TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast
by Thomas Cavanagh & Kelvin Thompson
Hosted by Thomas Cavanagh and Kelvin Thompson, the Teaching Online Podcast (TOPcast) takes a fun and informative look at the various trends, best practices and technologies in the realm of online education.
Episodes
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Episode 200: Last Call at the TOPcast Cafe
Recorded in front of a plenary audience at the OLC Accelerate 2025 conference and drawing upon crowdsourced listener input and live audience questions, this is it: the final, regularly-scheduled episode of TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast. Please enjoy this cumulative synthesis of insights…
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Episode 199: Pillar Panel #3: Faculty Professional Development in Online Ed
Guests Dr. Michelle Pacansky-Brock (“Brocanksy”) and Dr. Alejandra (“Alex”) Pickett unpack decades of experience in conversation with hosts Tom and Kelvin on the topic of scaling high-quality, impactful online design/teaching through preparing and supporting faculty. This episode is the final...
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Episode 198: “An Instructional Design Institute in a Book!”
Dr. Safary Wa-Mbaleka and Dr. Baiyun Chen join hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the future of the field of higher education instructional design and their comprehensive(!) new book on the subject.
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Episode 197: Pillar Panel #2: Evidence-Based Practice in Online/Digital Ed
Guests Dr. Tanya Joosten and Dr. Patsy Moskal unpack decades of expertise in conducting research and fostering evidence-based practice in conversation with hosts Tom and Kelvin. This episode is the second in a mini-series of “pillar panels” offering distilled insights from esteemed community...
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Episode 196: The Future of Student Success and Digital Learning is “Co-created”
Guest Dr. Cristi Ford returns to the show to discuss with hosts Kelvin and Tom revolutionary forces, wicked problems, and the importance of seeing the future of digital learning and student success as “co-created.”
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Episode 195: Managing the Online Expectations of Presidents and Provosts
Hosts Kelvin and Tom synthesize themes from three 2025 industry reports and more in this episode to focus on the importance of aligning leadership ambitions of presidents/provosts and quality assurance operations of online education.
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Episode 194: Becoming Ambassadors of “Acceptance”
OLC’s Dr. Jennifer Mathes joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the roles we all can play in ensuring that higher ed online learning continues to be effective and strategic in meeting our society’s needs.
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Episode 193: Pillar Panel #1: Leadership Vision in Online Ed
Guests Ray Schroeder and Dr. Melissa Vito unpack decades of practical wisdom on leadership vision in conversation with hosts Tom and Kelvin. This episode is the first in a mini-series of “pillar panels” offering distilled insights from esteemed community members on key, “structural support”…
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Episode 192: Futures Thinking and Digital Higher Ed
Higher ed futurist Dr. Bryan Alexander guests alongside hosts Kelvin and Tom to reflect on the recent past and near-term possible futures of digital higher education.
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Episode 191: Student Retention Through Online Learning
Hosts Tom and Kelvin consider the role well-designed online learning can play in institutional efforts to increase student retention.
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Episode 190: “When Will Online Learning Stop Growing?” (Plus More Market Insights!)
Guest market analyst Dr. Glenda Morgan joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to share a concentrated distillation of wise insights on online enrollment growth, student success online, and much more.
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Episode 189: “We Have a Problem” with Many of Our Incoming Students
Hosts Kelvin and Tom examine recent trend data on the academic readiness and unique challenges of current K12 students who will be college students soon. Digital learning professionals can bring our strengths to the table to partner with other colleagues in better supporting these learners.
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Episode 188: How Do You Do It? Leading Strategy and Practice in Online Education
Return guest Dr. Jocelyn Widmer joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss a brand new book focused on leading the strategy and practice of online higher education and clarifying the role of the Chief Online Learning Officer (COLO).
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Episode 187: The TOPcast “Core Audience” and Strategic Online Education
Hosts Kelvin and Tom speak about (and to) the “core audience” of online faculty, instructional designers, and administrative leaders, alongside many other roles, to unpack the podcast’s conceptualization of online education as centered on optimizing course design and teaching.
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Episode 186: Expert Tips for Online Program Marketing and Enrollment
Return guest Dr. Sasha Thackaberry-Voinovich joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to share hard won expert tips on improving online program marketing and enrollment.
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Episode 185: What Do the Top 10 TOPcast Episodes Tell Us?
With ten years in the rear view mirror, hosts Tom and Kelvin talk through insights gained about the field of online education and the podcast itself after they reviewed the “Top10” episodes of TOPcast. [Spoiler: Tune in for a big announcement!]
