CREATING HIGH-QUALITY ONLINE COURSES
As many of you know, the eLearning program at BRCC was relaunched about two years ago. The new program guidelines called for quality and consistency based on a number of national benchmarks. Since the fastest growing part of most colleges is their online course offerings, we wanted to make sure that BRCC stood out by offering our students the best academic experience delivered in an electronic format. By moving to a approval system that certifies our courses and our instructors, we have been able to quickly build an eLearning presence approaching 80 classes. Many of you have participated in the eLearning institutes (the next opportunity will be offered in spring 2015) and have been certified to teach. We have undergirded that process with numerous professional development workshops offered through the Teaching+Learning Center. So we read with a lot of interest the recent column written by Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti who offers us four factors in high-quality online classes as noted by Joseph McClary. He writes, "Distance learning is here to stay. Educational institutions should have a vision for what type of distance learning programs they will implement and the standards they will hold to. Institutions will master distance learning, or in some cases, distance learning trends and demands will master the school.” We are happy to say that you will find that all of the elements mentioned in this article are present in our eLearning program but we are not standing still and will continue to improve our processes.


IMPROVING RETENTION IN ONLINE COURSES
Drs. Claire Wladis, Katherine Wladis, and Alyse C. Hachey have written a great research paper that allows us to understand why many of our students are doing so poorly in online classes versus their counterparts in the face-to-face offerings. While the authors acknowledge that there is much research about the disparity, their new focus allows us to determine some of the possible causes. Looking at student's reasons for enrolling in online classes produced some surprising results. They found that the student's reason for taking the course, either as an elective or required, had a lot to do with their performance and effort. They write, "This research suggests that online course retention rates can be improved by providing extra support targeted specifically to lower level courses which are typically taken as electives or to satisfy distributional requirements. Such support could include self-assessment and orientation tools which could be used to help students assess their perceptions and preparedness for the course. At the course level, E-advisors could provide an early mechanism for academic counseling, additional technical support staff could assist students with technical difficulties specific to the online environment, and peer tutors could assist students with the course content." You can read more by logging onto the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Community where you will find the paper (Advising for Online Course Retention) in the Online Resource Library in the Advising folder.

UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATION CAN PRODUCE STUDENT SUCCESS
Motivation is a powerful learning tool. If we as teachers, seek to meet the needs of our students, then discovering their motivation is paramount. Cengage Learning recently conducted a survey looking for the motivation that drives non-traditional or adult students back to college. They were able to gather 2,600 responses from students who are 25 years or older. While there are many of the responses you would expect like retraining for a new job or finishing what they started in their teen years, some of the responses are surprising. Take a look at the top ten reasons and see if these resonate with your adult students the next time you are meeting with them about their schedule or another academic matter.