During Fall 2024, the Office of Distance Learning celebrated its 50th Quality Matters course certification.
2020 in Review: Distance Learning Adapts to Support Faculty, Students
Mon, 12/14/2020 - 4:41pmTop Stories
Innovative Teaching and Learning Week set for April 8-10
Innovative Teaching and Learning Week brings together instructors from across campus to share emerging approaches, p
In a year marked by change and uncertainty, the Office of Distance Learning will carry a few bright spots from 2020 into the New Year.
Since March, the office’s business, enrollment, communications, and instructional support units have adapted to maintain, reinforce, and grow the infrastructure to support faculty, staff, and student needs.
The Instructional Support Team created new resources, webinars, and workshops while working hand-in-virtual-hand with faculty and staff to navigate new tools and modalities.
Meanwhile, the Enrollment Team has continued providing personalized student support as online degree program enrollment grows.
In Spring 2020, the office assembled an LMS Review Taskforce of faculty, staff, and administrators to evaluate our current LMS — Moodle — and assess other platforms.
Following a taskforce recommendation, the Instructional Support Team led an initial Moodle Pilot with six courses. The team is now organizing an expanded Spring 2021 Moodle Pilot with approximately 30 courses across the seven colleges.
Looking ahead to 2021, the Instructional Support Team is designing new professional development workshops and finalizing webinars to continue its mission to collaborate with online and hybrid faculty to design and develop innovative, high quality, and engaging learning experiences.
(Scroll for accessible text.)
Infographic text:
Enrollment
15%: Total enrollment in online degree programs reached 2,460 students this Fall — 15% of total University enrollment.
54%: Not including Remote or HyFlex enrollment, 54% of all UL Lafayette students enrolled in a hybrid or online course in Fall 2020.
Professional Development
82: The Instructional Support Team designed and facilitated 82 webinars and workshops in 2020, compared to 41 in 2019, to provide tools and best practices for faculty and staff.
3: The Instructional Support Team designed three entirely new self-paced and facilitated workshops for faculty — Basic Course Building, Strategies for Engaging Learners Online, and Aligning Course Content to Learning Objectives.
Design & EduTool Support
1,023: With more faculty and staff using Moodle and EduTools, the Instructional Support Team assisted 1,023 of our colleagues in Spring 2020, as compared to 171 in Fall 2019.
3,055: With more users come more requests! The Instructional Support Team filled 3,055 support requests in Spring 2020, compared to 392 during the previous semester.
Certified Faculty
449: The number of faculty certified to teach online and hybrid courses continues to grow. Today we stand at 449 ULearn Certified Faculty, up 22% from 369 in 2019 and 323 in 2018.
Hybrid Course Design Challenge
10: 10 faculty members received a $2,500 to develop hybrid courses as part of the Spring 2020 Hybrid Course Design Challenge, learning more about course design and creating new opportunities for students.