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Episode 184: The Digital Learning Value of 1EdTech “Decomplexified”
1EdTech Consortium CEO Curtiss Barnes guests on the show alongside hosts Kelvin and Tom to “decomplexify” the value 1EdTech brings to the digital learning community through open standards and more.
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Episode 183: No Lemmings! Avoid the Enrollment Cliff with a Values-Driven Strategy
Hosts Tom and Kelvin discuss how institutions can avoid the enrollment cliff by embracing a values-driven strategy in online higher education. Learn key insights to navigate demographic shifts, economic pressures, and the evolving digital learning landscape.
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Episode 182: When is “Good Teaching” Just “Good Teaching?”
Guest Dr. Thomas J. (Tom) Tobin joins hosts Tom and Kelvin for a slightly spicy conversation about the extent to which general teaching behaviors can be meaningfully separated from other factors such as course modality, student characteristics, institutional resources, and more.
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Episode 181: Help in Grasping “Good Online Course”
Hosts Kelvin and Tom discuss the challenge, still present after 30 years, of helping others (e.g., policymakers, potential students, etc.) understand what a “good online course” is without experiencing one themselves. They discuss why this still matters and what approaches might help.
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Episode 180: Pan-Canadian Digital Learning Report (2024)
Returning guest Dr. Nicole Johnson joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss findings from the seventh annual report of the state of digital learning in Canada produced by the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association (CDLRA). Similarities with global themes and distinctives unique to the…
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Episode 179: Temporary Remote Work and Remote Instruction… Again!
As US higher ed institutions experienced shifts to remote work and instruction in early 2025, it's an ideal time for us as digital learning professionals to reflect on key lessons learned in ensuring continuity of operations as we seek to support successful future transitions.
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Episode 178: Transferable Skills of Digital Learning Professionals
Guest Dr. Vickie Cook joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss unexpected career trajectories for digital learning professionals, especially COLOs, related to sought-after, transferable skill sets.
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Episode 177: Creating the Digital Learning Future Our Students Deserve
In celebration of 30 years of OLC conferences and with input and reactions from our community of online/digital learning professionals, including a live audience(!), hosts Tom and Kelvin discuss the issues inherent in predicting and shaping a desirable future for online/digital education over the...
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Episode 176: Credit for Prior Learning
Guest Dr. Matt Bergman joins Tom and Kelvin to discuss the current role credit for prior learning plays in American higher education and how we can all do a bit more to use this approach effectively in our digital learning work.
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Episode 175: “Let’s Stay Focused On What We Can Control” in Online Ed
In this “call-in show” episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin are joined by some of the past year’s guests in sharing observations about 2024 as it ends and predictions and hopes about 2025 as it begins. Some of the themes emerging include balancing humanness and technology-assistance and staying focused…
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Episode 174: Get “All [Phil]’d Up” On LMS/Online Enrollment Insights
Guest Phil Hill joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss substantive insights on the role of the LMS and trends in online higher ed enrollments. (Must see TV. Even if it is a podcast.)
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Episode 173: Campus-Based Student Demand for Online Options (and More!) from CHLOE 9
Hosts Tom and Kelvin talk through themes from the CHLOE 9 report that stand out as broadly applicable to all online education professionals while we all seek to anticipate or shape the future.
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Episode 172: Online Education in Guatemala
Guest and former Hubert Humphrey Fellow Angelica Gabriela Rocha Guevara joins hosts Tom and Kelvin from Guatemala to discuss the similarities and differences of her country’s pursuit of online education compared to that of other countries around the globe.
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Episode 171: The “North Star” of Online Learners’ Needs
Hosts Kelvin and Tom consider the centrality that online learners’ needs must have in shaping the work of online higher education. Particular attention is given to how responsibility for this common goal must be shared between individual faculty and institutional processes to assure quality at...
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Episode 170: “Wise Use” of Rapidly Changing AI Tools
Return guest Nicolaas Matthijs joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss some of the trends he’s seeing in the rapidly changing AI-assisted technology space with an eye toward how digital learning professionals can make wise use of the tools in our work.
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Episode 169: You Know Your Institution is Doing Online Ed Strategically When…
Hosts Tom and Kelvin discuss the relationship between the strategic value institutions find in online education and institutions establishing senior roles of responsibility for online and digital learning. Implications for a variety of institutional roles are considered. Podcast Recording…
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Episode 168: “More Positive Hope than Ever Before”
Guest Melissa Loble joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to share an optimistic vision for the future of technology-enabled higher education. Amidst heightened automation and AI assistance, the uniquely human affordances of relationships are all the more crucial in solving our challenges.
