Chapter 13
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Janice Alexander*,1 and Julie Wenz2 1Department
of Chemistry and Forensic Science, Flathead Valley Community College, 777 Grandview Drive, Kalispell, Montana 59901, United States 2Department of Instructional Technology Design, Flathead Valley Community College, 777 Grandview Drive, Kalispell, Montana 59901, United States *E-mail:
[email protected].
Due to the expansion of health care positions in northwest Montana, Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC) was approached by the community to assist in increasing the pipeline of students for these positions. Serving a very large rural population, blended and online formats were viewed as optimal to reach the service region. A preparatory chemistry course, Explorations in Chemistry (CHMY 105), was offered in a blended format at FVCC for the first time in Fall 2015. As a result of the successful outcomes for both the lecture and laboratory portions of the course, a second pilot experiment was designed for Fall 2016, offering both a fully online and a blended section. Here, development, implementation, and evaluation of the course are discussed.
Impetus for Online Chemistry Offerings Over the last several years FVCC has been pondering, “Should we teach chemistry online, or stay with face-to-face classes as we have done for numerous years?” Situated between Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park, the college serves a rural community of over 110,000 people distributed over 5.6 million acres in Northwestern Montana. An online offering would allow many in the service region to access healthcare and science degrees. Yet it is critical to ensure © 2017 American Chemical Society Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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that any offering has a strong platform for providing instruction at the same level as is found in the face-to-face classes. The Consortium for Healthcare Online (CHEO), a United States Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grantee (TAACCCT), provided the impetus to explore, develop, and implement online chemistry courses. CHEO’s mission was to increase access to healthcare programs in rural areas. At FVCC, the online focus for the CHEO grant was to convert classes that are part of the Associate of Applied Science (AAS) health care programs from face-to-face to blended and online versions in order to minimize or eliminate the on campus requirements for students. Explorations in Chemistry (CHMY 105) and Introduction to General Chemistry (CHMY 121) both fall in this category. One section of CHMY 121 was first converted to a fully online format in Fall 2014. Due to its success, one section of CHMY 105 was then converted to a blended format one year later, in Fall 2015. Next, in Fall 2016, CHMY 105 was expanded to include both an online and a blended section. Throughout the development of the blended and online versions of CHMY 105, the original face-to-face course continued to be offered. CHMY 121 is the first course of the standard General Organic Biochemistry (GOB) sequence for health science majors. This course also serves as a preparatory course for science and engineering majors with less experience in high school chemistry. The course has a strong focus on mathematical problem solving and is a laboratory based course. CHMY 105 was created as a pre-requisite course to CHMY 121. In recent years, a higher percentage of students that place into the institution’s most introductory level math and science classes necessitated the addition of this course. CHMY 105 serves as a beginning chemistry course for students with no chemistry background. For students requiring additional math prior to entry into CHMY 121, CHMY 105 allows an earlier entry point to begin chemistry courses while also reaching the required math level for CHMY 121. CHMY 105 focuses heavily on the scientific method, basic laboratory skills, and problem solving. Topics include scientific notation and dimensional analysis, the atom, nomenclature, writing and balancing equations, the mole, and limiting reactant stoichiometry. Students also become familiar with how to write laboratory reports, the roles of precision and accuracy in the laboratory, and the use of standard laboratory equipment. Much had already been learned from the development, implementation and delivery of the online version of CHMY 121. We applied this knowledge in the development of CHMY 105. This chapter focuses on the lessons learned from the development and implementation of CHMY 105.
