Establishing Connections with Online Students Through Co-Curricular Events

Streamed Session

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Online education continues to grow, but is attending classes and completing assignments enough for online students? Online students also desire a sense of community.  Co-curricular events provide students with the opportunity to interact with faculty and other students, apply classroom knowledge to real-life applications, and be part of a community. 

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Tonya Haas, Colorado Technical University

Tonya Haas is a Lead Faculty of Mathematics in the College of General Education at CTU. She has more than 14 years of teaching experience both online and in person. In addition to teaching, she has created instructional materials for various math courses at CTU and for other colleges. Prior to teaching, she worked as a Scientific Systems Programmer, Software Test Engineer, and Data Analyst in the satellite industry.

Co-presenter: Sabrina DiLanzo, Colorado Technical University-Online

Sabrina is the Lead Faculty of Math at Colorado Technical University Online. She has over 9 years experience teaching math online at both community colleges and universities. Sabrina has completed extensive research on math anxiety and its negative effects on student learning. As a result, she has developed and incorporated techniques that, combined with growth mindset strategies, have increased the overall retention and pass rates of her courses. She has also assisted in curriculum review, online course development, and assessment strategies. The combined experience from her unique teaching background has enabled her to consistently build and maintain rapport with students of diverse backgrounds. When not teaching at CTU, Sabrina can be found homeschooling her 3 energetic, young children with the help of her husband. She also enjoys reading, cooking, crafting, and exercising. After much persuasion from her children, she has most recently began gaming as well.

Extended Abstract

Online education continues to grow, but is attending classes and completing assignments enough for online students? Online students also desire a sense of community.  Co-curricular events provide students with the opportunity to interact with faculty and other students, apply classroom knowledge to real-life applications, and be part of a community.  We look forward to sharing how we are establishing connections with our online students through co-curricular events and the lessons we have learned, as well as collaborating with others on new ideas or their experiences. 

We established co-curricular events based on student feedback requesting opportunities to participate in college activities while enrolled in general education classes.  We opted to focus on STEM topics covered in our science and mathematics courses.  Why focus on STEM?  To answer the popular question from students about how they will ever use these topics outside of a classroom.  

We are excited to present the topics of our co-curricular events, the ways students interacted and engaged in our events, and the student feedback in our presentation.