The University of Missouri’s commitment to distance learners has been reinforced by three more awards for MU’s achievements in online education.
Each year, the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL) presents a number of awards recognizing excellence in various aspects of distance education and independent learning. MU has garnered three out of four of this year’s awards.
College-Level Course Award
Department of Religious Studies instructor Kate Kelley received the outstanding new college-level credit course award for Religion in Science Fiction (REL_ST 3451W).
Learners in the course engage with literary and filmic science fiction while building a writing portfolio. The course lets students explore the type of science fiction that captures their interest, boosting their intrinsic motivation to dive into the material, write and learn.
Kelley developed and teaches the class. Other contributors to the course are Jerod Quinn, instructional designer; Kay Nullmeyer, instructional developer; and Brad Mitchell, multimedia producer.
Excellence in Support Service Award
Mizzou Online instructional designer Julie Shults received the Excellence in Support Service Award for her outstanding contribution in course development. Shults works in partnership with instructors to develop and revise courses and internships that are pedagogically sound and help students succeed.
Research Award
Mizzou Online Assistant Director for Research Terrie Nagel earned the ADEIL Research Award for her study, “Academic Achievement and Persistence in Online Self-Paced Courses.”
For her research, Nagel analyzed 11,829 records of students who took self-paced online courses at MU during the 2014–15 academic year.
Nagel ran dozens of multilevel models to understand how students’ gender, academic level, enrollment time and completion time related to their academic achievement and persistence.
The study previously earned Nagel the Winemiller Excellence Award from the Trulaske College of Business at MU.
The ADEIL awards were presented at the 2017 World Conference on Online Learning: Teaching in a Digital Age, Oct. 17-19 in Toronto.
“Terrie, Julie and Kate make all of us at Mizzou Online extremely proud,” said Mizzou Online Director Kim Siegenthaler. “These achievements reflect the commitment to the success of Mizzou’s distance students that our entire staff shares.”