Overview of CHMY 121 Several different lecture delivery methods were investigated during the development of CHMY 121, and a few different methods were piloted during implementation. One key method was the use of the lightboard, a tool developed at Northwestern University by Michael Peshkin (1). With the lightboard, the professor writes on a glass board and talks to the camera facing the audience just 166 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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as in a traditional class lecture. During the editing process, the video image is flipped 180 degrees on the y-axis, enabling the writing to display correctly to the audience. Several lightboard videos were created and piloted. Another key method offered to students in CHMY 121 were lectures captured from face-to-face courses. Lectures were captured using Zoom (2), a video conferencing software, and a document camera. As the professor solved problems on a notepad, instead of the whiteboard, a document camera captured the images and projected them through the computer screen. Students accessed both types of lectures through the learning management system. A testing center was created on campus to provide exams to students in a proctored setting. Students located at a distance from campus were able to sit for their exams at an approved proctor site. The Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS) online homework system (3) was used for weekly homework assignments. CHMY 121 was delivered as a fully online class with the lab delivered using a lab kit that students bought through a vendor. One challenge of the course was that the lab kit did not align well with the labs taught in the face-to-face course. Students also found that performing the labs at home was difficult and that analyzing the results was challenging.
Overview of CHMY 105 The two-person development and implementation team for CHMY 105 included a chemistry faculty member and an instructional designer with a chemistry background. Implementation of lecture material included a mixture of pre-recorded lectures using a lightboard, synchronous lectures through Zoom, and worksheets. In addition, weekly webcam office hours via Zoom, proctored exams, online lab group discussion boards, and the ALEKS online homework system were also part of the online course design. In Fall 2015, in order to fulfill the on-campus component of the blended CHMY 105 course, students traveled to the Kalispell campus one weekend to complete six laboratory experiments. Additional laboratory experiments were completed by students at home using a lab kit created by FVCC. During the Fall of 2016, the fully online section completed all labs at home using the FVCC lab kit, while the blended section students attended labs on campus once a week with the remainder of the course being online. The CHEO grant provided funding for an instructional designer focused on using, developing, and troubleshooting learning management systems (LMS), video production and editing, and best practices in online teaching. This project was a collaborative approach for the professor, new to online teaching, and the instructional designer. As with any team project; trust, respect, understanding, and motivation were critical throughout the process. The team started the development phase of the blended and online versions of CHMY 105 by focusing on how to translate the important components of a face-to-face class into an online environment. The chemistry department standards of the important components for a face-to-face class included: 167 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
• • • • • • •
Lectures Laboratory experiments with data recorded in a laboratory notebook Typed laboratory reports for one-third of the laboratory experiments Online homework Written exams taken in class Interaction with students allowing the professor to know and support the students Tutor center on campus.
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The blended version of CHMY 105 was offered with 100% lecture and 60% of labs taught through an online format launched in Fall 2015. In this chapter each of the course components are described in more detail.
Lectures Lectures presented the challenge of how to convey content in a meaningful way. A lot of meaning is conveyed in the physical image of the instructor during a lecture. Our objective was to determine the best way to deliver a lecture online. Living in a rural area, it was critical to offer the course in such a way as to maximize student options; thus synchronous delivery was eliminated as a potential delivery method. Options included lightboard videos, lecture capture of face-to-face courses, voiced over Power Point files, and Khan Academy style videos. The team preferred lightboard videos, Figure 1, because we did not want always to rely on teaching a face-to-face class as the source of lecture capture videos for the online course. However, due to the limited amount of time available to learn how to make the lightboard videos, we determined that the first pilot of the course would need to include both lightboard videos and lecture capture. Recording of the videos commenced the summer prior to the pilot course offering. The team spent many hours writing scripts, recording and editing. During this time, the team climbed a steep learning curve in video editing and production. The knowledge gained during this time is currently being used to support other instructors’ and students’ use of the lightboard studio. The course opened with lightboard video lectures. By the fifth week, we introduced recorded lectures from the face-to-face class. Soon after, the students stated that they preferred the lightboard lectures, which led us back into the studio for more recording. For the remainder of the semester, recorded lectures were the primary method of providing content supplements with additional lightboard videos as studio and instructor availability allowed. All video lectures were captioned to achieve accessibly and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles (4).
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Figure 1. An example of a video lecture using lightboard. The instructor is visible in the video and students can watch her writing. The text is mirrored during the editing phase such that the text and instructor both appear facing the audience.
