Overview

Dates: January-December 2012.

Seven years ago, the Nicholas School of the Environment initiated the Duke Environmental Leadership Program, an online master’s degree aimed at mid-career professionals.  The program, which includes interdisciplinary courses on environmental management issues, includes online courses focusing on real-life case studies and field experience opportunities where students in the program meet with leaders in the private, public and not-for-profit sector in Washington, DC.

The Center for Instructional Technology, through our Fellows program, worked directly with NSOE faculty when the DEL program was established.  As the program grew and evolved, there emerged a need for a second Fellows program to explore how the program can improve and build on best practices for distance teaching that have been established in DEL and to revise an online faculty handbook and formats of teaching modules used by faculty.

Fellows Activities

Fellows met once each month to work on activities and discuss topics explored over the 2012 calendar year as part of the program.  The group looked best practices for managing online discussions and video conferencing technologies, establishing rubrics for designing courses in DEL, managing larger groups of students in online courses, and student dynamics in online courses.  Each meeting included follow up discussions on readings, group activities, and discussions to come to a consensus on best practices for teaching in DEL and demonstrations of technologies used in DEL or that might have potential use in DEL including discussion forums, wikis, Google Doscs, Adobe Connect, Duke Capture (Panopto), and Google Hangouts.

Outcomes

Individual faculty developed or redesigned specific projects or assignments for their online courses.  In addition, the DEL Fellows group revised the faculty handbook for DEL and developed rubrics, guides and tip sheets that can be used by DEL faculty when designing or revising their courses.

At the end of the Fellows program, the participants offered up comments on new technologies and teaching methods they are trying in their courses and aspects of the Fellowship that proved useful in DEL.

“The most interesting part was the interactions with my colleagues which doesn’t happen very often.  Many of the discussions were excellent and went well beyond the particular technology at issue.” – Don Wells

“This semester I will be implementing a seminar course in environmental justice that integrates residential masters and PhD students with on-line masters students using Google Hangouts. I am really looking forward to tackling this challenge and using technology to bring the two cohorts together in real time so that we can learn from one another.” – Deborah Rigling Gallagher

“The CIT Fellowship was an engaging experience that allowed me to both think deeply about the role that technology plays in my teaching and bond with faculty that encounter similar pedagogical challenges. Already, I have used ideas presented during our CIT Fellowship in the classroom. Two weeks ago, I recorded my first lecture, allowing me to use classroom space to facilitate in-depth discussion, while still having a medium by which to confer course content and details. I also recently ran my first on-line only discussion, through Adobe Connect. In addition, the CIT Fellowship provided space to reflect on my teaching practices within the larger context of goals of the DEL-MEM program. Overall, it was an inspiring and enriching experience, and I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate.” – Nicolette Cagle

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to gather with my colleagues and talk about teaching. Our Fellows Program provided both useful tools for enhancing our DEL courses but also a space for reflection on our overall goals and approaches in this program. I definitely feel clearer about how to approach my own courses, including both the logistics of managing the online environment and setting appropriate expectations for my students. Randy and Seth provided us with a colorful toolbox to enhance our DEL courses and I’m already using some of them in my current DEL course, Restoration Ecology”. – Rebecca Vidra

“Early in our discussions, I was reminded that one advantage DEL students have over most on-campus students is that they are in a work environment.  Although I have previously encouraged students to use work problems as the basis for their class exercises and projects, this year I put more emphasis on the work environment by asking students to reflect on each stage of decision analysis we were learning in relation to how that stage of decision making is currently handled in their work environments.  Students posted their reflections and we included some discussion of these posts in weekly conference calls.  From my reading of these posts, and from student self-reports during the class and in end of class evaluations, these reflections helped students critique decision making in their workplaces and made them more receptive to the new tools they were learning in class.” – Lynn Maguire

“I particularly enjoyed the last couple of sessions on Google Hangouts and Coursera.  Google Hangouts may be more effective way of getting robust student interaction that discussion boards have been thus far (one of my lingering disappointments with my course was an inability to have more effective discussion boards).  Coursera examples were fascinating, especially crowd-sourced feedback on key issues.  I would like to figure out how transferable those lessons are from a super-sized format like Coursera with tens of hundreds of thousands of participants to a DEL setting with 1-2 dozen.” – Brian Murray

“Having another opportunity to bring the DEL faculty together at the same table proved to be quite productive, informative, and collaborative. The outcomes of the program will undoubtedly strengthen the DEL-MEM program – benefiting both faculty and students – and provides a basis for a strong support system for new and existing DEL faculty. The creation of the online Faculty Guide will evolve as we continue this journey. Furthermore, the Fellows program reinvigorated the basis for DEL staff and faculty to continue to share experiences, identify best practices, review and reflect on the programs goals, and continuously improve the program. Kudos to the DEL faculty for a great year together!” – Sherri Nevius

Participants

The DEL Fellows was proposed by Sherri Nevius, and consultants Randy A. Riddle and Seth Anderson supported the Fellowship on behalf of the CIT.  Faculty fellows participating were:

  • Nicolette Cagle
    Lecturing Fellow, Thompson Writing Program
  • Deborah Rigling Gallagher
    Assistant Professor of the Practice of Resource and Environmental Policy and Executive Director of the Duke Environmental Leadership Program
  • Lynn Maguire
    Professor of the Practice of Environmental Decision Analysis and Director of Professional Studies
  • Brian Murray
    Research Professor and Director for Economic Analysis
  • Elizabeth Shapiro
    Assistant Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy and Management
  • Don Wells
    Consultant in Leadership

 

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