Instructional media (images, video, and audio content) helps students visualize topics, practice skills central to a course, and allows them to interact with content in a variety of ways. At its best, high-quality instructional media “engages students, aids student retention of knowledge, motivates interest in the subject matter, and illustrates the relevance of many concepts” (Mateer, Ghent, Porter, et al., n.d.). Our eLearning team at SAU takes high-quality instructional content seriously, and we are currently developing new ways to determine the quality of media used in our courses.
Continue reading “Introducing Our New Media Assessment Rubrics”Category: Strategy
Instructional Design for Mental Health
When instructional designers or subject matter experts (SMEs) design a course, students’ mental health often unintentionally gets overlooked. Courses that overlook students’ mental health, even unintentionally, show a lack of empathy and understanding on our part.
Continue reading “Instructional Design for Mental Health”Authentic Self-Assessment in eLearning
Self-assessment is an incredibly powerful tool to foster self-reflection and growth for all—and it’s especially important for college students. More students take a greater number of courses and programs online. And overall, online learning is generally more self-paced. Students need to build and hone self-assessment skills to help them track their progress and set goals for future weeks, months, years of assignments, projects, and exams.
Continue reading “Authentic Self-Assessment in eLearning”Digital Content Curation Tools for Education
Digital content curation tools allow us to easily create, collaborate, share, and evaluate educational resources and collections. With “[…] advances in technology, enhanced tools allow researchers to preserve their work in new venues and formats to reach new audiences. (Deschaine & Sharma, 2015, p. 20). In Curating an Instructional Content Collection for Teaching and Learning, I shared how to use content curation in course design to provide accurate, relevant learning resources and model 21st century information literacy skills. In this post, I’ll discuss digital tools for curating educational content.
Continue reading “Digital Content Curation Tools for Education”Curating an Instructional Content Collection for Teaching and Learning
Content continues to be published at staggering rates—and it’s only likely to increase. With the proper equipment, time, and an internet connection, anyone can publish content with relatively low effort. The value and accuracy of this content might not go through vigorous quality checks (or may be outright fictitious and created for malicious purposes), which means we must become savvy to identify, evaluate, and share the best resources.
Continue reading “Curating an Instructional Content Collection for Teaching and Learning”Creating and Maintaining Instructional Videos
When paragraphs of instructions aren’t doing the trick, videos can guide visual learners through steps to complete a task. Whether it’s something physical or on a computer, sometimes the best way to show someone how to do something is to, well… show them! The recording process can sometimes be long and you may need to do some editing after the video is submitted, so here are some tips to help you get the right video the first time and keep it accurate.
Continue reading “Creating and Maintaining Instructional Videos”Just-in-Time Resources for Faculty
In 2020, the need for ongoing support became even more apparent as educators struggled with the uncertainties from the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent post about the importance of supporting faculty and adjuncts through ongoing training, Ann describes how “Providing more opportunities for faculty training and development is one of the first steps we must take in order to empower faculty to make the mission of higher education a reality.”
Continue reading “Just-in-Time Resources for Faculty”Preparing for Fall 2020: Reimagining Higher Education
I am currently in a summer book study with fellow faculty discussing Teaching and Christian Imagination by David Smith and Susan M. Felch. Through my personal reading as well as group discussions, I’ve realized we need a significant reimagining in the way faculty and instructional designers view teaching and curriculum design in higher education.
Instead of providing a cookie-cutter process of how to teach and design curriculum, Smith and Felch invite readers to reimagine higher education through three metaphors: a pilgrimage, a garden, and a cathedral. In the wake of the many changes and uncertainties of COVID-19, I want to invite you to reimagine higher education through sharing some of the things I am learning from these metaphors and encourage you to begin taking steps toward making your reimagining a reality.
Continue reading “Preparing for Fall 2020: Reimagining Higher Education”The COVID-19 Semester is Over: Now What?
Three ways to move forward
It’s June 2020, and we just emerged from an unprecedented semester at the small midwestern university where I work as an Assistant Professor and Instructional Designer. Our semester-end faculty meeting brought together 90 professors who had just ended a semester of teaching they never in their wildest dreams could have imagined.
Continue reading “The COVID-19 Semester is Over: Now What?”Moneyball Learning
The Oakland Athletics were always a budget-minded franchise.
In 2001, they finished 16 games behind the winner of their division and lost to the New York Yankees in the first round of the postseason. Then lost three All-Star caliber players in the offseason.
In 2002, they won their division, went on a 20-game winning streak in the regular season (breaking the American League record), and won as many games (and went as far in the playoffs) as the Yankees—who spent almost three times what the A’s did in player salaries.
How?
By playing Moneyball.
Continue reading “Moneyball Learning”
Model eLearning 
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