Ad hoc Committee on Online Education Status Report: March

Update Based on what we know about pedagogical effectiveness and a review of the literature, we have outlined a vision for the nature and size of online classes, which we have tentatively termed as High touch-high tech 2

Characteristics of a High touch- high tech Class: Overall, it is part of a course that is responsive to student learning and current events, And at a minimum, the class: – Functions as a single unit –Has a high level of faculty-student interaction –Has assignments that include and integrate student-to-student collaboration 3

The High touch-high tech class: –Is grading intensive: assignments require personal feedback about progress –Has weekly faculty initiated communication to class – Offers a timely individual response to student questions and concerns (within 24 hrs.) 4

Class Size Best practices indicate that the faculty member’s ability to create and maintain a high touch-high tech environment is inversely proportional to class size. An optimal size for a High touch-high tech class is students in a class. (Fifteen students is the break-even point for cost-revenue). 5

Members Belinda Blevins KnabePsychology Vickie EdwardsIOG Jennifer HoltzCARE James GoldenCriminal Justice Cynthia JohnsonAccounting Denise LeGrandMathematics Karen LeonardManagement Carolyn MacheakLibrary Lisa SherwinPsychology 6

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High tech-high touch is a term first coined by Naisbitt in the 1980s and Thornburg in 2002 elaborates to define it as: embracing technology that preserves our humanness and rejecting technology that intrudes upon it. 8