Course Syllabus

What is OSM?

OSM (pronounced “awesome”) stands for “Online Skills Mastery”, and is a course designed to prepare you for teaching with technology. This course focuses primarily on great digital pedagogy using online tools. Even so, the strategies taught in OSM also apply to the teaching of face to face and hybrid courses, and the lessons learned herein should benefit you no matter what kind of teaching you are doing.

By the end of the 10 week course, you will have created at least one entire module of well-formed content on a topic of your choosing. And, you'll have the tools and experience you need to build an entire course or revamp an existing one.

What this course is...

The course provides you with a true student experience. Since some instructors have never taken an online course, this course provides you with the opportunity to be a student, so soak it in and reflect on what the student's experience is in YOUR online course. 

OSM is a training course for faculty that seeks to "practice what it preaches." The experience of taking OSM should exemplify the best practices in digital teaching that we hope it equips you to practice in your own teaching. Throughout this course you will learn and demonstrate the following:

• Differences and similarities between online and classroom instruction
• Crucial things to do before, during, and after the first week of teaching a class
• Communication strategies
• Efficient and effective feedback strategies
• Best practices in pedagogy and design for digital content such as
• Discussions
• Assignments
• Assessments
• Accessible and mobile friendly pages that look great on any device

After you’ve completed the course you will recruit a fellow faculty member and they will peer review the content you developed throughout OSM.

What this course is not...

OSM is not a glorified tutorial. It's not a cookie-cutter step-by-step guide to putting a course online, because online teaching can (and should) look substantially different due to the teacher, students, content, activities, and objectives of the course!

OSM will not tell you mindlessly which buttons to click; however, wherever possible we have included links to relevant Canvas guides to assist you as you grow in your skills to fully harness the tools available to you on this platform.

OSM is not a space to debate online vs. face-to-face education. We believe there is value in both teaching and learning formats, and we want to support you as you develop an online class that serves your learners' needs.

Time Commitment

Expect to spend up to three hours each week consuming material, completing activities, and reflecting on your work.

Those of you who are more experienced might move through a bit faster, while those who are brand new to digital teaching may need to spend some extra quality time with the content and activities of OSM. We've worked hard to scope the readings and activities down to something manageable to the life of a busy faculty member, but without sacrificing the depth and breadth of content. That said, we hope you will take this seriously and invest yourself as much as you are able. We think you'll get a lot out of this if you do.

Textbook

A special thanks to Aaron Johnson, Colorado resident and author of Excellent! Online Teaching for allowing us to use his content and book in this course. This book is easy to read and we believe you will enjoy the no nonsense approach to teaching with online tools. Aaron maintains a website you might enjoy looking around.

Your course facilitator will provide you a download code that you can use to redeem a copy of the ebook. This ebook can be read on almost any device, including a Kindle, iPad, smartphones, or even a laptop or desktop pc. If you have any questions or trouble accessing the text, get in touch with your facilitator.

If you'd like to download the Kindle app to read this ebook on your Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, or other device, you can download an app from Amazon.

What it means to be “online”

This course is fully online. There are no on-campus meetings. If this is your first online course, there are a few things you need to know from the get-go:

• It truly can take a little while to get used to “doing school” online! Be patient with yourself, take a deep breath, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your facilitator is here to help you and there is 24/7 Canvas support for technical issues should they arise.
• Online learning requires self-discipline. You must be fairly self-directed! This is good, but can also be frustrating if it is new to you. Don’t fall behind, stick with it.
• Follow the assignment directions. If you don't understand what is being asked, get in touch with your facilitator.

Assignment Submissions

One of the main objectives in this course is to allow for feedback and reflection in a collaborative setting. Rather than defaulting to private assignments, private feedback, and ultimately a solitary experience, the OSM course will require most assignments to be submitted via a public discussion board. 

There are a number of advantages to this approach:

• You can learn from one another, both by seeing good ideas and asking each other questions
• The feedback provided for one participant has the opportunity to benefit others in the class.
• The concept of public presentation, dialogue and critique is used in many disciplines. And although you won't be grading each other on a weekly basis, the goal is to see examples of other's work and ask questions. 

If you are interested in the idea of public feedback and how you can utilize it in your own classroom, please read Death to the Dropbox.

