Tag: Distance Learning

ECOS and Dean Come Together to Improve Online Learning

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Story By

Mark Graven

 Staff Writer


CNM’S Executive Council of Students (ECOS) met with the Phil Lister, dean of  the Math, Science and Engineering School at CNM, to chart a path forward in improving remote learning in science and math courses.  

Dean Lister, who engaged ECOS board members concerns at their regular meeting of March 19th via a Jitzi link, which students can access on Fridays at 2 p.m.

By the end of the meeting Lister said he would be contacting members of his faculty to encourage more lecture sessions with students, and more faculty/student interaction generally.

ECOS board members say they have been fielding complaints from students  that some on-line math and science courses lack a real-time lecture component in which students can ask professors questions to clarify difficult concepts.

Lister said he would like to hear personally from students that might be dissatisfied with their faculty interaction time, so that problems can be addressed.

“I want to hear from students”  said Lister.  “It can be scary for students to raise concerns.  I want to assure students that we are friendly.”

He said that some faculty may have had a harder time adjusting to remote learning in Covid times. And these faculty members could be given assistance.  

ECOS members suggested that professors with recorded lectures could share them with other professors that have had difficulty in on-line lecturing.

ECOS members have taken the position that recorded lectures are better than no lecture at all. The have also said that it helps science and math students to see problems worked on a whiteboard.

Lister said that not all students prefer lecture, but he agreed with ECOS members that courses, and sections of courses, that do have lectures, could be indicated in the course catalogue, or some other means.

“It is important that students know what to expect,” said ECOS President Alex Crossland. 

Dean Lister agreed with ECOS members that students had a right to know what type of learning experience they are signing up for.

Board Vice President Imane Bahji, who has spearheaded the ECOS’s effort to inject more lecture in on-line math and science courses, said she was pleased with Dean Lister’s responses, but that ECOS would still have to  “keep our eyes out.”

ECOS members said they want on-line improvements implemented by the start of the upcoming summer semester.

ECOS & Dean to Discuss Future of Online Education

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By

Mark Graven

Staff Writer


Phil Lister, Dean of the School of Math, Science and Engineering at CNM has accepted an invitation to attend the next Executive Council of Students (ECOS) to be held March 19th, according to ECOS President Alex Crossland.
The EOCS board has been searching for a way of obtaining more interaction between professors and students in math and science courses in the remote learning process that has taken over CNM, during Covid times.
To that end the ECOS board members, at last Friday’s meeting, crafted an email inviting Dean Lister to meet with board members this coming Friday.  By the end of the meeting last Friday, Lister replied that he would attend, Crossland announced.
Dean Lister presides over a large amount of academic territory at CNM.  The MSE School offers degree programs in Biology; Biotechnology; Chemistry; Earth and Planetary Science; Engineering; Geography; Mathematical Science; Nutrition; Physics; and Pre-Health Scidnce; and non-degree programs in Astronomy and Natural Science (for teachers).
Physics course have come under particular scrutiny at ECOS board meetings because they lack a lecture component, according to Imane Bahji. ECOS vice-president.  
Bahji said that if difficult science and math courses are not going to offer lecture, or some other reasonable substitute for faculty student interaction, then CNM should say so upfront, so that students know what they are getting into.  
ECOS had previously contacted CNM President Tracey Hartzler, and met the the Faculty Senate, but did not achieve the improvement to remote learning that board members wanted to see.
Students interested in watching ECOS meeting with Dean Lister can go to My CNM and search for ECOS meeting link.  The meeting is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m., as per usual with ECOS meetings.

ECOS Frustrated by Lack of Communication with Students

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Story by

Mark Graven

Staff Reporter
As the CNM Executive Council of Students (ECOS) delayed its project of submitting a letter to the college administration regarding concerns about remote learning, ECOS members voiced complaints about their inability to communicate with fellow students.
ECOS President Alex Crossland said, at a remotely attended meeting on Friday, October 16th, that he sensed that many students  feel “isolated,” but that is hard to substantiate because of a lack of communication.

Board Vice-president Imane Bahji said she knows she is frustrated by remote learning, and the difficulty in having “give and take” with professors,
“I go through my weekly cry sessions,”  said Bahji, adding,  “I might have to finish my degree, never sitting in another classroom.”
Bahji suggested that ECOS should hold an on-line event where students “can vent”  on remote learning, if they want.  
No students from the student body at large attended Fridays ECOS meeting.  The meeting are advertised on  ECOS CNM web page, which provide the remote connection to the meetings.  

