The spring semester is underway, and it finally feels like we’ve settled into the new year. It’s time to dust off the blogging routine after a year of reconnecting with our purpose. It’s a familiar routine: creating a content schedule with deadlines and potential topics; brainstorming new ideas; outlining drafts of posts; and iterating through the words which will eventually be published on Model eLearning.
Continue reading “Refining Our Focus: A Design Team’s Journey”Tag: teaching and learning
2025: Reconnecting With Purpose
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.
Continue reading “2025: Reconnecting With Purpose”Designing Courses with Faculty Cognitive Loads in Mind
In previous posts, our team has discussed the importance of designing courses with the students in mind. However, instructional designers should also consider the needs of the faculty while designing courses, especially their cognitive load. Developed by John Sweller in 1988, cognitive load theory notes that each of us has a mental schema (i.e., knowledge base) developed from “a series of structures that enable us to solve problems and think. It also allows us to look at several different elements within a lesson or experience and treat those elements as just one whole element” (Pappas, 2024). However, our minds can only retain so much information. When our mental schemas become overwhelmed with too much information, we experience cognitive overload.
Continue reading “Designing Courses with Faculty Cognitive Loads in Mind”2024: The Ends and Beginnings of Change
Christmas brings a season of light, hope, and transformation culminating in the celebration of our Savior’s birth. As winter’s approach shortens the days and the year comes to an end, the twinkle of Christmas lights (and promise of delicious treats) brings the joy of good tidings to the long, cold nights in Michigan and the northern hemisphere. And as with every year, the Model eLearning team pauses at this time to reflect upon the previous successes and possibilities for improvement. We invite you to join us as we review our team’s efforts to embrace change; try new technologies; and design the opportunity for meaningful learning in 2024.
Continue reading “2024: The Ends and Beginnings of Change”The AI Revolution is Here! What this means for Educators, Students, and the Learning Environment
If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you’ll recall several of our posts have explored the future and possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, eLearning, and instructional design. The release of Generative AI (Nvidia) and OpenAI programs (ChatGPT and GPT-4) in the past year has accelerated the AI Revolution in all aspects of life, including education.
Continue reading “The AI Revolution is Here! What this means for Educators, Students, and the Learning Environment”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”The Importance of Being Present in Your Online Course
You can have a well-designed course with relevant content and an expert instructor, yet the course can still be perceived as a negative experience by students. Why? The instructor was not “present” in the course.
It takes more than grading to create instructor presence. Bangert defines instructor presence as “the ‘methods’ that instructors use to create the quality online instructional experiences that support and sustain productive communities of inquiry” (Bangert, 2008, p. 40). Without instructor support, courses quickly become barren.
Continue reading “The Importance of Being Present in Your Online Course”Engage Learners with Instructional GIFs
You can’t really go anywhere on the internet without running into the ubiquitous animated GIF (graphical interchange format). Originating in 1987, GIFs shaped—and grew—with the internet in the following 30+ years (for those who missed the 90s or want to reminisce, the Internet Archive created a search for early GIFs).
Continue reading “Engage Learners with Instructional GIFs”Foster Collaboration with Open Pedagogy
Since this week is Open Educational Resources (OER) week, and 2018 was the year of open, I’m eager to touch on a topic that I feel passionate about that aligns with OER—Open Pedagogy.
When I think of Open Pedagogy, it brings to mind areas that I have a background in—practices and theories related to teaching and learning with technology and social justice. Open Pedagogy has several meanings, but we’re going to focus on perspectives specific to OER and Open Educational Practices (OEP).
Continue reading “Foster Collaboration with Open Pedagogy”Communities of Inquiry (CoI): Cognitive Presence
Throughout this series, we’ve unpacked the three presences of Charles Sander Peirce’s Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. In my previous posts, we’ve looked at social and teaching presence. Cognitive presence, the final presence, combines both social and teaching presence. Today we’ll discuss how you can incorporate cognitive presence in your online course. Continue reading “Communities of Inquiry (CoI): Cognitive Presence”
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