For Francine Guice, a special lecturer in the School of Business Administration, education isn’t just for her students. Guice said she is constantly striving to learn more, and through OU’s association with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), she can take online workshops at no cost.
“Prior to coming to Oakland University, we were just really getting into the online world and I was transforming a course that I was teaching into an online course. I figured I needed to go to someone who knows something about it,” said Guice. She was directed to OLC, or Sloan-C as it was previously known, and she found she liked the class structure and the ease of use.
Oakland University is an institutional member of the OLC and eLIS purchases workshop passes to offer them to full- and part-time faculty at no cost.
Guice said she’s applying for a grant and used an OLC course to help prepare for that work.
“These courses are some effort. There is certainly some rigor involved in it. It is an asynchronous course, so that helps with busy schedules,” said Guice.
Guice said she takes courses based on her interests, but she has enjoyed the instructors she has had in the past.
“I love the instructors and the quality of the faculty,” said Guice. “These workshops are a really good resource for faculty development. People don’t think that they have to be continually educated. I think that’s crazy. I’m a lifelong learner.”
The OLC workshops that are available at no cost are those that have a non-member cost of $270 each. OLC’s certificate programs, mastery series and workshops that cost more than $270 are not included in this offer. Faculty are limited to two workshops per fiscal year (July-June). Staff members interested in workshops can contact Diane Underwood at [email protected].
The OLC regularly offers free webinars on a variety of topics related to online teaching and learning. The OLC website has a schedule of the upcoming webinars.
