Online Education Faculty Resources

Documenting Attendance in Distance Education Courses

What is equity in online education?

Achieving institutional equity is essential to student learning. To facilitate this process, equity-minded educators must deepen our commitment to providing supportive online learning environment that is based upon equity principles and high-impact practices to address disparities, close achievement gaps, and meet the needs of each student.

Among its definitions, Merriam-Webster (n.d.) defines equity as “freedom from bias or favoritism.” In the Distance Education context, Peralta uses the term equity to mean “freedom from bias or assumptions that negatively impact online learners’ motivations, opportunities, or accomplishments.”

Unfortunately, there are clear achievement gaps for certain student populations in online courses, which means every online teacher has to be proactive in addressing challenges and barriers that affect the success of those student groups. Those challenges and barriers can be as fundamental as access—making sure all students have access to online courses and the technology required to complete them. Conversely, they can be as complex as helping students combat stereotype threat or increasing their feelings of social belonging in an online course environment.

NOTE: The California Community Colleges’ California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI) has created a Student Equity Work Group that is charged with the following tasks:

• examining the institutional, systemic and learning barriers that result in inequitable outcomes and disparate impact in course and degree completion rates in online education,
• identifying disparities and challenges associated with online student equity, and
• identifying success strategies to address these inequities as it relates to course and degree completion.

Who faces equity challenges?

Studies comparing performance in face-to-face and online courses (Jaggars, 2014) found that the following groups have a higher risk of not completing or passing online courses:

• Males
• First-generation students
• Low-income students
• Ethnic minority students (specifically Latinx and African-American)
• Academically underprepared students

The four Peralta Colleges include the following additional groups in their Student Equity Plans that address equity in all classes—not just online classes:

• • Foster youth
  • Students with disabilities
  • Military veterans

What equity factors affect success?

A wide range of factors affect student success, many of which can be improved by taking steps to improve equity:

• • Academic factors: Generally, students’ level of preparedness for learning (e.g., currently having ineffective study or learning skills which can be improved) and, specifically, students’ readiness for online learning affect their success.
  • Pedagogical factors: Your course organization and design, the quality and quantity of interaction opportunities, and timely and effective feedback all contribute to success.
  • Psychological factors: Students’ feelings of social belonging and ability to address stereotype threat improve success, as do students’ perceptions of the course’s value relevance and the teacher’s compassion.
  • Social factors: Students’ feelings of isolation or alienation in an online course have a negative impact, while joining a learning community has a positive impact.
  • Technological factors: Access to and ability to use the technologies required for online course—or lack thereof—affect students’ success.

How can you increase equity?

Here are a few ways you can increase equity in your online and/or hybrid course:

• • Identify and address unconscious bias – Whether we are aware of it or not, our behavior as teachers is affected by unconscious attitudes, stereotypes, assumptions and biases. For example, “instructors may assume that students know to seek help when they are struggling” (Yale CTL, n.d.).
  • Identify and address image and representation bias – Our students’ perceptions are influenced by the images they see. As teachers, we rarely think about how the images in our textbooks, presentations, course materials, and other Web resources might show unequal representation (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age); and/or promote stereotypes (Kay, Matuszek & Munson, 2015). For example, textbooks may underrepresent women and certain ethnicities in images of people in prestigious professions or leadership positions.
  • Create inclusive course environments and activities – If we’re not careful, online and hybrid courses have the potential to exclude different types learners from participating. Learners with disabilities are one of the most notable groups, but not the only one by any means! There are a wide range of inclusion strategies to change this dynamic.
  • Increase personal connection with students – Increasing your personal connection with students is critical in an online or hybrid course. Alienation and isolation are real factors that drive students to drop out of or stop participating in online courses. Conversely, a higher sense of connection with the instructor leads to higher retention and success (CCCCO, 2013).
  • Use clear language, goals and measures – It’s easy to think we’re being clear, but first generation college students don’t work from the same set of assumptions about completing work for college courses–especially online courses. USC’s Center for Urban Education (n.d.) shared five principles to achieve equity. The first principle outlines the need to use clear language, goals and measures.
  • Refer students to support and resources – Student success is a team effort—it goes beyond any one course or teacher. In addition to setting up your course to foster success, point students to resources relevant to them. The Student Resources Site provides many  links to relevant support for online students.

You’ll read more about these strategies and others as you complete this module. It’s worth noting that the CVC-OEI Online Equity Framework suggests that there are three aspects to increasing equity:

• • Instruction and course design: Equity-minded online courses
  • Student services: Equitable access and support for students
  • Institution: Institutional policies and practices that promote equity

More Resources: 

• • Peralta Online Equity Rubric.pdf

Sign up for the Online Equity Training offered at PCCD.

