Cengage today announced a partnership with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) to offer professional development opportunities for faculty and administrators — via bootcamps, office hours and customized trainings — to support colleges and universities with online and blended learning. Cengage is also continuing its series of free webinars to augment its expansive professional development resources for higher education professionals.
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OLC is a collaborative community of education leaders and innovators, dedicated to advancing quality digital teaching and learning experiences. OLC and Cengage collaborated on a survey about higher education’s pivot to online learning this spring, and will explore additional research opportunities in the future.
“Making the switch from an in-person to a quality online learning experience takes time and training. Yet this past spring, COVID forced institutions to move classes online, virtually overnight, putting tremendous pressure on faculty to figure out, for the first time – and with limited time or resources – how to create a great online experience,” said Fernando Bleichmar, EVP and general manager of Higher Education and Skills, Cengage.
“According to research we did with Bay View Analytics, OLC and others, faculty and administrators say they need help teaching online and help with remote learning platforms. The professional development resources created with OLC, coupled with Cengage solutions and services, give faculty the tools and knowhow to create an engaging online course, while helping institutions provide an affordable, quality learning experience for the fall and beyond,” continued Bleichmar.
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Starting this month, the Cengage-OLC collaboration will offer the following resources:
- Administrator-focused live workshops, trainings and resources on the topics of:
- Strategies to Improve Retention
- Strategies for Supporting Online Faculty
- Integrating Digital Strategy into Institutional strategy
- Managing Faculty Workload
- Strategies for Evaluating Online Faculty
- Free, self-paced faculty bootcamp trainings on the topics of:
- Online Teaching Pedagogy & Best Practices
- Universal Learning Design
- Using Educational Technology
- Student Motivation and Engagement
- Health and Wellness for Self and Students
- Weekly office hours with OLC and Cengage faculty partners
- Access to Cengage faculty partners who are trained and certified by OLC in effective online teaching
“Not surprisingly, we’ve had an influx of urgent requests for remote and online learning support and our collaboration with Cengage further enables us to provide educators with the tools they need to succeed,” said Dr. Jennifer Mathes, CEO of the Online Learning Consortium. “From supporting educators to senior leadership, we have a proven framework for quality online experiences and unmatched network of educators ready to help our peers turn challenges presented by the pandemic into opportunities to expand and enhance learning for all.”
Cengage has continued its series of free national webinars about emerging course models and remote teaching best practices with faculty partners and leaders in online learning. Thousands of educators have joined the webinars this summer and recordings are available below:
- The Learning Science Behind Achieving Authentic and Effective Student Interactivity
- How to Meet Your Instructional Goals This Fall—Regardless of Course Format
- Exams, Discussion Boards, Projects – Oh My! Assessing Learning in All Course Formats
Cengage is also regularly adding content and resources from faculty partners and online learning leaders to Today’s Learner.
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