KYVU Online Excellence Award Winners

2005-2006 Competition

The KYVU heartily thanks this year's judges for all their good work: Larry Albert of Murray State University; Joni Allison of the University of Louisville; Cathy Gunn of Murray State University; Sue Greer-Pitt of Southeast Community and Technical College (winner of a 2005 award); Norma Northern of Kentucky Virtual University; Doug Robertson of Northern Kentucky University; Christina Sax of University of Maryland University College and Co-Director of the Quality Matters project; Katherine Thomas who serves as editor of the Kentucky Journal of Teaching and Learning Scholarship; and Enid Wohlstein of Kentucky Virtual Library.

These judges worked together over several months in order to identify the submissions that exhibited high-quality, interactive learner-centered experiences, which demonstrate that:

• the students advanced significantly in relation to the course objectives,
• technological tools were used in an innovative way to undergird the pedagogy, and
• the submission can serve as an exemplar for others who offer courses via KYVU.

The winners of the 2006 KYVU Online Excellence Awards were honored at the May 2006 CPE Faculty Development conference with a trophy, a certificate and a $500 honorarium.

2006 Winners

Julia Dietrich
University of Louisville
http://delphi.louisville.edu/distance/technology/dietrich/index.html

Dr. Julia Dietrich focused on her online course English 301, Survey of British Literature I. This course fulfills a requirement in the English major but can serve as an elective for many other majors. As Dr. Dietrich put it, "Although it has a lot of 'content,' I think of it mostly as a skills course; I want it to teach students how to read historical texts for themselves." Dr. Dietrich focused on all 7 Principles, but her engaging and scholarly interaction with the students was clearly evidenced in her submission. She wrote: "I was trying ... to give students some room to pursue their own interests within the structure of the course. So they had a range of literary works from which to choose their examples, and they had some room to write about themes that interested them. My hope is that the experience of writing these three major essays teaches students what kinds of questions they can ask of literature." Her course included in each section an audio-visual clip of her giving an introductory lecture which gave her "an opportunity to emphasize to students that the course would cover a lot of territory and would challenge them, and it also gave me the opportunity to encourage them." These online lectures also run as text below each of the visual illustrations including the image of Dr. Dietrich reading the lectures aloud. This attention to a diverse student population's needs impressed the judges highly.

Donna Elkins
Jefferson Community and Technical College, Southwest Campus
http://dl.jcc.kctcs.edu/users/donnam.elkins

Professor Elkins focused on a module on Self-Concept that she teaches as a part of COM 252, Introduction to Interpersonal Communication. Her submission clearly shows how college students can interact with each other in thoughtful and meaningful ways even as they study how their communications are structured and function. This course emphasizes cooperation and reciprocity - and the submission shows important the individual student's own feelings about the course assignments intersects with the way that they communicate. Professor Elkins wrote that these online interactions "are actually better and more meaningful than those shared in my in-person classes... I realized that I could actually foster more discussion and interaction in the online class than in the in-person class at times. I found that I could still do interactive and active learning activities and that assessment was not any different than assessing in the in person class." The judges felt that the diversity of class activities was a strong element to the submission, and that she had selected an interesting part of the course and course materials to illustrate her use of the 7 Principles.

Jane Goldsmith
University of Louisville
http://delphi.louisville.edu/distance/technology/goldsmith/index.htm

Dr. Goldsmith submitted PHST 600: Introduction to Biostatistics for Public Health, a required core course for the masters degree. She wrote: "I am very proud of this course because many said a statistics course online could not be done....and if done, could not be effective. I set about proving them wrong and have enjoyed every minute of it." Dr. Goldsmith uses a wide variety of resources for her online students, including audio with her lecture materials and scattering throughout the course audio recordings (what she calls "radio shows") which include interviews of statisticians, Q&A sessions, and inspiration/encouragement audio clips for her students. Her biostatistics students are encouraged to work together on practice and turn-in homework - sometimes groups appeared at office hours together. The judges felt this was an excellent online course to showcase for other KYVU instructors to see - especially the strong role that her use of humor plays in making this difficult content accessible and interesting.

John Welsh
University of Louisville
http://delphi.louisville.edu/distance/technology/welsh/index.htm

Dr. Welsh's submission focuses on ELFH 686: The Two-Year College - a core course in the professional specialization of students enrolled in the Master of Arts in Higher Education and the Postsecondary Administration track in the Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership. Like some of the other winners this year, Dr. Welsh's course provides an audio-visual introduction that gives the students a sense of who their teacher is. With discussion boards that give clear and useful directions for each assignment, each student must contribute a minimum of 200 words in order to insure that they provide sufficient depth and critical thinking about the topic. Dr. Welsh wrote that he requires his graduate students to "think in paragraphs" and that chats on irrelevant or even peripheral topics do not count. Students are advised that they are not competing with each other and that part of the expectations for their participation is that they contribute to each other's learning. An integral part of the process is that Dr. Welsh responds to each of the discussion boards within five days of their completion with an essay of his own. It is clear from the submission that, as Dr. Welsh asserts, "By the end of the semester, each student is acutely aware of the importance and value of the criteria for their work in the course and in their profession." The judges all noted that this submission well documents Dr. Welsh's close attention to the 7 Principles, and in particular models the important aspect of accessibility for all students through the use of captioning with his video lectures.

See 2004-2005 winners of the KYVU Online Excellence Award.

See 2002 and 2003 winners of the KYVU Online Excellence Award.

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