Lab In an effort to alleviate the challenges students experienced in the laboratory portion of CHMY 121, CHMY 105 delivered six of the labs during a lab weekend on campus with the others completed at home. The team recognized that requiring students to travel to campus could deter some students from taking the class, but at the same time, requiring the purchase of a lab kit might also deter some students. In the end, the team felt that offering the course with some lab experiments on campus was advantageous for both students and the professor. Students were aware prior to registration that attendance was required for one specific weekend of the semester. The lab weekend was scheduled six weeks into the semester, immediately following the second exam. Students were given two weeks to complete the online safety module. This included a safety video and a document containing the laboratory safety rules. These were each followed by a quiz. Students were required to achieve 100% on each quiz and were provided unlimited attempts. Once 100% was achieved on both quizzes, a safety contract was released and students provided an online signature. The remainder of the four weeks leading up to the on campus lab weekend included two dry labs from the original face-to-face course. The remaining two labs were delayed until the on campus lab weekend. This placed the online students only slightly behind the students in the original face-to-face class. The date for the on campus lab weekend had deliberately been set to provide student interaction early in the semester. The students reported anecdotally (in person) and formally (surveys and evaluations) that they enjoyed the comradery of the weekend lab. A comment representative of this sentiment: “I enjoyed doing the labs as a group. I learn better in a group setting.” An additional student view of the 169 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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lab experience: “Though it made for long days, I enjoyed lab weekend the most. I am a very hands on learner with this type of class and being face to face made things more comprehendible to me. I also felt I gained a better understanding of reactions actually seeing them rather than trying to just figure them out from a book.” After the weekend lab, students maintained contact with each other through the LMS discussion board and chat features. However, many students also reported that the intensity of an eight hour lab day with a one-hour lunch break was overwhelming, such as this student: “I also did not care much for the on-site lab weekend as it was way too crammed.” Several labs included use of data acquisition software and probes. Probes were used exclusively during the on campus lab weekend, not at home. But the data acquisition software, first used during the lab weekend on campus, was available for students to download via a link in the LMS system allowing student use at home. The lab weekend was held early in the semester to provide labs at the same time, or soon after, students completed lecture material. However, with six weeks of labs in one weekend, students were also completing some labs before the material was presented. Students found this lab set-up challenging later in the semester when they needed to recall and reread the data to write lab reports about experiments they had done several weeks earlier. These experiments included determination of unknown ionic and covalent compounds as well as a mole lab. Students completed the remaining labs of the semester at home with an FVCC chemistry department lab kit, as seen in figure 2 below, using the same materials and providing the same laboratory experiments as in the original face-to-face class.
Figure 2. FVCC lab kit containing a balance, calipers, graduated cylinder, mole bar, cloth tape measure, playing card, aluminum foil, five glass marbles, 20g each bolts, nuts, and washers. 170 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
The lab kit included items such as a balance, calipers, graduated cylinder, and a mole bar. Students received the lab kit during the lab weekend and time was reserved to familiarize students with the kit. Students were successful at completing the laboratory procedures at home. Completing the entire lab at home, at the same time the material was being covered in lecture, caused fewer student issues than completing the calculations and lab reports for labs that had been completed four to six weeks prior during the on campus lab weekend.
