Distance Learning Opportunities for Furman Graduate Studies in 2021

The SACSCOC executive council has approved distance learning for Furman Graduate studies as of August 31, 2020. By offering distance education, Furman University fulfills its graduate mission statement to “transcend the traditional model for student learning by expanding the experience into the real and virtual worlds.”

The Master of Arts degree program in Education (MAED) with a concentration in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) will be the first program offered via distance education starting January 1, 2021. This flexible online format will grant more South Carolina teachers the opportunity to receive licensure as an TESOL teacher in the state.

While the approval initially extends to the TESOL program, it also opens the opportunity for Furman to offer more graduate program offerings online as well. The approval letter states that “once an institution is approved to offer 50% or more of its first program via distance learning, neither notification nor approval is necessary when any percentage of an additional approved program is offered via distance learning.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, additional resources were secured to enable faculty to be trained in the development and offering of online courses. In Redesign to Teach Online workshops in summer 2020, faculty were trained using a model centered in developing community, activities, and assignments that build and sustain informed interaction between students. Furman has also partnered with Symbiosis to convert and customize courses for online delivery.

Furman’s distance education student interface operates by utilizing the Moodle learning management system. The layout includes basic elements such as a course calendar, announcement forums, attendance module, chat, built-in messaging and notifications. Activity creation such as forums, assignments, quizzes, polling and resource sharing for video, audio, embedded content pages, images, and interactive apps offers a variety of options for content creation. Moodle also includes a utility that allows easy integration of content from publishers and third party platforms. The University also has licensees for Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

On behalf of Furman Graduate Studies, we’d like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to Bobbi Seifert and all the folks in the institutional reporting office who worked to get this prospectus completed.  Additionally, we’d like to give a special thanks to Dave Steinour, Susan Dunnavant, and Jean Childress in ITS for helping us pull together technical information for the document. Furman’s ability to provide support and resources for distance learners was a large influencer in the council’s decision as well as our ability to meet the technological needs of our students.