ECOS does have a Suggestion Box on their CNM page, set up by ECOS Outreach Officer Colin Stapleton, although this has been rarely used.  ECOS said it did receive one suggestion, in the week prior to last Friday meeting.
Stapleton has emphasized that suggestions can be made anonymously.
ECOS has been discussing ways that it can interact with students, and the many student clubs it funds, in one place, but has yet to settle on a solution. 
ECOS members decided to give themselves to the “end of October” to finish their letter to the administration.

Crossland said it may be difficult to have an impact on remote learning for the current semester, but that the letter could help with the Spring term.

ECOS working on Improving Remote Learning

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Story by

Mark Graven

Staff Reporter

CNM’s Executive Council of Students (ECOS) is working on a letter to CNM administration regarding concerns about remote learning– the primary method of instruction at CNM during  Covid times, although some “hands on” classes have returned to campus on a restricted basis.
ECOS Vice President Imane Bahji. said she would draft a letter taking up concerns and suggestions students might have about remote learning.  
ECOS board members said they would take up the draft letter at their next meeting which will be conducted remotely on October 9.  (See CNM ECOS web page for details.)

ECOS President Alex Crossland said the CNM administration might be under a false impression that the “school is doing well,” with remote learning. 

“It just feels like we are on a downward trend”

Said crossland

Bahji repeated a concern that she voiced at two previous ECOS meetings:  that remote classes lack a lecture component where students can interact with professors, ask questions, and clarify concepts.  Bahji says she fears that students feel frustrated when they don’t understand concepts, so that the may withdraw from classes, and ultimately drop out of school.
Bahji said many students are seeking “outside resources”  to acquire the understanding the expected to get from their CNM course. 
Cleopatra Romero, a CNM student, who wants to join the ECOS board,  ( See ECOS website for information on how to join ECOS.) said students could be more assertive in contacting their professor with questions.  

“We should encourage students to get in touch with their professor, if they are having trouble,”

SAid Romero


Kristopher Gaussoin, director of student life and discipline at CNM, the advisor for ECOS board, said students should be careful about using outside resources, such as UNM course materials, in that there may be legal implications– such as copyright laws involved.
Gaussoin said that ECOS has a “very powerful voice” in how the school is run,  and that the administration “cares about your opinion.” 
“You should use your power positively,” urged Gaussoin, noting that how ECOS packages its message could play an important part in getting results.
Meanwhile ECOS continues to seek input from students through its Suggestion Box on it CNM web page.  That input can be made anonymously, according to ECOS outreach officer, Colin Stapleton.
Crossland said that he was hopeful that ECOS could improve remote learning in the future, but also effect some change in the current fall semester.

There’s an App for that; Blackboard available on iPhones and Android

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By Martin Montoya, Staff Reporter

Just in time for the beginning of the semester, a free CNM guide will be available for students and faculty that will identify Applications for both Android and Apple devices for learning, reading, creating and studying, said Audrey Gramstad, Administrative Director, Distance Learning and Instructional Support.
Prior to now there has not been a college wide distance learning effort to give this information to students and the burden is on Gramstad and her staff to get the faculty to use the APPs, so students can effectively use these tools in learning here at school, Gramstad said.
“My staff who are all distance learning specialists, student employees who all take online courses or faculty that have identified a plethora of Apps that students and faculty can use to engage in their learning at CNM; they are all free Apps that won’t cost anything,” she said.
With the help of mobile analytics the staff in the distance learning community can tell that 90 percent of CNM students use Tablet devices for school, she said.
Educating the staff in making course content more mobile enabled is what the distance learning staff is attempting to do and Gramstad said it starts with simple things the faculty could do, such as making a syllabus in a PDF file instead of a Word document.
“There are lots of different Applications that you can use in conjunction with your distance learning classes you take, or face to face classes,” Gramstad said.
Blackboard does have a mobile App that students can use, and with its debut two years ago it was difficult to navigate but it has become much more efficient, she said.
The Blackboard mobile App is free, however you do have to pay to get access to the college site to get your courses. It costs $5 for a lifetime subscription and $1.99 for a year, she said.
“Most people that we have surveyed and talked to didn’t have a problem paying a couple bucks a year,” she said.
Gramstad explained it is the same price as what she pays for Angry Birds: Starwars and that it is only a small one-time fee just like any other mobile app.
Blackboard is a learning management system and there are two ways to get onto it, first is through the web by logging onto CNM and clicking the link, and the second by downloading the Blackboard mobile App, she said.
Every course offered at CNM each term has its own Blackboard page; it just depends on whether the faculty chooses to use it, she said.
There are between 7200 and 7500 online students each term, Gramstad said. Each term the week before school starts, and during the first two weeks there is drop in computer labs on all of the campuses at different times, and students can get actual hands-on help with Blackboard courses, distance learning courses, and information that can be found on the distance learning website.
“We thought since the explosion of tablets in learning, we are going to give our students a step up and say, ‘Hey, use these things,’” because knowing what application resources there are for students and how to use these tools can help everyone to succeed more in online classrooms, Gramstad said.

