Preparing Your Course for QM Certification:

Four Standards

image of young woman eating a salad and imagining her future older self dancing image of young woman sleeping and dreaming of future older self running a race image of young man meditating and envisioning his future older self doing a crossword puzzle

GERO 123: Research on Aging and the Life Course

Course Description

GERO 123 is an asynchronous online GE Area B5 course with approximately 100 students enrolled each semester.

**Motivation for Preparing Your Course for QM Certification: 4 Standards Participation**

This course started out as an in-person course designed to meet Gerontology majors' research methods requirement. During COVID, the course transitioned to online synchronous. After we returned to campus, it transitioned again to a hybrid format while also becoming an upper division GE course. For the past two semesters, the course has been offered as an online asynchronous course, which we anticipate continuing as our department transitions all of our courses online.

The asynchronous online format meets many students where they are, particularly our students who are working full time, parenting or caregiving, or who live outside of the area. However, I want to maintain as much of the student engagement and active learning that I was able to foster when we met in person. By taking the FLC, I have been able to learn about strategies to make the online course clear and accessible as well as more engaging. I have also been about to think more deeply about how to effectively assess student learning now that ChatGPT and other AI tools are available to students.

Alignment or Engagement Changes Addressed in Course

I made the following changes to the course:

General Standard 1: Course Overview and Introduction

I had been using the Modules view as my home page, which can be overwhelming for students. To make the course easier to navigate and more welcoming, I created a Welcome Page that serves as the home page for the Canvas course. In addition to a welcome video, students can find information about me and how to contact me, the syllabus, and Week-At-A-Glance.

General Standard 6: Course Technology

Overall, I do a pretty good job already of using a variety of types of software and applications to enable learner interaction, including discussion boards, low stakes quizzes and surveys that provide immediate feedback, and videos. I also teach students how to effectively use ChatGPT to help them to understand course content, read difficult texts, write clearly, and even engage in statistical analysis. Because ChatGPT is so new, I am surveying my students at the end of this semester about how they used ChatGPT in the course, how helpful it was, and what suggestions they have to improve how it is used to support students. I will have results at the end of the semester to incorporate into future semesters.

General Standard 7: Learner Support

Although I provide information and links to IT and other campus resources, I realized that I could do more to support students to use Canvas effectively. I will add more information about how to use Canvas, including links to training videos. I will also expand the video I created that gives students a tour of the Canvas course to include more tips about how to use and navigate in the Canvas platform.

General Standard 8: Course Design

When I initially evaluated my Canvas course for accessibility, I got a much lower score than I expected. It turns out that pages I had imported from the Sac State Library did not have accessible content. I removed these pages as well as other pages and content I was no longer using that were not accessible. This greatly improved the accessibility score. Moving forward, I learned that I should remove underlined text that is not hyperlinked. As I review and update the course for next semester, I will be sure to do this.

Evidence of Redesign

Examples of Redesign
screenshot of GERO 123 Home Page with welcome video and links to syllabus, week at a glance, and other resources	screenshot of extra credit assignment asking students to write questions for ChagGPT survey	Student Technology Resources available through IT to incorporate into the Canvas course	screenshot of 96% accessibility score

Plan for Pathway toward QM Certification

I reviewed GERO 123 using four of the eight QM standards, so the next step will be continue to implement the changes I identified, assess the course using the remaining four standards, and then implementing additional changes relevant to those standards. I anticipate working towards QM certification throughout 2025 with the goal of submitting the course for QM certification in 2026.

Faculty Bio
photo of Professor Koss, a white woman with graying hair smiling like the friendly professor she is	My name is Catheryn Koss, and I teach Gerontology here at Sacramento State University. Before I became a professor at Sac State, I practiced elder law for a small non-profit organization. I have both a law degree (JD) and a PhD and am happy to chat with students about going to law school or earning a graduate degree. I enjoy traveling, doing crossword puzzles, watching movies, and hanging out with my dog, Larry.