Retention: YOU are the Key! Instructor Strategies for Retaining Students

1. Retention: YOU are the Key!Instructor Strategies for Retaining Students Troy University eTROY Colloquium April 17-18, 2012

2. The Dirty Dozen: Design Tips for an Course Check eTROYInstructional Designers:Loubna ZahriGayle Nelson

3. A Dozen Simple Back to Basics Tips to: • Organize your eCourse • Keep it clean and easy to navigate • Help keep you and your students running in front of this fast-paced 9 week class, and • Win yourself great eCourse quality check marks! And now the Top 12 Tips to win yourself an on that next eTROY quality course check…

4. Keep your Announcements currently dated. If you copy these over, keep them updated. • Make sure you have a warm welcome message for your students on the Friday before classes begin.

5. Course Banners are a focal point when students enter your class. Make sure you post a banner! • Don’t post just an image over the entire page. Students need to view your announcements.

6. Keep your course banners professionally sized – not oversized, not too small, and all inclusive, not just a textbook or image plunked down. • An eTROY banner is provided in every course shell each term. If you would like a personalized banner, contact your instructional designer.

7. WHOA…be mindful of the amount of navigational areas in your course. • Organize, combine, and delete if necessary. • 20 is too much, 4 is not enough. 9 or 10 is substantive yet not overwhelming. • Consider merging duplicate areas. Keep it succinct.

8. Include all required navigational areas. • Modify yes, but don’t delete pertinent eTROY /QM information - like Start Here, Announcements,Instructor Contact, DB, Assignments, Exams, Links, and Course Tools.

9. Clean up duplicate items in every area of your course. • Keep your course organized and easy on your students!

10. Start Here! • NOTE General Standard 1 from the Quality Matters Rubric: “The overall design of the course is made clear to the student at the beginning of the course.” • The first course content area, Start Here,houses more than just a site map. • Your expectations of your students.Contact instructions. • Put everything here just as if you were meeting with your students face-to-face on the first day of class.

11. The Syllabus • Be sure and utilize the eTROY Syllabus. • Your college may have a syllabus, but please mergeeTROY’s with the college document. • Consider including a photo of your textbook along with the ISBN number as an aid to your students. • It is important to retain the Policies and Procedures document that is placed within the Syllabus area. • NOTE: eTROY is working toward a solution to better facilitate the needs of eTROY and Academics in their Syllabus endeavor. Watch for a new approach to be implemented fall of 2012.

12. Contact Info • Include your email; phone numbers; office hours if applicable; as well as your Bio. • Add your photo! Help your students connect with you by adding an image of yourself (max150x150 pixels). • Connect with your global students every way you can to make yourself “real” to them in our virtual world. Use Blackboard IM, schedule office hours and then meet with your students virtually.

13. Discussion Board • Keep your discussion board current. • Include an Ask the Instructor Forum for student questions that may come in (be sure to select “create a new thread” to begin the string). • Include a Student Lounge Forum for a place your students can meet with each other. TIP: Check your ASK the INSTRUCTOR area often not only to stay current with student questions, but also to stay off the Starfish Instructor Notification list…you can also subscribe to the Ask the Instructor Forum and when a question comes in from your student, you will get an email alert.

14. Exams and Pools • Keep your exams and pools areas clean with no duplicate exams for confusion. • After you do a course copy, check the test area to make sure your exams copied over correctly. • Although your exams will show up, you must deploy your exams. http://www.troy.edu/etroy/etroyfacultyresources.htm Bb: See Faculty Resource tab/ Faculty Training/How-To / Exams Pools

15. 11 • Grade Center • For help with the Grade Center, weighting issues and more, check out the Faculty Training page link on the Faculty Resourcetab in Blackboard, or put in a ticket to your Instructional Designer. http://www.troy.edu/etroy/etroyfacultyresources.htm

16. 12 How to add a "test student" account to a course(see Faculty Training link on Faculty Resources page) • Enroll yourself as a Test Student. • See what students see when they view their grades and use this as a check to see if your Grade Center is set up correctly.

17. Use Your Development Shells! If you use your development shells and keep them updated and clean, you will have clean course copies for less course clean-up. See the Faculty Development Sessions link under the Faculty Resources tab in Bb and click on the archived Wimba link to watch the session: CCC - Clean Course Copies

18. Your Key to a Successful Course • Before you make your course available to your students, contact your Instructional Designer and ask us to review your course. • A well-organized course and a clean course with your expert content and instruction is the FIRST step to retaining our students! • For all you do for TROY and our students - • Thank you!

19. Why do I haveto put in a ticket? • For prompt service. • So we can assist you efficiently! • helpdesk.troy.edu See the FACULTY RESOURCES tab for:Instructional Design ContactCourse-Specific Designer Assignments