A New Spin on Quality: Broadening Online Course Reviews Through Coaching and Slow Thinking
Many faculty struggle with designing and teaching online courses. Classic standardized course review models, such as the ones developed by Quality Matters (QM), are valuable tools, yet they often enforce rigid standards and lead to time-intensive course reviews. This paper offers a new solution as two faculty ask, “What would happen if an online course review were more like a writing coaching session?” The authors explore how combining standards from QM with techniques from writing centers could transform a rigid online course review process into an engaging coaching session. Inspired by key writing center principles and research literature on course reviews, the authors propose an alternative, feedback-focused process for online course reviews that encourages small yet crucial shifts in our thinking about the process. We recommend broad and flexible options that honor the person over the product.
