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The purpose of this paper is to describe an online faculty development pilot course on how to engage students online. A framework was used, referred to as the Trifecta of Student Engagement, for the design of the course. The Trifecta of Student Engagement proposes that students, in order to be fully engaged in a course, need to be engaged with their course content, with their peers and with their instructor. The course has three units of content that each correspond to the Trifecta of Student Engagement. This course has gone through one pilot with faculty and has impacted students and faculty positively.

An online faculty development course was piloted with eight faculty members across a range of disciplines who participated in the program. After taking the course, they had to apply the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to a course they taught and share what they did via written report, webinar, or web presentation. This study summarized the faculty participants’ written reports and presentations as well as provided a qualitative evaluation on the impact this course had on students and faculty.

After faculty applied the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to courses taught, faculty saw an improvement in student engagement, satisfaction, learning and achievement. Three faculty surveyed students to determine their engagement and satisfaction and found students to respond positively to the use of tools and activities for student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement. Two faculty examined student grades to determine if there were changes in student outcomes. One professor saw average grades increase by 11 percent. Another professor saw grades improve by 8 percent. She also found that student assessment of learning increased by 0.57. Both faculty attributed the improvement to the effectiveness of the teaching strategies employed.

This research is limited to the eight faculty who participated in the pilot. Some faculty used methods to attempt to measure the impacts of their teaching practices by surveying students and looking at student performance data. A second pilot is needed for additional faculty to take the course and apply the Trifecta of Engagement framework to generate more data for impact.

Institutions looking to create an online teaching professional development course for faculty can utilize the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework for their course design. Additionally, faculty can read about tools and strategies that they can immediately apply to create more student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement.

Faculty can be more intentional in how they engage students in their online course experience.

This paper adds to the literature on faculty development regarding student-centered teaching practices. Other institutions looking to create a faculty development course or program that utilizes a student-centered framework may find aspects of this paper useful for their own online teaching professional development initiatives.

In this paper we provide evidence of successful online learning experience with UAE students at Zayed University in the UAE. First we describe the processes and technologies used in delivering the online course "Virtual Business Challenges". Based on survey results we discuss students’ evaluations and experience and the technologies used. Overall, students had a positive learning experience in the course.

As online education offerings are extended to more students, organizations are increasingly interested in the effectiveness of online learning compared to a traditional classroom. The need for research on the learning outcomes of students is imperative. The purpose of this study is to compare student learning in a traditional classroom with the equivalent online course. This research explores the research question: What is the difference between student learning in a leadership studies course through online versus traditional delivery methods? This study utilizes a directed content analysis to investigate student assignments using Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model as a foundational theory. Previous research reveals a contradiction on student outlook on the instructor and format of the class, as well as understanding the effectiveness of each method of delivery. Findings in this study indicate that online students may engage more often in deeper learning on assignments than those in the traditional classroom environment.

This study aims to demonstrate which course elements were responsible for community building, fostering subjectification and learning for being in an online course on environmental and sustainability education (ESE) during the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing.

The study investigates a graduate-level course on Environmental Education for Sustainable Living that due to COVID-19 had to be taught mainly online. A retrospective analysis was conducted when the facilitators reflected on why the course, against expectations, appeared to have affected so many students in such a meaningful and profound way as shown by their personal reflections and the course evaluation. Methodologically, this study can be described as explorative and interpretative, although it was complemented by a standardised empirical analytical end-of course evaluation.

Within the context of this study, sense of community is linked to and facilitated by the online learning environment and the educators’ and students’ roles throughout the course. This study found that interaction and inclusion can be augmented by a hybrid educational design and supported by the mutual efforts of educators and students. Reflective tasks and discussions most prominently evoked subjectification. The encouragement of students to see themselves as central subjects and the inclusion of creative tasks supported both personal exploration and sense of community.

This study provides educational institutions teaching online with valuable information regarding course elements that foster subjectification and create a sense of community. This is particularly of interest for the design of online ESE emphasising learning for being and more relational approaches towards teaching and learning.

This global, quantitative study explores the instructional and assessment strategy use of leadership educators who teach online, academic credit-bearing leadership studies courses at graduate- and undergraduate-levels. Participants include 81 graduate-level and 37 undergraduate- level instructors who taught an online leadership studies course within two years of completing the web-based survey used in this study. Findings suggest that discussion-based pedagogies, most commonly facilitated in online discussion boards, were the most widely used strategies. And, while reflection, case studies, and group or individual projects were also used frequently, instructors teaching graduate-level courses used ungraded formative quizzes significantly more often than undergraduate instructors. Findings also suggest that instructors attached the most weight to their students’ overall course grades to discussion boards, major writing projects or term papers, and participation.

This study aims to use self-reported publicly available student assessment data from the time period when there was an abrupt change in instructional method at the start of COVID-19 to assess potential for differences as a result of course delivery mode.

A general linear model using 837 student evaluations from 191 US public higher education institutions investigates the impact on student performance and how performance was related to a number of covariates, namely, online experience of instructor prior to shut downs, discipline of study and size of institution.

The analysis finds an overall grade point average (GPA) increase of 0.10 (out of 4.0) associated with the shift away from face-to-face instruction. In exploring potential covariates, only institutional size was significant in explaining this increase in GPA. This supports the notion that despite hardships inherent with the abrupt switch to online education across the country that student grades as a whole did not suffer.

The source of data was self-reported. In addition, GPA is an imperfect measure of student learning. Despite this, because GPA is highly correlated with student satisfaction, retention and matriculation, it is relevant.

This study suggests that the rapid transition to online instruction did not negatively impact student performance and may have marginally increased these marks. These findings were cross-disciplinary and not influenced by the instructor’s prior online teaching experience. These findings support the idea that institutions and instructors should be more willing to use a variety of delivery modes going forward.