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Online Homework In the original face-to-face course, students completed online homework using ALEKS as well as in class worksheets. In order to provide the same experience for online students, the worksheets were uploaded into the weekly modules in the LMS system. Some worksheets were fillable forms for appropriate topics such as significant figures. The remainder required students to either print or download the form, then fill in their work as well as their answers. Completed worksheets were then uploaded into the LMS by students, graded by the professor and returned with written feedback through the LMS. In the original face-to-face class, the professor was able to walk around the room, facilitating and redirecting students as needed, while they completed a worksheet. Since this was not an option with the online students, worksheets were due several days earlier than for face-to-face students. This allowed the professor to review the uploaded worksheets, provide helpful feedback to students without providing the answers, and then allow students a few days to submit corrected versions. This mechanism worked well and often students decided to meet in person or virtually with the professor for assistance with worksheets after receiving feedback from the initial submission. For online homework, the mastery based ALEKS system was used. This system required students to take an initial assessment the first time they logged into the system. The assessment tested students on the pre-requisite math material, as well as chemistry topics that would be covered during the upcoming semester. The results for each student were presented in the form of a pie chart. The pie chart was subdivided into areas such as math, matter, measurements, and stoichiometry. In addition, these same results were displayed as numbers and percentages of completed topics for each weekly homework assignment for the duration of the semester. The semester homework grade was split equally between the final score on weekly homework assignments and the final score on the pie chart. To receive full credit on weekly homework assignments, students were required to complete each assignment on time. Each assignment consisted of a preset number of topics. Each topic required students correctly to answer multiple questions in order to receive credit, although students had unlimited attempts to complete each topic. As topics were completed on an assignment, they were also added to the student’s pie chart bringing the student closer to completing the pie chart. In addition, the team chose to set up the ALEKS system such that an online test (assessment) triggered in the ALEKS system at periodic intervals ensured that students retained the material learned. Incorrect answers on this online assessment 171 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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resulted in removal of a topic from a student’s pie chart, requiring the student to complete additional problems on that topic in order to have a completed pie by the end of the semester. These assessments were timed to coincide with completion of the last online ALEKS homework assignment before a proctored exam was scheduled. Ideally, students would use this assessment to help them determine if they were ready for the upcoming class exam. However, since the ALEKS system simply required them to complete this assessment prior to starting their next homework assignment, students could choose to wait until the following week to complete the online ALEKS assessment. After the last homework assignment of the semester, and several days prior to the proctored comprehensive final exam, the last ALEKS assessment triggered. Once students completed this final assessment, they had several days to complete any topics either lost during the assessment or from incomplete homework assignments earlier in the semester. This gave all students the opportunity to complete their pie chart and receive 100% for the pie chart grade. Thus a student’s homework grade was broken into two halves: fifty percent of a student’s homework grade was from completion of the weekly homework assignments, and the other half was from a completed pie chart at the end of the semester. The time and topic data in the ALEKS system that correlated with students’ exam scores showed that students who completed their weekly homework and their pie chart more slowly in general scored lower on the proctored regular classroom exams. Typically, these students also found the worksheets more difficult.
Exams Students in the original face-to-face course communicated much of their knowledge through written exams. The team explored several ways to mimic this in an online environment while also ensuring academic integrity. The team looked at using systems that monitor students while taking tests and prevent students from browsing the web at the same time. These systems solved the academic integrity issue, but not the issue of how students can best communicate their knowledge in an online environment. This was a challenging issue to solve with the currently available tools. Using the LMS, students could choose an equation editor to enter their work or submit work as a scanned document. Another option required students to take their tests at a testing center. After careful consideration, the team chose proctored paper tests as the preferred option. Students were informed of the scheduling process and encouraged to register for the proctored exam early in the semester. Students who were unable to travel to the FVCC testing center to sit for exams were allowed to set up an approved proctor site in their community. Upon student completion, proctor sites returned a scanned copy of the exam to the FVCC testing center via email. The original paper exam was then mailed to the FVCC testing center. After grading, the professor scanned the graded tests and then attached the file to the grade entry via a feedback feature in the LMS gradebook tool.
