Aspen University Classroom Policies Student Expectations and Faculty Commitment

“Regular and substantive interaction between faculty and student” In Fall of 2017, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the US Department of Education completed a federal audit of one of the largest online universities in the country and found them to be in violation of several regulations that govern the field of distance education. Most notably, the OIG determined that the specific university did not provide “regular and substantive interaction between the instructor and the student.” This is considered a very serious offense that could result in the university in question returning $713 million dollars to the Department of Education. But, what does this mean for Aspen?

Well, as we all know the days of online education being like a correspondence course are over. So are the days of online instructors being absent from their classrooms or not providing meaningful, specific feedback. Not only are we required to be actively engaged with our students on a regular basis, but the interaction needs to be substantive. Also, the interactions need to be faculty-initiated, and not only student-initiated. Any class without these characteristics is simply a correspondence course, which is not the type of curriculum we provide at Aspen.

What does Regular mean? Merriam-Webster uses terms like “happening frequently and consistently” to describe the meaning of regular. As an Aspen faculty member, this means we login to our courses 2-3 times a week, although daily is ideal. If you receive University reminders that you are not participating in your courses each week, this is not considered regular. Please help Aspen and your students by making sure you are actively present and regularly engaged with your courses and students, at least every week but preferably daily.

What does Substantive mean? Merriam-Webster describes substantive as “significant, sizeable, substantial, and considerable.” As an Aspen faculty member, this means we provide substantive interaction with our students when we give specific feedback within the document of their assignment using GradeMark or track changes in MS Word, when we include additional resources in our courses (like web links to content-pertinent resources), when we post News announcements on a weekly basis, when we upload Web 2.0 tools that personalize the classroom and give students an opportunity to see and hear us, and when we are actively involved in the discussion boards every week in an effort to dig deeper with students and challenge them to be cognitively engaged with the content and with us and their peers. Comments or feedback like, “Good job!... I agree… (or, even worse when there are no comments or feedback and there’s just a score)” are not considered substantive. Please help Aspen and your students by taking time to provide high quality interactions with all your students so that the interaction is meaningful, valuable, significant, and authentic.

But, my student hasn’t been in the classroom or discussion board in a while. While we know this occurs, this cannot be a reason for us to take a passive stance and sit back and wait for the student to contact us or do something in the classroom. Students should not be on a boat alone in the ocean of a college course, but instead we, the faculty, should reach out to every student, especially those who are absent or less active, and not wait on the beach until the student sends us a message in a bottle. In other words, interactions cannot be one-sided. They have to be also faculty-initiated. If we are sitting on the beach watching our student in a boat that is sinking, we are compelled as educators to throw him a life jacket. It is not hard for us to know who our ‘sinking’ students are. It is obvious from their classroom behavior or performance. However, we should not only initiate interactions with our sinking students but also our soaring students. That is, we should initiate interactions with students and not only interact with students when a student initiates the interaction with us. Whether a student is sinking or soaring, we need to yell from the beach and provide support for those sinking or praise for those soaring. Please help Aspen and your students by reaching out to them often and actively initiating new interactions that provide intellectual development, increase course engagement, and promote social involvement in your classroom. We cannot stand on the beach… we need to sometimes get wet and swim out to the student.

Participation, Discussion Questions, Assignment Due Dates, and Grading

Aspen University requires students to attend class every week in the online learning platform. This is marked by the activity a student participates in each week. An online week for students is Tuesday through Monday, PDT. Students are not permitted to be out of class for more than two consecutive weeks (14 days). An Administrative Withdrawal will be processed should a student be out of class for more than two weeks.

Participating in classroom discussions is critical to the learning experience. Participating in the weekly discussions allows students and instructors to share experiences, investigate complicated subject matter, and share expertise for new perspectives. For the majority of courses, students must post their initial response to the 1^st discussion question by Thursday and respond to a peer’s discussion post by Sunday. For some courses, the curriculum may require that you respond to more than one discussion post per week. Always review the course directions and syllabus to ensure you and students are participating fully.