The data set used is uniquely large and varied in the number of institutions, professors, students and discipline. The COVID-19-induced transition from largely in-class instruction to mostly online or remote instruction allowed for a natural experiment that eliminates the sample selection problem associated with most other instructional method comparison studies.

The spread of Covid-19 has led to the closure of educational institutions worldwide, forcing academic institutions to find online platforms. The purpose of this paper is to accelerate the development of the online learning (OL) environments within those institutions. The Covid-19 pandemic has unfolded the extent of the academic institutions' readiness to deal with such a crisis.

In this vein, the study aimed to identify the perception of translation instructors in teaching translation courses online during Covid-19, using a questionnaire to explore the strategies and challenges of teaching and assessing students' performance. The analysis revealed instructors' reliance on Zoom and Microsoft Teams in offering virtual classes and WhatsApp in communication with students outside the class.

The findings revealed the relative effectiveness of online education, but its efficacy is less than face-to-face learning according to the respondents' views. It was also found that students faced difficulties in OL, which lie in adapting to the online environment, lack of interaction and motivation and the deficiency of data connections. Even though online education could work as an aid during Covid-19, but it could not replace face-to-face instruction. Based on the findings, the study recommended blended learning. Combining online education with face-to-face instruction, i.e. face-to-face plus synchronous and asynchronous, would result in a rigorous OL environment.

The research is genuine and there is no conflict of interest.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a form of distance education courses. They have been celebrated as revolutionizing the way learners access education and the way colleges and universities could expand education on a global scale beyond their traditional campuses. The purpose of this study is to identify the pedagogical strategies used for instruction and assessment in leadership-oriented MOOCs and gain a more refined understanding of the current state of MOOCs in leadership education. This study examines 96 leadership MOOCs across the platforms of Coursera, EdX, FutureLearn, Canvas.net, and Standford Online through a content analysis research framework. The study concludes with a discussion of leadership MOOC pedagogy and presents the current state of MOOCS among leadership education and professional development.

In this opinion article, the authors share their experiences with and perspectives on course design requirements and barriers when applying challenge-based learning (CBL) in an online sustainability education setting. CBL is an established learning approach for (higher) sustainability education. It enables teachers to engage students with open, real-life grand challenges through inter-/transdisciplinary student team collaboration. However, empirical research is scarce and mainly based on face-to-face CBL case studies. Thus far, the opportunities to apply CBL in online educational settings are also underinvestigated.

Using the TPACK framework, the authors address technological, pedagogical and content knowledge related to CBL and online sustainability education. The integration of the different components is discussed, providing teachers and course designers insight into design requirements and barriers.

This paper supports the promising future of online CBL for sustainability education, especially in the context of inter-/national inter-university collaboration, yet emphasizes the need for deliberate use of online collaboration and teaching tools.

As an institution that has invested in e-learning infrastructure and technology for e-learning delivery, Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak conducted The Digital Educator Series as a means of embracing this educational disruption. In particular, this paper reports on the first three courses held under the Digital Educator Series that aims to equip teachers with practical and effective online teaching to school teachers in Sarawak. While the training is still in effect, preliminary results are shared, and implications for practice and recommendations for further research are considered.

Approximately 136 questionnaires containing close-and open-ended items were distributed to the teacher participants of the Digital Educator Series. Close-ended items were designed to gather general information about their perceptions of online teaching and learning. Items were constructed to gather insights on familiarity with online teaching and learning, perceived usefulness of platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Google Classrooms. The open-ended items were designed to gather information on areas of improvement for the courses and professional development needs of teachers for online teaching.

The findings revealed very mixed responses in terms of teachers' familiarity with online teaching and learning. Nonetheless, it was encouraging that the majority of teachers felt positively about the impact and usefulness of the courses in the Digital Educator Series and have expressed that would like to learn more about online teaching pedagogy. Teachers reported the greatest familiarity with Google Classroom and were very positive about the applicability the Google Classroom Course (91.2%) in their own teaching practice. Conversely, all of the participants reported they were unfamiliar with Microsoft Teams. Accordingly, the teachers did not perceive its applicability to be as high as the Google Classroom. The qualitative findings further corroborated this and expressed the need for specific professional development programmes that include pedagogical and technological support. Overall, the teachers are strongly focussed in their professional development in order to improve their online teaching,

Like other research, this too has its limitations. The sample size in this study was restricted to those who attended the Digital Educator Series training. Hence the results of this study, whilst have been enriching, and to a certain extent are supported by the current literature, the accuracy of the description may be unique to this particular group of individuals, within this particular setting. Additionally, the study only relied on self-reports from both the questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews. This study accepts that self-reports have shortcomings. Not all experiences of the courses would have been readily accessible through the teachers' conscious reflections. This makes it difficult to construct a complete picture of the experience, challenges and identify all salient factors within a particular workshop or training.

Although the adoption of teaching and learning to online platforms is undoubtedly the way to maintain continuity of learning for students, it has also unveiled glaring inequities in Sarawak. Therefore, continuous and personalised professional development needs to be provided, focussing on pedagogical and technological support. There is a need to embrace these changes as a long-term response that will develop and improve over the next few years. That response should include better infrastructure, policies for quality improvement, accessibility standards and strategic plans for continuous access in the future. This includes advocating for platforms that can fit into the core technology environment and for teachers to adopt an innovative mindset.

In light of the complex and multifaceted challenge of transitioning to online learning in Sarawak Malaysia, it was evident that the need for innovative solutions to optimize educational endeavours has become accelerated. To ensure that students are well-supported and widening participation and access to education, it is imperative that the education disruption be embraced. This starts with addressing teachers' digital literacy through a professional development programme of online reaching.