Academic Innovation Blog

To my DSC Colleagues,

I would like to let you all know that I have accepted another employment opportunity, and my last day at Daytona State will be on Friday, February 7th. I want to use this blog post to thank everyone for everything you have done for me while in this position. 

It has been a true pleasure being able to work with you all, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have been able to work here.

While I am looking forward to the next steps in my career, I will deeply miss working with each of you. 

I wish you all the best and hope to stay in touch. I can be reached on my LinkedIn.

Thanks again for everything, and best of luck in all your future endeavors!

Yours truly,

Rose A. Kapucu, MLIS, MA
Coordinator IV, Instructional Designer, Division of Online Studies
rose.kapucu@daytonastate.edu
386-506-4277
http://www.daytonastate.edu/onlinestudies/ 

Before we dive into the Spring 2020 semester, I wanted to take a moment to share our findings with you on our Summer 2019 students. As most of you know: we began administering an Online Readiness Assessment in October of 2018, and students complete this upon their arrival to Daytona State College during their online orientation. Shortly, we will reach one full year of data on our incoming students with this project! We are so excited about this, and we will update you when we have all of this data collected and synthesized, sometime during the Spring 2020 semester--so keep a lookout!

Pause for Applause

Before I get to that, though, I wanted to take a moment to say a giant THANK YOU! Without you, we wouldn’t be able to support these students, and work towards filling the gaps they bring into your classrooms. Your support is paramount, and as we see the retention of our online students rising, we know it’s a reflection of the work and effort you put in to support these students, day in and day out. We appreciate you! Onto the data...

Here are some of the trends we observed in Summer 2019 students, upon their entry:

First off, our summer students have scored the highest average so far, and with good reason due to our heightened number of online offerings over the summer—we would hope this would be the case. They scored an average 77.52/100 on the assessment, and this was 4 points higher than the Spring 2019 students.

• We are still seeing female students (79.18) score higher than our male students (73.47).
• Hispanic/Latino students (74.07) are still scoring lower than Black (77.88) and White (79.21) students.
• Our most online ready age groups over the summer semester were: 26-30 (83.99), 31-35 (83.61), and 41-45 (85.20). This contrasts with our Spring students, whose most online ready group were ages 31-35.
• Our lowest online ready age groups were 12-18 (69.53) and 61-70 (61.67).
• Due to what we believe to be their prior college experience, Baccalaureate students (90.84) score much higher than Associate level students (76.26).

We also measured some new data points over the summer, including:

• Online Readiness by Course
  • ENC1101 had the lowest online readiness score of our Gateway courses (74.42).
  • STA2023 had the highest online readiness score of our Gateway courses (83.72).
  • Looking at the courses that weren’t at the developmental level, and had over 25 enrolled with online readiness scores:
    • SPC2608 (68.95) and PSY1012 (69.57) had the lowest online readiness average.
    • STA2023 (83.72) and LIT2000 (83.51) had the highest online readiness average.
• Online Readiness by Campus (Campus is determined by where a student takes the majority of their classes).
  • The Online Campus had the highest online readiness average (82.02).
  • The second highest online readiness average was the New Smyrna campus (73.75), followed by Daytona in 3^rd place (71.87).
  • The lowest was the ATC (63.67), and 2^nd lowest was DeLand (64.82).

Continuing the Conversation

As we approach the following semester and receive the Fall 2019 data, we will start to make some inferences on the steps going forward, and how to use this data to best fit our institution and students. We look forward to keeping you updated, and as always feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading! If you haven’t already, please subscribe to stay up-to-date with the Division of Online Studies at DSC and hear the future updates we’ll be sending out.

Kara Parkes, M.A.
Online Retention Coordinator, Academic Advising
kara.parkes@daytonastate.edu | 386-506-3610
Student Online Readiness InfoGuide | Falcon Online InfoGuide

In the Loop with Notifications

Notifications in Falcon Online

Did you know students and faculty can set up to receive course notifications to your email and/or by text message? The steps are simple and quick from your Falcon Online notifications settings - watch the video below (2:11) for a step-by-step walkthrough.

A few popular Instant Notifications to consider activating are:

• Announcements
• Assignments
• Discussions (note: must be subscribed within the course)
• Grades
• Quizzes

Notifications in Pulse

The Pulse app is also available to stay up-to-date with important course updates. What exactly are these "updates" you ask? Here's a quick list:

• Upcoming (calendar) tab
  • Due Dates
• Notifications tab
  • Course Content updates (created or updated)
  • Course Overview updates (created or updated)
  • Course Announcements
  • New Grades
    • Fun fact: there's a privacy feature, swipe to reveal, that protects students from having their grade accidentally revealed to anyone nearby who may be able to see their device

So, what do students see?

Check out this Pulse App Navigation for Learners video (3:02) for insight into what students see. Also, faculty can use the Pulse app as well which can be a great way to gain further insight into the experience (don't forget you can test your theories using your practice course).

What does this mean for faculty?

In order for students to experience the app as seen in the video above, reflect on these strategies. Consider adding due dates as a best practice to help your students plan their time accordingly and keeping the Grades up-to-date so students can keep a Pulse (see what I did there?) on their progress on-the-go. And don't forget about Announcements to encourage students to stay on track each week (note: Announcements with hyperlinks, images, and/or videos, students will need to press the "View Announcement" button for the full experience). Don't forget about Discussions - if you or your students subscribe to receive updates posting to discussions on-the-go can be very convenient!

Check out the video below (6:50) for a brief tour of what the Pulse app has to offer.

Stay in-the-know with the CITL!

Feel free to share any experiences you've had with course notifications in the comments below and as always, please subscribe to stay up-to-date with the Division of Online Studies at DSC. Did you know you can also contact us by email at CITL@daytonastate.edu? Of course, you can stop by the FIC Monday through Friday from 8 am - 5 pm or call us at extension 3485. We look forward to chatting with you soon!

Jasmine Checchi
Instructional Designer
jasmine.checchi@daytonastate.edu | 386-506-4278

Welcome Back - Distance Learning Track

Happy New Year! The Office of Professional Development has published their Spring 2020 planning schedule and we've itemized events that are geared towards distance learning initiatives and updates below. We hope everyone had a restful holiday break and look forward to seeing many of you soon!

Welcome Video Open Times

All open video times will be conducted in building 400, room 126. To schedule a time or if you have any questions, please contact April Brunning (email april.brunning@daytonastate.edu or call 386-506-3041).

As always, we encourage you to subscribe to this blog so you can comment and ask questions. When you subscribe you will also receive email notifications of future posts. You can also contact us in the FIC at fic@daytonastate.edu or 386.506.3485 for assistance or visit us between M-F 8AM - 5PM. 

Cheryl Kohen
Director, Division of Online Studies
cheryl.kohen@daytonastate.edu
386-506-3405
http://www.daytonastate.edu/onlinestudies/