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Communication The team wanted students and the professor to have a variety of modes of communication. As in any class, communication is essential to success. Through the LMS, students and the professor had the ability to communicate through email, discussion, and announcements. In addition, the team wanted students and the professor to communicate in real time. The team explored the use of teleconference tools to communicate with students. CHMY 121 had used a teleconference tool, Zoom, to record face-to-face lectures that also gave online students the option to sit in on the live class. The teleconference tool had the ability to share screens between the professor and the students, and students were able to participate in the live class by asking questions through a chat feature or use of a microphone. The CHMY 105 team decided to use this tool, in addition to lecture capture, to deliver virtual office hours. With the use of this teleconference tool and a document camera, the professor was able to conduct office hours in a manner similar to traditional office hours. Students were able to use their webcam to show the professor their work. Students could download the app on their cell phone if desired, allowing them to attend office hours anywhere. Although office hour attendance was normally not required, students were required to attend office hours during exam weeks. This provided a valuable tool to evaluate students’ progress.
Ensuring High-Quality Course Content and Course Design with Quality Matters and Universal Design for Learning Successful online courses include good content and good design. To be successful, the team felt that the course’s design must be based on the principles of Quality Matters (QM)5 and UDL. QM principles were incorporated from the start by greeting students with a welcome message on the course homepage. The welcome message introduced students to the course, and directed them to access the course content; this promoted the QM principles of strong communication and a positive start to the course. The course overview and introduction continued in the course content section with a start here module, providing students with the syllabus, course schedule, welcome video, syllabus video, and a lab safety module. A recorded lecture of the professor discussing the syllabus was included to provide the same course introduction as in the face-to-face course. QM encourages a variety of learner interactions in a course. For successful learner growth, meaningful interaction with content, instructor and other students is key. Students started the course by engaging in all three types of interaction. For example, they learned about each other through an ice breaker discussion activity. Students also interacted with each other during the lab weekend and continued to do so throughout the course by way of discussion activities and virtual office hours. Further, student - instructor interaction started with students first viewing a video welcome message from the instructor. During the course, students interacted with the instructor by virtual office hours, the on campus 173 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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lab weekend, lecture videos and instructor feedback. Moreover, the instructor provided feedback by virtual office hours, classroom announcements, graded worksheet assignments, graded laboratory reports, and discussion posts. To promote interaction with course content, content was presented in multiple ways. Students were encouraged to watch the lightboard videos, read the textbook and ask questions by discussion board or virtual office hours. Presenting content in multiple ways not only supports QM principles, but also UDL principles. The course offers a variety of assignments and instructional materials for students. Students demonstrated their understanding by completing lab reports, worksheets, homework and tests. The instructional materials of the text, lecture videos, worksheets and ALEKS homework supported the learning objectives. This variety of assignments and instructional materials supports the principles of QM and UDL. The course started each week with an introduction composed in an accessible cascading style sheet. The sheet included introductory paragraphs that connected the previous week’s concepts to the current week, answered the question of why we are learning the content, and stated the learning objectives for the week. The introduction to the week was essential for anchoring students throughout the course so that they understood the interconnectedness of the content, why they were learning it and its applicability to life or career. The style sheet also provided elements of UDL. The style sheet was accessible to screen readers that allowed any student to have the content read to them. Included in the style sheet were accessible links to the lecture videos. Open Educational Resources (OER) (6) are materials that can be freely used and reused at no cost and without asking permission because the author chose to retain few ownership rights. Many OER materials are licensed under Creative Commons license (7). A requirement of the TAACCCT grants was to create and/or use OER materials. The team did not aim for a complete OER course, but created as much OER content as possible. Many of the videos, worksheets and labs have a Creative Commons license. These materials can be found at the TAACCCT learning repository, SkillsCommons.org (8).
Challenges Several challenges arose throughout the semester. Orienting students in the LMS was a time consuming endeavor for the first several weeks. For most of the students, this was their first online course, and simple tasks such as finding the weekly module and scrolling all the way to the bottom to make sure all tasks were found, as well as finding their way around the ALEKS online homework system, perplexed many of the students. Methods such as posting announcements on the home page that included instructions, and screen shots of the LMS and ALEKS were used to aid students. The professor had access to the dates and times students uploaded assignments in the LMS system or accessed lightboard videos or other content, along with dates and times students attempted each homework question or assessment in 174 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
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ALEKS. This data combined with student comments via email, discussion board, and virtual office hours provided information regarding student challenges. Across the semester, students were frustrated with the lack of evening hours for taking exams and lack of evening/weekend hours and virtual hours for tutor services. They also indicated discomfort with the switch in lecture format from lightboard video to lecture capture in the midst of the semester. In addition, many students attempted to complete all weekly assignments on the due date creating time management issues. They also completed some assignments out of sequence each week.