Title 5 

• • Title 5, § 55204, Instructor Contact of California Education Code requires distance education courses to have “regular effective contact between instructor and students, and among students*.”
  • *Please Note: In Spring 2019, Title 5 was amended to include the phrase “among students” to require student-student interaction in addition to instructor-student interaction. Review this resource to learn more about this update to Title 5.

ACCJC

• • The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) requires distance education courses to have “regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor.” Read this article to learn more about four elements that guide regular and substantive interaction and this document for ACCJC’s guide for evaluating distance education.

Federal Regulations

ASCCC

• • The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) recommends that colleges develop regular and effective contact policies and adopted a paper providing guidance on professional standards for educational practices in online education.

The Peralta Community College District Distance Education Plan provides recommendations for acheiving instructor-student interaction that is “regular and substantive” (ACCJC) and/or “regular and effective” (Title 5). Based on an analysis of accreditation audits, WCET identified four criteria for what constitutes “regular and substantive interaction” (Poulin & Davis, 2016):

• Interaction must be initiated by the instructor. While this is not in the definition, it was highlighted in college audits by the Office of Inspector General.
• Interaction must be “regular” and …somewhat frequent. This is interpreted as repeated instances at specific intervals (e.g., once a week, twice a month) or conducted in the same way (via email, LMS announcements, LMS forums).
• Interaction must be “substantive” or of an academic nature. This is interpreted as activities that “further learning or assessment of learning”(Poulin & Davis, 2016, para. 22).
• Interaction must be with an instructor that meets accrediting agency standards.

Examples

Below you will find examples of instructor-student and student-student interaction. You do not need to incorporate all the examples below. They are intended as a suggested guide and may vary based on discipline, pedagogical approach, or instructional design:

• • Welcome email or video
    • Ideally a welcome email or video is emailed to students before the class begins to promote early engagement and set the tone for the course
    • Some instructors send more than one pre-semester communication to create multiple touch points with students before the class begins
      • Check out the Creating a Successful First Impression in Your Online Course video tutorial
  • First day or week of course check-in assignment
    • Examples: a self- introduction discussion forum, syllabus or classroom code of conduct quiz, icebreaker activity, internet scavenger hunt, etc.
    • A first day or week check-in assignment also helps determine online student attendance for census and attendance verification roster reporting
  • Video conferencing via Zoom
    • Examples: use for ongoing live office hours, exam review sessions, lectures, student oral presentations, student group projects, guest speakers, virtual field trips, etc.
  • Customized front page
    • Use a Front Page to post engaging content and important information about your course
      • Some faculty update or modify aspects of their homepage weekly to coincide with the topic or unit in the course
  • Discussion boards
    • Instructor moderated discussion forum assignments
      • Equity Tip: Consider creating a system to track which students you respond to in the forum each week to ensure every student gets at least one response from you throughout the term. You can create an Excel spreadsheet to track responses or divide your roster into groups (i.e. alphabetical by last name– group #1 is A-F, group #2 is G-L, etc.) and respond to each group in intervals
    • Q&A board where instructors or fellow students answer questions
    • A student “chat cafe” or informal discussion board for students to connect with each other
  • Announcements
    • Create regular written, audio, or video announcements in Canvas
    • Can be used to preview, summarize, or clarify course content
    • Post announcements with links to relevant articles or videos about course content
  • Individual contact with students via e-mail, phone, or video
    • Sign up for a free Google Voice phone number and forward calls to any phone number
    • Sign up for a free Zoom account for video conferencing
    • Consider responding to student emails/messages in Canvas with an audio or video comment to personalize the response
  • Facilitating student to student contact
    • Learn how to create groups in Canvas for small group projects, assignments, or presentations
    • Create peer review assignments in Canvas
    • Use Zoom to facilitate live group projects, study sessions, or presentations
    • Use Canvas LTIs or apps to allow students to work and create connection with each other
  • Timely and individualized feedback on student work
    • Add text, video, audio, or speech recognition comments in SpeedGrader
    • Add annotated comments using DocViewer in SpeedGrader

Note: If you are using a publisher 3rd party website that only allows for automatically graded assignments, this should be supplemented with assignments in Canvas that allow you to give individualized, thorough feedback. When possible, course activity and interaction should be kept in Canvas for documentation.

Email Distance Education Coordinator Richard Kaeser at rkaeser@peralta.edu to add additional examples and best practices to this list.

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