In Michigan, December began under a blanket of snow. As I type, it’s falling in big, swirling flakes which remind me of playing outside as a child bundled against the cold. Soon, we’ll celebrate the holiday season with Christmas before welcoming the new year. We’ll gather with family and friends to eat delicious food, exchange thoughtful gifts, and—best of all—make memories which last a lifetime.

At Model eLearning, we cherish the tradition of reflection at the end of the year. It allows us to celebrate successes and learn from challenges so we can continue to improve our design and processes. So as the skies steadily darken toward the first day of winter, let’s brighten the season by contemplating the accomplishments of the year. 

A Year to Regroup

Last year’s changes followed us into 2025. Our team focused on completing the transition from Blackboard to Brightspace; developed new programs and courses; redeveloped courses for accreditation; and redefined how we will continue to deliver high-quality courses using fewer resources.

This means we only published one post this year. Ann wrote an exploration of how instructional designers can consider faculty cognitive loads while designing courses. As instructional designers, we seek to reduce cognitive load by curating the content to only provide the learner what they need to learn to master a topic. However, we should also consider how irrelevant content, assignments, and tools can increase cognitive load for instructors—which leads to faculty burnout and turnover. It’s important to work with subject matter experts (SME) to curate meaningful content and choose sustainable tools based on the pedagogical needs rather than what’s new and trendy.

Intentional design and curation became essential as we reviewed our development process based on the changes of last year. I created a dashboard in Miro to provide an at-a-glance look at current and upcoming developments. Our editor Allison created an infographic which details the deadlines and milestones of the new development timeline. She also designed a quality assurance checklist for faculty reviewing their courses. Tara wrote documentation which defines the changes in a post-course review to complete a course development.

While our time was limited this year, we found small ways to move our design process forward and interact with the academic community. As a team, we’re reviewing ways to infuse generative AI in course design while considering academic integrity and ethics. Ann piloted Copyleaks in select courses to ensure the best user experience for the programs using the tool. In November, Tara and I attended the 2025 MI OER Conference. The event helped us reconnect with our passion for championing open educational resources on our campus (you can review my conference notes on my personal website). Finally, we refined the process of implementing a learner experience survey for new and recently developed courses. In the new year, we’ll use this data as part of the iterative design process. 

Season’s Greetings, and Looking Forward to 2026

Our team values the community and professional development brought by Model eLearning—thank you for your patience as we took time to define and refine what it means to be an eLearning team dedicated to quality course design.

May the season fill you with warmth, peace, and joy! We’ll be back with new content in 2026.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Jessica M. Bishop
Model eLearning Editor