online; however, the option for synchronous meetings will be discussed once the program begins.

Our vision for the Faculty Online Certification Program is to provide faculty with the opportunity to acquire the needed knowledge and skills to design and develop an online course, while also offering flexibility to participate from anywhere there is a computer and Internet access. To achieve this vision, we will use several teaching strategies and technologies to facilitate learning.

Faculty will be immersed in the online environment where they have first hand experience as a 'student' in an online course. This student perspective is invaluable as you design and develop your course for your students.

In this course:
 

• You will become familiar with FSU's policies and procedures for online learning.
• You will experience the online course from the student's perspective.
• You will assess your new role as an online course instructor.
• You will develop several pedagogical aspects of your online course.
• You will recognize and identify essential elements of a course that meet quality assurance standards (using the Quality Matters™ rubric).
• You will develop strategies to ensure effective interactions in the online environment.
• Upon successful completion, you will have met the professional development requirements to teach online at FSU (Note: You still need to have your department chair and provosts' approval).

In this program, you will be developing a course you currently teach f2f or a course you want to develop to teach online. You will be provided with a new Blackboard 'course shell' within which you will develop your course. In this way, we can easily assess the activities relevant to our program and all course members can access and review your course.

How to prepare yourself:

For this program, already acquired Blackboard skills are essential and a pre-requisite. While we do provide brief instructions about Blackboard, we primarily emphasize pedagogy and online learning.

We will be using several aspects of Blackboard to include:

Control Panel: In the control panel area, we primarily use the items below:

Course tools (you will need a good working skill set in the following items):

• Announcements, blogs, discussion board, journals, rubrics, send email, tests, wikis, ITunes U (sometimes)
• You will want to know how to create, setup, edit, and add users where relevant, etc.

Grade Center:

• You will use this in the student role

Users and Groups:

• Users and groups

Customization:

• Properties
• Teaching Style
• Tool availability

Packages and utilities:

• Import package

Build Content (tab near the top of our Bb course):

• You will need to know how to build content in your course by:
  • Creating an item, file, audio, image, video, weblink, learning module, course link
  • New page: adding a new page using a content folder

Assessments:

• You will need to know how to create an assignment

You also need:

• Skills about how to reorder items, edit items, and hide items in Bb
• Knowledge about how to login into Bb
• Basic word processing skills
• Computer skills needed to open documents from Bb, saving files from Bb, attaching files to the Bb course, file management on your computer

The above list is not exhaustive, but if you have these skills, you will most likely be able to complete the bulk of the activities that require specific Bb or computer skills.

If you are not familiar with these aspects of Blackboard, please consider these options to best prepare you for the Program:

• Review the Blackboard training section on this website: Blackboard Support. (Be sure to check out the instructor section on the left navigation menu of the page)
• Enroll in the scheduled Blackboard live training sessions. To register for upcoming Blackboard workshops, click here and then navigate to the 'live trainings' section of the page
• Contact ACIT at acit@frostburg.edu and request assistance.

Register for one of the following sessions:

Registering for this program is a two-step process.

Step 1: Complete the Blackboard Questionnaire. Click the link below (Please remember, this program is not designed to teach you how to use Blackboard; if you find yourself in need of Blackboard skills prior to the program, please enroll in the Blackboard training sessions mentioned earlier).

BLACKBOARD QUESTIONNAIRE

Step 2: Complete the registration form. Click the link below.

REGISTRATION

About the Program Leaders:

	Cindy Hay Cindy is the Instructional Designer in the Office of Academic Computing & Instructional Technologies as well as an adjunct faculty member of FSU's Psychology Department.
	Dr. Megan Bradley Megan is a Professor in the Psychology Department at Frostburg State University. View her web site here.