They deserve to engage and see: promising practices for faculty providing online courses at a Hispanic serving institution

Abstract

Hispanic first-generation students, learning online at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) community college, deserve to be taught using approaches designed specifically to engage them. Research on promising practices being implemented in online course design abound. This study sought to investigate how culture is represented in the curriculum of online courses and learn how collaboration occurs in online courses. Data collected from participants in the Cycle One Action Step consisted of interviews with Hispanic first-generation students and their faculty. A Cycle Two Action Step was designed, implemented, and evaluated to discover and listen to faculties voice their ideas defining promising practices used in online courses, determine which of those instructional practices are successfully serving the Hispanic students, which may require adjustment to better serve and support this student demographic, and how to collaborate to bring these practices to the students. The study concluded that challenges surrounding processes and collaborative leadership were unreliable, not implemented in a systematic manner, or barriers existed impeding faculty from more fully reflecting on and participating in collaborative opportunities to support the Hispanic students found in their online courses. Consistent leadership, working in a bottom up and top down manner, ongoing professional development and instructional design support will be necessary to persist in developing, cultivating, and maintaining promising practices for Hispanic students studying online. Five recommendations are offered to administration and faculty who desire to continue the work of engaging and seeing how they can better support the Hispanic students found in their online classrooms. --Author's abstract