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Episode 167: Cultivating a Startup Mindset
Hosts Kelvin and Tom explore the catalyzing personal and organizational value of individuals cultivating a “startup mindset,” regardless of personal role, in the work of digital higher education.
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Episode 166: High Structure Course Design for Online STEM Courses
Guest Dr. Justin Shaffer joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the role high structure course design can play in making online STEM courses more effective… and fun!
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Episode 165: Why Still Prepare Faculty for Online Teaching? #IYKYK
In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin explore the rationale underlying continued institutional efforts to prepare faculty for online course design and teaching. Hint: It’s about students.
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Episode 164: Student Success Coaching Online
Dr. Jenny Sumner joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss the growing role “coaching” plays, especially online, in centering students and their success within our higher ed work.
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Episode 163: The Online Syllabus: “A Welcome Mat for the Course”
In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin invite “fun with syllabi” by exploring the multiple roles played by the syllabus in online courses and encouraging adjustments to make syllabi more meaningful and inviting for students.
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Episode 162: Listen and Act Now! US ED’s Proposed Online Changes
In this time-sensitive episode (listen now!), return guests Russ Poulin and Cheryl Dowd explain how proposed actions by the US Department of Education (US ED) may negatively impact many online learners and US higher education institutions.
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Episode 161: Taste the Rainbow of Online Ed’s Possible Futures
In this Season 10 kick-off episode, hosts Kelvin Thompson and Thomas Cavanagh revisit a “time capsule” of past predictions and pivot toward the various flavors of “possible futures” available now in online education.
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Episode 160: “Remember the Why:” Designing Meaningful Learning Assignments
Guest Dr. Jean Mandernach joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss how faculty and instructional designers can design more meaningful and engaging learning assignments for students, online or anywhere.
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Episode 159: “Adjusting Your Sails” in Online Ed Based on the Data
Hosts Kelvin and Tom talk through the importance of consulting trusted sources of data and information as the basis for sound decision making in online education, no matter what role one holds.
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Episode 158: AI-Assistance Built-In: Less Obvious/More Useful
Guest Nicolaas Matthijs joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the emergence of AI-assistance built into educational technology platforms and how this is a departure from past phases of artificial intelligence implementation.
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Episode 157: Pending Changes to Inclusive Access Programs
In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin summarize the current issues surrounding proposed changes to “inclusive access programs” for digital instructional materials and how this affects the affordability work of digital education professionals.
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Episode 156: Reframing the Data That Tell the Stories About Online Students
Guest Dr. Carmin Chan joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to consider how we might reframe the typical institutional data that might not present clearly the needs and progress of post-traditional learners served by online education.
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Episode 155: High-Quality Online Discussions — Here’s How.
In this episode, spring-boarding from one of the chapters in the new SAGE Handbook of Online Higher Education, hosts Kelvin and Tom advocate for high-quality online discussions and reflect upon research-based practices that lead to well-designed and successful discussion experiences.
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Episode 154: Alternative Educational Programs and Digital Higher Ed
Guest Dr. Anna Porcaro joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to share insights on how higher education institutions can be more effective in meeting workforce needs through digital alternative educational programs.
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Episode 153: Better Serving Learners Through Transformed Business Models
As a follow-up to the pre-2024 call-in show, hosts Tom and Kelvin talk through the need to re-examine, challenge, and change existing institutional structures as we seek to serve learners better - both existing students and a wider variety of potential new students.
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Episode 152: Still “Be Prepared” for Disruption with Digital Learning
Guest Patti O’Sullivan joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss the significance of advance planning for academic continuity and the role that digital teaching and learning can play. Important all the time - not just for global pandemics.
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Episode 151: “What a Year [of Disruption] It Has Been! […But] 2024 is Upon Us!”
In this “call-in show” episode, hosts Kelvin and Tom are joined by multiple voices from the online education community to help us all make sense of 2023’s disruptions and make the most of 2024’s opportunities in our collective work. Themes include meeting the needs of diverse potential students…
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About this show
Hosted by Thomas Cavanagh and Kelvin Thompson, the Teaching Online Podcast (TOPcast) takes a fun and informative look at the various trends, best practices and technologies in the realm of online education.
Hosted by
Thomas Cavanagh & Kelvin Thompson
Categories