Communication

Your facilitator will be communicating with you through Canvas announcements and messages. Please ensure that your notification settings are set up so that you are properly notified of these messages. For details on notification settings, check out this Canvas guide.

Completion of OSM

Assignments in OSM give you the opportunity to test your skill at crafting great online course materials. Throughout the course there will be many self-check quizzes. These are short, knowledge checks. You must take all quizzes, but you can retry them as many times as you like. In order to complete OSM with a satisfactory score, you must achieve an 85% or higher as your final grade. Participants who do not score an 85% or higher will be considered incomplete. You may work with your instructor during the 10 week course to resubmit assignments as needed. 

Grant Participants: As a part of the CU Online grant program, you must complete all assignments AND achieve an 85% or higher as your final grade in order to be in compliance with your grant contract. 

Incomplete: If at the end of the 10 weeks, you have not completed the requirements of the course, you will receive an incomplete by your instructor. An incomplete gives participants a two week grace period (from the end of the course) to complete the incomplete work or resubmit any unsatisfactory assignments. Please work with Amy Arnold (amy.arnold@ucdenver.edu) from CU Online to complete any incomplete assignments. It is your responsibility to email Amy directly when your work is complete. 

Peer Review

At the end of the ten weeks, CU Online new course development grant participants will be asked to identify and work with a fellow colleague to evaluate your developed course. This peer review occurs no sooner than the middle of the semester that you teach the course and no later than the middle of the next semester after you teach it. Since the rubric evaluates both content and teacher presence, it is recommended that peer review is done by someone from your department. However, if you can not find someone to peer review your course, CU Online can assist with matching you with someone.

CU Online has created an OSM Course Quality Rubric you're free to use for peer review purposes, but if you prefer another rubric or set of criteria, you're free to select your own tool or method of peer review.

CU Online does not review faculty courses or assert any academic authority over your content or appraisal of its quality. We are here to equip and help.

CU Online

This course was created by CU Online in order to support faculty in developing quality online courses. The first iteration of this course was in June 2014 and was developed by Michael Edwards, Crystal Gasell, and David Lyons. Since then, multiple revisions have been made to this course with help from Amy Arnold, Jenna VanBerschot, Patrick Lowenthal, Jennifer Golightly, and Rob Kadel.

CU Online provides and supports key technologies and services for faculty and students. CU Online believes in providing faculty with tools and pedagogies to deliver quality education.

You can always visit us at http://cuonline.edu.

Support Information

At anytime during this course, if you run into questions or have concerns, please post them to the Virtual Office or reach out to your facilitator using a Canvas message from your Inbox.

If you have technical issues or questions, please reach out to either the Canvas 24/7 help desk or CU Online.

Canvas 24/7 Support:

• Phone: 855.631.2250
• Email: support@instructure.com
• Click "Help" in the top right of Canvas to access live chat or email support

CU Online Help Desk:

• Phone: 303.315.3700, option 4
• Email: cuonlinehelp@ucdenver.edu

Other Policies

Academic Honesty

The following is from the University Policies: “Students are expected to know, understand and comply with the ethical standards of the university. In addition, students have an obligation to inform the appropriate official of any acts of academic dishonesty by other students of the university. Academic dishonesty is defined as a student’s use of unauthorized assistance with intent to deceive an instructor or other such person who may be assigned to evaluate the student’s work in meeting course and degree requirements.”

Examples of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to the following: plagiarism, cheating, fabrication and falsification, multiple submissions without faculty approval, misuse of academic materials, and complicity in academic dishonesty.

Professional Conduct

During this course, we ask that you are professional. "Flaming," or other derogatory comments, messages, or posts are unprofessional and unacceptable. The penalty for unprofessional conduct or academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, is expulsion from the OSM program.

Accommodations

The University of Colorado Denver is committed to providing reasonable accommodation and access to programs and services to persons with disabilities. If you need accommodations due to a disability, please let your facilitator know. They will do their best to assist you.  Additional services are available through the CU Denver Office of Disability Services, 303-556-8387.

Academic Freedom and Intellectual Property

During OSM, you will be developing content for a course offered at the university. Please review the Board of Regents policy on Intellectual Property and Academic Freedom (Part D).