Welcome Back!

Over the summer months, The Reynolds Ripple took a brief break, but we now look forward to another active and exciting academic year.

This upcoming year marks the second year of the implementation of the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), and in January, we begin our third and final year of the FIPSE grant which supports the QEP. Our primary focus this year will be upon implementation of the new CDL 001:  Orientation to Learning Online, described in an earlier post, and on the development of Tier Two faculty training modules.

Over the next few days, we will continue to identify more data findings from our implementation of SmarterMeasure (the readiness assessment tool for distance learning) and provide details about the QEP  recommendations for supporting and preparing those faculty who plan to teach online. Further, we will continue to participate in and learn from the conversations taking place on the national and state-wide level about student success and achievement in higher education, in both online and on-campus settings.

Our focus in the QEP remains purposefully in front of us:  within our five-year project, we plan to build and provide resources, learning, and tools to help students succeed online, knowing that these same elements will also impact students in on-campus classrooms. Similarly, our goal is to provide our online instructors with the skills, training, and support that they need to be as successful and as capable as they can be in the virtual classroom.

Over the summer months, many of you have had the opportunity to reflect and research areas of discipline and teaching interests. We hope that you will share those reflections by becoming a contributing writer to The Reynolds Ripple.  We also encourage you to continue to send in your comments and inquiries to rippleeffect@reynolds.edu.