How To Design and Teach An Online First Year Experience Course

Format: Teleconference Webinar

Registration Due: March 17, 2025

Registration Fee: $220.00

Time: 1-2:30 pm

Date: April 14, 2025

Overview:

Our role as learning educators of a first-year experience course is to motivate students to thrive in a remote learning modality as so much of their college experience may be exactly that going forward, but what if the instructor needs a lot of that same motivation? When first stepping into a Zoom class, many instructors may have asked: Where did my class go? You may have had a well-entrenched routine, flow, and mode for years with a face to face first-year experience course. One could pivot by just uploading curriculum materials in a learning management system or become a talking head for the Zoom camera, but the situation demands more of an instructor.

The situation requires that we take the time to understand just how much our students have changed in this last year. We must understand the new baseline from which we will attempt to motivate them to start strong and maintain their momentum for the long stretch. The pandemic may have left our new students feeling disconnected and disenfranchised, so this cannot be just another study skills course. We have to be creative difference-makers now to escalate this course for their needs. We are teaching for “making the most of one’s college experience” while creating an experience that demonstrates that being in college is valuable. And we need to do that online; this can be daunting.

Objectives:

• Build a comfort zone in what can be an uncomfortable situation online
• Create online assignments that prompt peer collaboration, self-assessment, and self-regulation
• Deploy a case-management approach that identifies student obstacles using online platforms
• Design instruction for an online first-year experience course
• Reframe the “modules” of this course as valuable lessons that are tied to popular messages online
• Transform a blocked approach to an online interleave approach

Who should attend?

• Academic Affairs/Instruction
• Advising/Career Services/Counselors
• Deans/Department Chairs/Developmental Educators
• Enrollment Management
• Faculty (full and part-time)/First-Year Experience Coordinators
• Learning Resource Centers/Tutors
• Retention Specialist
• Student Affairs/Two- and Four-Year Higher Institutions