Faculty will also need to participate and respond to student questions during each module. Faculty members are encouraged to bring their own experience and expertise to the discussion. This will ensure students have a full, rich classroom experience when discussing critical elements of the curriculum. Faculty members are also responsible for grading and returning all submitted papers with quality feedback within 7 days after the end of the module, but we recommend 3-7 days after submission. Failure to consistently meet this expectation could result in the loss of faculty appointments. Seven days are given to ensure that our working faculty members have time over the weekend to complete the grading process as our working students have the weekend to complete assignments. However, it is always best if students can incorporate quality feedback from faculty in their assignments from one lesson to the next so prompt feedback is appreciated by both the University and your students.

Faculty feedback on assignments is where the key learning takes place. It is through this interaction that students grow in their understanding of content material, critical thinking skills, and the writing process. Rubrics are available in the online classroom to help faculty provide specific feedback on student performance based on a set of specified criteria. This is often used to begin providing feedback on how to strengthen an assignment for future submissions. See the discussion on Quality Feedback below.

Feedback is critical from both faculty and students. We ask for student feedback at the end of the course through an automated end of course survey that will examine all aspects of the Aspen experience. Our goal is to share this feedback with faculty and university staff as we all desire to strengthen the learning of students.

Discussion Questions

One area where the faculty can have the greatest impact is in the weekly Discussion Forums of a course. A faculty member’s expertise with the subject matter and depth of knowledge and experience with the weekly topic can be a wonderful opportunity to share with the student as the instructor causes the student to reflect further, consider alternative perspectives, challenge established beliefs, make connections to other knowledge, and/or consider the implications of course content within specific real-world settings.

While only required to respond in the Discussion Boards several times a week, many Aspen faculty check discussion forums daily, seeking every opportunity to engage students in genuinely meaningful ways. By viewing the discussion question/forum as a way to cognitively challenge students and to have them process the course content more personally, it provides context for greater, more permanent, learning and a more dynamic interaction between the instructor and the student. The difficulty comes when there are only one or two students in a course. While this is not ideal, because we want students to also learn from the discussions of their peers, it should not prevent the faculty from taking a more active role in the discussion and provide more personal, one-on-one attention to the student in an effort to more deeply process and make connections to the course content.

Although weekly discussion questions are preloaded for you in your Aspen courses, you can extend the discussion by focusing on some of the below best practices of high-quality faculty who excel at being engaged in the classroom discussion forums. Discussion questions should not be discrete questions that have a definite answer, rely solely on opinion, or require minimal insight and investigation. To maximize student engagement and participation in the discussion, discussion interactions should be student-centered and relevant to the lives and interests of the students, but also directly tied to the content of the course.

Best practices recommend conversations and replies around the discussion topics should:

Speak to a genuine dilemma in the text. In other words, the discussion should focus on a real confusion, ambiguity or gray area of the text.
Yield an answer that is not obvious. The discussion should allow room for exploration and not be too specific or answered too easily.
Suggest an answer complex enough to sustain a vibrant discussion. If discussions are short answer (like “I agree” or “Good point!”) and do not provide an opportunity to push the conversation further, they won’t elicit deep analysis or reflection and will be seen as a meaningless activity for both the student and the faculty.
Can be answered by the text, and/or scholarly research rather than by just generalizations or emotional feelings.

In addition:

“How” and “why” responses generally require more analysis than “who,” “what,” “when,” or “where” questions.
Good analytical responses can highlight patterns and connections OR contradictions, dilemmas and problems.
Purposeful discussions can also ask about some implications or consequences of the analysis.

Within the online classroom, the discussion boards are the heart of learning. It provides the opportunity to analyze, digest, and synthesize course content in a way that allows the instructor to formatively evaluate each student’s understanding. A great discussion encourages students to “think” about what they are learning, how it relates to their world, what it means, and why it is important. Some of the most powerful learning takes place as a result of discussions that promote critical thinking and hypothesis testing, as well as encourage students to reflect on their worldview(s) and form new mental paradigms based on the discipline of study. Through focused and intentional discussions, students develop a more elaborate system of cognitive connections with the course materials, which not only promotes comprehension but also enhances retrieval of information from memory. Finally, through engaging discussions students learn to write more thoughtfully and present a logical argument to support their claims and ideas.

