Online Orientation Course — Yovanna Cifuentes-Goodbody

Overview

This online orientation course introduces students to the curriculum, assessments, and policies for the Master’s in Financial Engineering at WorldQuant University.

Tools used

Articulate & Storyline 360
Screenflow

Problem and Solution

The client, a non-profit, online university offering a free Master’s degree in financial engineering, wanted to revamp their orientation course. The previous version of the course wasn’t having the desired effect because students continued to have questions about the expectations, policies, and procedures for the program. This was evidenced by the number of tickets sent to the university’s support team, and the persistence of academic integrity issues like plagiarism.

After running a needs analysis that consisted of reviewing all the materials from the previous course, identifying the pain points, understanding the student body, and evaluating course assignments, I created an engaging, interactive, and easy-to-digest course.

As Cathy Moore says in her book Map It, training is not the only solution to address performance problems. For that reason, it’s important to note that this course was part of several initiatives that I helped implement in the program to change student behavior. Others included improving peer-review and collaborative tasks, creating an LMS feature that allowed students to set learning goals, adding formative assessments to the program, and structuring forum participation.

Process

Reading policies and procedures is not a particularly fun thing to do. That’s why I wanted to make sure the information was delivered in digestible chunks and included “fun” pieces that would ultimately make the learner excited to begin their journey. I started by regrouping the content into categories that became course lessons and then organized them in logical order. I included some of the relevant content from the old course and added other information I believed was crucial in addressing the client’s desire to build community, develop student collaboration skills, and encourage learner autonomy.

Development

An important element that was missing from the original course was formative assessments. I made sure that learners had the opportunity to check their knowledge after every lesson. After the content was approved by the client, I brought it into Articulate 360 and created interactive activities whenever possible and appropriate.

Interactive sorting activity

In order to increase online presence, I suggested adding videos featuring members of the WorldQuant University team who would likely interact with students throughout the program. I wrote the script outlines and edited the videos using Screenflow. Using this same tool, I also created a series of screencasts showing students how to complete common tasks in the university’s LMS (file help tickets, submit assignments, etc.). I added interactive comprehension checks to the screencasts using Storyline 360.

In the academic integrity lesson, I created a pre- and post-activity assessments covering preconceptions and beliefs about plagiarism. The low-stakes pre-test was a way to activate previous knowledge and match it against the university policies. The post-test repeated questions from the pre-test, but now it assessed student’s mastery of the material and included tailored feedback when appropriate.

Excerpt: scenario-based activity

Testing and Production

Once I imported the course into the university’s in-house LMS, their team tested it, provided feedback, and deployed it for the incoming cohort. Administrators and instructors remarked that the course exceeded their expectations.