Erica Ricks

Excellence in Online Teaching
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 02/26/2026

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

Explore the dynamic and evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) with this course designed to cater to a range of learners from beginners to those with some prior knowledge. Starting with AI's history and core concepts and distinguishing it from machine learning and deep learning, the course sets a solid foundation. Delve into practical AI applications such as natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics, and understand the ethical dimensions and biases in AI. The course advances into complex topics like generative adversarial networks and the interplay of AI with big data and quantum computing. Finally, envision AI's future influence in critical sectors like health care and finance, and you will be equipped with knowledge and skills to confidently navigate the future of AI.
The instructor is the real key to student retention at any educational institution. Instructors must keep focused on student motivation and retention each and every day of class. Developing strategies for retaining students throughout the entire training sequence is both complex and rewarding. All instructors should have the goal of seeing all of their students successfully complete their class. This course helps you reach that goal by helping you to understand your students and use proven motivation and retention techniques to keep them enrolled and engaged in the learning process.
This course will provide an overview of ChatGPT and how it might impact education. With an artificial intelligence (AI) language processing tool, there could be endless possibilities. However, like any other technology, its use in education is to be considered carefully, because learning will be affected. The course begins with an overview of the history of chatbots and artificial intelligence and goes on to discuss how to use ChatGPT, how teachers and students may use it, and the advantages and disadvantages of its use.
Your students are already using AI, and employers expect proficiency. Are you ready to guide them? This foundational course gives you a clear framework for working effectively with AI, helping you move from curious to confident. Rather than focusing on specific platforms that constantly evolve, you'll learn to navigate three fundamental ways humans interact with AI—Tell, Team, and Trust—while developing the three pillars of AI literacy that remain relevant as AI continues to advance. Through hands-on practice, you'll see how this framework connects to CTE fields. By the end, you'll have the language, understanding, and mindset to bring AI into your teaching thoughtfully, preparing students for today's AI-driven workplace while building your foundation for more specialized AI applications.
Your students will enter workplaces where artificial intelligence (AI) impacts hiring, daily tasks, and career advancement. Are you prepared to teach them not just how to use AI, but how to use it responsibly? This course builds directly on your AI Literacy Foundations knowledge, diving deep into the "Responsible Use" pillar. You'll develop practical skills for recognizing bias, ensuring fairness, and maintaining transparency when using AI. Through real-world scenarios, you'll learn to spot hidden bias, communicate AI use appropriately, and protect student data. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive ethical toolkit that guides every AI decision in your teaching and prepares students for responsible AI use in their careers. IMPORTANT: This course assumes foundational knowledge of AI concepts, the Tell-Team-Trust framework for AI interaction, and the three pillars of AI literacy. Without this foundation, you may find discussions of bias detection, ethical decision-making, and responsible AI practices difficult to apply in context. It is strongly recommended that you complete ED160: AI Literacy Foundations for CTE Educators before enrolling in this course.
Your students deserve lessons that reflect both industry relevance and innovative teaching. But curriculum development takes time you don’t have. This course shows you how to integrate AI into your planning and design workflow without sacrificing quality or professional standards. Building on your framework foundation and ethical toolkit, you’ll apply Tell and Team approaches to transform how you create lessons, activities, and assessments. You’ll learn to direct AI for efficient content creation, collaborate with AI for complex design challenges, and apply your ethics skills throughout the process. By the end, you’ll have an AI-integrated planning system that will help you save time creating the hands-on, industry-connected learning your students need. You’ll design better curriculum faster, with your expertise guiding every decision. IMPORTANT: This course assumes foundational knowledge of AI concepts, the Tell-Team-Trust framework for interaction, the three pillars of AI literacy, and ethical AI practices. It is strongly recommended that you complete ED160: AI Literacy Foundations for CTE Educators and ED161: AI Ethics, Bias, and Responsible Use before enrolling in this course.
Your degree of success as an online instructor relies heavily on several factors, among which are your level of preparedness before the date on which the course is launched; your ability to make a smooth transition into the roles and responsibilities associated with teaching in an online environment; and the effectiveness and efficiency with which you manage learners, instructional transactions embedded in the course as well as the learning environment. In this course, you will learn how to project your authority and presence into the e-learning environment, build a relationship with each learner, promote and nurture learner participation, provide informative and constructive feedback in a timely manner, minimize attrition, manage communications, manage unacceptable behavior and resolve disagreements.
This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to successfully author, teach, assess, and revise online courses. You will learn to develop a course framework with consistent modules. Building an online community and constructing a dynamic syllabus are important in helping you communicate with students. You will also learn how to develop an assessment plan that includes peer and self-assessment. No online course is complete without a comprehensive revision cycle. This course will walk you through the process of "closing the loop" to create a complete revision and improvement plan for your online course. We will provide you with ideas for student-centered learning that includes activities and intellectual interactions using a variety of technological tools.
This course will provide you with the knowledge to effectively evaluate student learning in an online environment. Technology tools play a vital role in the evaluation process and several are discussed in this module. Discussion will also be provided to help you further understand how to complete formative and summative assessments, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of objective and subjective assessments. Value-added assessments are also discussed in light of how they can be completed and provide feedback for course revision.
Active and passive learning are critical concepts to ponder for online learning. Each one has positive benefits when explored and applied in the context of learning and the designing of instruction. There is, however, a difference between passive and inactive. One is an intentional part of learning while the other is the absence of something. We will explore these and other concepts in this course. In addition, strategies will be shared that will enable educators to make their online instruction more engaging and beneficial for learners.
This course will explore the online learning landscape and how to ensure learner engagement remains high, even when working virtually. The course discusses various aspects of online education, as well as discussing techniques for both social and motivational forms of engagement and how to apply them appropriately in courses. The goal of this course is to help develop a better understanding of the topic and produce tangible resources to help implement plans, strategies, and ideas at your school. In addition to lecture videos, links to possible resources, and assessments, you will be able to utilize the Journal and Learning Activities. Take advantage of a method that best works for you.
Assessments are a vital part of the learning process. They allow students and teachers to see how well they are doing and what needs to be improved upon. When offering online assessments, it is sometimes difficult to develop effective methods due to the new digital learning landscape, experience level with online teaching, or with tweaking on-ground assessments to create an effective online form. In this course, students will identify the impacts and opportunities that online assessments have in the digital learning process, discover the challenges that can present themselves and the strategies to overcome them, and evaluate guidelines for crafting effective assessment opportunities in an online course.
Research shows that supportive working relationships between students and institutional personnel are vital to student retention. For online students, these relationships are especially essential in preventing a sense of isolation and detachment from their academic experience. Because interactions with online students are most likely to occur via phone and text-based methods, developing retention-supporting relationships can be challenging. This course teaches online communication strategies that foster connection and engagement with online learners. Participants will develop a deeper understanding of (a) retention and attrition research, (b) online learning, and (c) technology's unique role in both the relationship-building process and the online student experience.