As instructors, we set the tone and provide a model for the types of behaviors we expect of our students. They pay attention to our behaviors and adjust theirs accordingly. When we are not involved, they quickly learn they do not need to be involved. While a discussion could be low because there are 1-2 students in a class, this does not mean that there should be very little activity in a discussion board. On the contrary, the discussions have the opportunity to be much livelier and more robust since the faculty can give greater attention to the discussion board by responding to students more personally, as well as more deeply, when there is a small number of students in class.

The greatest tool of an effective teacher is his/her use of questioning techniques. Through this approach, instructors can peel back layers of understanding and take students to a new level of competency with the course content. One particularly effective model that has withstood time is the Socratic Method. The focus of this model is to challenge students to reflect on what they think or believe. It requires them to go deeper and deeper as they answer questions that probe the core of their thinking. Below is a list of some SQT questions, which can also be found at http://changingminds.org/techniques/questioning/socratic_questions.htm. Please start trying some of these questions as you interact with 1 or 30 students in your course, depending on the category that relates to a student’s comment. You might print this list and keep it near your computer as you engage students in deeper and lasting discussions.

Conceptual clarification questions

Get them to think more about what exactly they are asking or thinking about. Prove the concepts behind their argument. Use basic 'tell me more' questions that get them to go deeper.

Why are you saying that?
What exactly does this mean?
How does this relate to what we have been talking about?
What is the nature of ...?
What do we already know about this?
Can you give me an example?
Are you saying ... or ... ?
Can you rephrase that, please?

Probing assumptions

Probing their assumptions makes them think about the presuppositions and unquestioned beliefs on which they are founding their argument. This is shaking the bedrock and should get them really going!

What else could we assume?
You seem to be assuming ... ?
How did you choose those assumptions?
Please explain why/how ... ?
How can you verify or disprove that assumption?
What would happen if ... ?
Do you agree or disagree with ... ?

Probing rationale, reasons and evidence

When they give a rationale for their arguments, dig into that reasoning rather than assuming it is a given. People often use un-thought-through or weakly-understood supports for their arguments.

Why is that happening?
How do you know this?
Show me ... ?
Can you give me an example of that?
What do you think causes ... ?
What is the nature of this?
Are these reasons good enough?
Would it stand up in court?
How might it be refuted?
How can I be sure of what you are saying?
Why is ... happening?
Why? (keep asking it -- you'll never get past a few times)
What evidence is there to support what you are saying?
On what authority are you basing your argument?

Questioning viewpoints and perspectives

Most arguments are given from a particular position. So attack the position. Show that there are other, equally valid, viewpoints.

Another way of looking at this is ..., does this seem reasonable?
What alternative ways of looking at this are there?
Why it is ... necessary?
Who benefits from this?
What is the difference between... and...?
Why is it better than ...?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of...?
How are ... and ... similar?
What would ... say about it?
What if you compared ... and ... ?
How could you look another way at this?

Probe implications and consequences

The argument that they give may have logical implications that can be forecast. Do these make sense? Are they desirable?

Then what would happen?
What are the consequences of that assumption?
How could ... be used to ... ?
What are the implications of ... ?
How does ... affect ... ?
How does ... fit with what we learned before?
Why is ... important?
What is the best ... ? Why?

Questions about the question

And you can also get reflexive about the whole thing, turning the question in on itself. Use their attack against themselves. Bounce the ball back into their court, etc.

What was the point of asking that question?
Why do you think I asked this question?
Am I making sense? Why not?
What else might I ask?
What does that mean?

For additional resources on online discussion boards, please review the following websites for ideas to increase your presence and impact in the discussion boards.

For some tips on engaging students in meaningful discussions, please review these tips for engaging students..

8 Ways to increase your social presence in online courses.

Offensive Material Policy

While it happens very rarely, there are times when a student (or anyone) may send you something, intentionally or unintentionally, that is considered inappropriate or offensive in nature. In cases where you receive inappropriate or offensive material, please complete the following steps. Thank you for helping keep the learning environment safe.

Immediately notify facultyservices@aspen.edu to explain what occurred and the nature of the material. At this step, only a written description of the incident is needed.
In the subject line of your email to Faculty Services, include the subject title of “Offensive Material.”
Do not send the offensive material forward to anyone, including Faculty Services. In some instances, the transmission of certain material could be considered a serious criminal violation.
Save documentation related to the incident.
Avoid communication with the person who sent the offensive material.
Wait for University personnel to follow up with you about next steps.

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