Welcome to Online Academy!

Online Academy (OLA) is your opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills to design and develop an online course and teach it successfully. In addition to the OLA trainers, you will have access to other faculty who are currently teaching online. A current online instructor will be assigned as your mentor. All of the staff and faculty involved will do their best to help you translate your best practices into the online environment. All OLA learning materials are available in Desire2Learn. As you become familiar with the HACC Learning Circle, the course delivery system, the Virtual Campus Course Assessment Rubric (VCCAR) and other aids, you are preparing for one of the greatest adventures of your teaching career: working with students in a shared virtual room which you have designed and crafted.

We hope that you find the Online Academy experience to be rewarding and worthwhile. If you have any questions or concerns at any point during the course, please do not hesitate to contact one of the OLA trainers.

Course Description

Online Academy is designed to meet the need for qualified online faculty by HACC's Virtual Campus as mandated in its mission statement. Online Academy is an intense online training program with a focus on the skills and pedagogy required to successfully develop and teach online courses based on the Virtual Campus Course Assessment Rubric (VCCAR). This is accomplished by placing the participants, in dual roles as both prospective online teachers, and as online students enrolled in a training course called Online Academy. These perspectives form an experiential foundation for the participants to apply proven instructional principles to the course being developed, and to integrate them into the online electronic environment supported by HACC's Virtual Campus.

Participants will complete ten weeks of online training and show application of knowledge by preparing materials for their proposed online course. At the conclusion of Online Academy, participants will be expected to have completed three chapters (units, elements, modules) of the course they are developing for online delivery. While Online Academy is required for teaching online classes at HACC (Administrative Procedure 772), and reasonable effort is made to accommodate graduates of Online Academy, enrollment and completion of Online Academy does not guarantee employment to teach online courses at HACC.

Course Outcomes

At the completion of Online Academy, participants will be able to:

• Create a syllabus that meets the requirements of AP 766 and AP 772.
• Create a course where instructional materials are current, accurate and align to expectations listed in the most recent official Course Form 335.
• Create a course that contains instructor-designed explanatory materials in addition to  (or in lieu) of publisher supplied content to facilitate student learning
• Create a course where the assessment instruments are appropriate for online delivery.
• Create a course where each assignment/assessment comes with clear directions and grading criteria.
• Create a course where assignments and assessments are in alignment with course outcomes from the Course Form 335.
• Create a course where the first materials on the course home page provide instructions for course navigation and organization.
• Create a course where course navigation and content placement is consistent across learning modules and adheres to the instructions provided on the course home page.
• Create a course that adheres to Web design best practices for navigation, color scheme and file formats.
• Create a course that uses different technologies that address student learning styles and do not interfere with student learning.
• Create a course that is designed to use interactive tools that enhance communication between the students and faculty.
• Create a course that offers opportunities for students to interact and/or collaborate with other students.

Create a course that provides students with opportunities to interact with the content and receive instantaneous feedback based on those interactions

Course Expectations

Attendance

To fulfill the attendance requirement and to be successful in this course, you will be expected to log into the OLA Desire2Learn course at least 3 – 4 times a week to stay connected with the class, complete assignments, and keep up with discussions and other communications. In order to successfully complete Online Academy participants must participate in at least 7 of the course discussions. Please post your original response to each discussion by Thursday of the week the discussion is released. You can expect to spend 9 – 12 hours per week working on OLA materials.

Course Communication

At least one trainer will login every day throughout the ten weeks of Online Academy to provide feedback and respond to communications. If you have questions related to course content that are not of a personal/individualized nature, please post them to the "Questions for Training Staff" discussion area. Please do not use email for these types of questions as the answers to these questions will be relevant to all course participants.

Course Requirements

Beginning on the second Monday after the last day of OLA, the Online Academy instructors and mentors will be evaluating your progress in your Practice Course to determine your successful completion of OLA. Please have a minimum of 3 chapters/lessons/modules/units completed for this evaluation. If you do not have a minimum of 3 chapters/lessons/modules/units completed, OLA instructors will not forward your name to Virtual Campus administration as successfully completing Online Academy.

Course Drop/Withdraw Policy          

Participants who fail to login to the course for a period of two weeks or who fail to participate in two consecutive weekly discussions can be dropped from the course for non-participation. Any participant who is dropped from the course for non-participation must reapply for Online Academy if s/he wishes to be included in a future section of OLA.

Course Milestones/Checkpoints

After the indicated module, we will be checking your practice course to see if the following milestones have been reached:

Technology Requirements

Course Schedule (Tentative)

Week 01: Getting Started with OLA & Planning Your Course Structure

Week 02: Planning Your Course Structure

Week 03: Navigating Within Your Course & Developing Course Content

Week 04: Navigating Within Your Course & Developing Course Content

Week 05: Incorporating Interactivity Into Your Course

Week 06: Incorporating Interactivity Into Your Course

Week 07: Incorporating Interactivity Into Your Course

Week 08: Designing Effective Assignments & Assessments

Week 09: Designing Effective Assignments & Assessments

Week 10: From Theory into Practice (Teaching Your Online Course)

Weeks 11 & 12: Class work completed, course development time