Nash Community College

Nash Community College Increases Engagement by Creating Personal Connections Between Students & Instructors

Nash Community College was founded in 1967 and is a public two-year post-secondary educational institution with an open-door admissions policy. Approximately 12,000 citizens participate in programs at Nash Community College annually.

Nash Community College Challenge

At the pandemic’s onset, Nash Community College wanted to cut through red tape and track seat time, freeing up instructors to really focus on making their social presence felt in their online courses.

Nash College emphasizes that students want to know who their instructor is. Social presence reminds students that there’s a human behind that computer. Students are going to perform for a human. They’re not going to perform for an algorithm or some type of formula that tells them where to go. They can, but those are the students that are going to be self-motivated no matter what you do. When the pandemic began, their goal was to build that social presence.

Building a Successful Learning Solution

Nash Community College integrated IntelliBoard with its LMS (Moodle) to provide solutions for its instructors. They no longer need to pay for additional programs. Instead, they’re using resources already available on campus.

Furthermore, instructors come with questions about how to add basics like PDFs and videos into their online courses. The university uses this as an opportunity to create more buy-in and educate instructors on the more advanced features offered by Moodle and IntelliBoard.

Delivering Impact

The customizable nature of the Moodle LMS and IntelliBoard was a real boon for quality online instruction at Nash Community College. In addition to using IntelliBoard’s time tracking feature to save and cut through red tape around contact hour tracking, each instructor could really put their own stamp on their courses and make sure that their students felt that all-important presence of a human being behind the computer.

Building a Long-Term, Strategic Partnership

While Nash Community College is no longer fully online, the online offerings have improved and increased from their pre-2020 levels. Now, most courses have at least some online components, and the online-only offerings are much more streamlined.

Even beyond the pandemic, adult learners have all kinds of time pressures and obstacles that might prevent them from coming to campus. Allowing students to complete some or all of their coursework at a time that fits into their busy lives is a huge benefit. This is especially true when it comes to serving hard-to-reach populations.
Because all 58 community colleges in North Carolina have access to IntelliBoard, Nash College is optimistic about the future of online learning in the North Carolina Community College System thanks to its adoption of powerful tools like IntelliBoard.