Successes Overall, the pilot was a success. Seventeen of nineteen students successfully completed the course. From survey and evaluation forms student comments overall were positive as shown in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3. A visual display of excerpted survey responses from all students answering the question of what they enjoyed the most and the least about CHMY 105. Students consistently noted lightboard videos, required live check-in, proctored exams, professor enthusiasm, and lab weekend as favorite course components. Comments such as the one by this student were very encouraging to continue offering chemistry in an online format. “I surprised myself and I actually loved this class, I was scared to take it at first but found that I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the most about this class that I feel like I walked away knowing something new and I retained the info. I really liked the class set up, I was able to 175 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
go at my own pace with reason.” As displayed in Table 1, exam scores and course grades were similar for students in the blended course and the face-to-face course. The high success rate and positive student feedback led the chemistry department to adopt the same course design for the designated spring 2016 online/blended section of CHMY 121. This provided a seamless transition for the students that continued on into the spring 2016 CHMY 121 blended section. A high rate of successful completion was observed in this course also.
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Table 1. Comparison of Exam and Final Grade Scores in the Face-to-Face and Blended Versions of CHMY 105 in Fall 2015 Face-to-face course
Blended course
Initial number of students
20
20
Final number of students
15
17
Max
99.2
99.5
Min
47.8
70.0
Mean
87.1
86.6
Median
92.2
87.5
Standard Deviation
13.4
8.9
Max
99.1
99.2
Min
42.7
58.3
Mean
84.4
82.4
Median
88.0
83.7
Standard Deviation
14.7
12.5
Final course grade
Exams
Analysis and Improvement Results from the first pilot course in 2015 were utilized to revise CHMY 105 for the fall of 2016. Components that both the professor and the students found successful were kept. Areas of challenge were revised to try and provide an improved experience for students. Additional lightboard videos were created to establish a complete set of lecture videos for the course. This eliminated the need to pair a face-to-face section with an online section and additionally addressed students’ preference for lightboard lectures over lecture capture. 176 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.
A weekly schedule was devised staggering the due dates. New material would release Thursday evenings, worksheets would be due Sunday nights, lab reports would be due Monday nights from the previous week’s experiment, experimental data for the current week was set to be due Tuesday nights, ALEKS online homework was set to be due Wednesday nights, and all exams were scheduled for Thursdays and Fridays.
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Conclusion Overall, the experience of online chemistry was positive for both the students and the professor. Both from the students’ perspective and professor’s perspective, it is easier and more comfortable to take/teach chemistry in a face-to-face environment. However, test scores at FVCC have shown that students perform equally well in the online, blended, or face-to-face format. Online chemistry provides a viable option for those who are unable to attend campus for reasons such as distance, health, or work schedules. Buoyed by the student success, the chemistry department is continuing the online and blended course offerings.
References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Peshkin, M. lightboard.info; http://lightboard.info/ (accessed May 1, 2014). Zoom. https://zoom.us/ (accessed May 1, 2015). Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS), McGraw Hill Education; https://www.aleks.com/, (accessed April 1, 2015). National Center on Universal Design for Learning; http:// www.udlcenter.org/ (accessed March 1, 2015) Quality Matters; https://www.qualitymatters.org/ (accessed May 1, 2014). OER Commons; https://www.oercommons.org/about (accessed June 1, 2015). Creative Commons; https://creativecommons.org/ (accessed May 1, 2015). SkillsCommons.org; https://www.skillscommons.org/handle/taaccct/6894 (accessed February 1, 2016).
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