Distance Learning’s new deal: Online courses roll out revamp

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By: Daniel Montano, Staff Reporter

Starting in the fall 2014 semester, students taking online classes can expect to see some changes to the familiar distance learning website, Blackboard, said Audrey Gramstad, Administrative Director of distance learning.

The new Blackboard will include two new software packages and a standardized distance learning classroom intended to allow students to focus on learning course material rather than on how to navigate through it, she said.

“A lot of students have called me about distance learning, having an issue with the fact that every course looks different. If you take five online courses, all five of them look and navigate differently, so my staff and I came up with something called the distance learning classroom,” she said.

The new DL classroom, which is being tested this semester in two online courses that are part of a pilot program, will look very similar to the current Blackboard site but will be designed to be more user friendly, she said.

The DL classroom will have a taskbar on the left hand side that will include direct links to assignments, discussions, technical help and a ‘start here’ portion that will include syllabus, course and instructor information, said Gramstad.

“That helps simplify the navigation so that instead of hunting for ‘How do I contact my instructor?’ or ‘Where do I get tech support?’ It’s always in the same place for every course,” she said.

The new software packages will expand on the current Blackboard login page by including different channels and modules, much like myCNM, which is a profile-based platform that is personalized to the individual user, she said.

Blackboard will also include new file sharing capabilities which, in conjunction with Blackboard’s current instant messaging system, students can use for study and discussion groups, or accessing library, counseling and other student services, she said.

“We’re trying to get all services online so that distance learning students have same access as face-to-face students. If a student asked for a button where they could access health services or veteran’s services, we would add it,” Gramstad said.

The new software will allow instructors to share information common from one course to another, she said.

“So instead of each faculty person creating their own little discussion board or their own little tutorial, they can put it in a repository from which they can share it with any other faculty members that would use that same kind of material,” Gramstad said.

Brahm Woody, Liberal Arts major and instructional technician for SAGE, is currently taking an online class and said he hopes the new Blackboard will be more stable.

“We had someone taking finals last fall and Blackboard crapped out. I contacted the Blackboard supervisor at the SRC and I was told it was a vendor issue. So there was nothing we could do on our end,” Woody said.

Gramstad said that most of the problems associated with Blackboard’s stability have to do with issues unrelated to Blackboard errors, but that the new content sharing ability will help to clear clutter from Blackboard, which should contribute to a more smoothly running site.

Margaret Segura, Business Administration major, has taken three classes online and said that she hopes CNM makes communication with online instructors easier and that she is happy more resources will be available through Blackboard.

“I work with disability resources and I have had a lot of issues, so if everything is put into one place there will be less confusion and more success.” Segura said.

Alyssa Monet- Winters, Diagnostic Medical Stenography major, has taken six courses online and said she hopes that the new Blackboard will be more reliable and she hopes contacting instructors will be easier.

“Being able to contact your instructors better would be nice, because email doesn’t get through to the teachers and you end up being unable to talk to them,” Monet- Winters said.

Although the basic changes have already been chosen, the new Blackboard is only in its beginning stages and things might be added or changed depending on the feedback the distance learning staff receives from students and faculty, Gramstad said.

Upcoming changes: Blackboard courses

  • All online classes will have the same format.
  • The toolbar on left hand side will have direct links to all important course information.
  • All courses will now have a quick and easy “Start here” module.
  • The blackboard calendar will have all assignments and due dates for all online classes being in assignments.
  • Student support will be located in the bottom left-hand side of courses.
  • Allows faculty to focus on content of courses instead of building from scratch