Instructional Design

Just like that, 2022 is behind us. This past year, our IDeas Newsletter team enjoyed bringing you fresh ideas for online teaching along with a refreshed newsletter name and design. We hope you liked the changes and found time to read an article or two. However, if you missed some of the great content from the newsletter, we’ve got you covered with the top content from this year’s issues. While it may not be the Times Square ball drop countdown to midnight, here is a countdown of our most-read articles this year and one of our favorites from 2022.

✨Four… Improving Online Discussions (One of Our Favorite Articles) 

Do your discussions feel like busy work or just small talk? Are students only engaging in shallow conversation? It’s a common problem and we have research-backed ways to push those discussions deeper and engage students more! 

We at the UWEX Instructional Design team were so proud that instructional designers Laurie Berry and Kristin Kowal published their research on effective online discussions in Online Learning in 2022! They summarized their results and best ideas for reinvigorating online discussions at our 2022 faculty symposium and on our ID blog. Check out the five components of their Framework for Student Engagement and Critical Thinking and examples of how to implement them. We think this is a resource you will want to bookmark and come back to when it’s time to revise or create your online course.

✨Three… Symposium Session Previews

“Where’s the fizz?” That’s what Flower Darby asked during her keynote address. Believe it or not, it’s an important question related to online learning! 

Every year the UWEX Instructional Design team looks forward to getting together with you to talk about best practices in online learning at our annual symposium. Our article previewing the sessions at the symposium was our third most-read article this year. You can revisit the article or, better yet, watch some of the presentations from the symposium! These recordings will allow you to revisit a favorite presentation or watch a session you were not able to attend. You can also watch the keynote address from Flower Darby (her profile was the fourth most-read article of the year). We look forward to seeing you at the symposium in 2023! 

✨Two… Feedback with Impact 

How do you leave personalized, individual feedback beyond the comment box in SpeedGrader? That’s the question that kicked off this exploration of what makes high-quality personalized feedback and under-utilized ways to incorporate it in our courses.

Our second most-read article this year examined increasing student motivation through personalized feedback. Progress through three steps to see some different examples to provide students with the feedback they need. The examples range from basic to advanced and give some fresh perspectives and ideas to help students meet their needs. Also, you can contribute to the article by submitting your own favorite feedback ideas.  

✨One… Be Seen by Your Students 

Do you offer helpful hints for challenging work in your online course? What about “just-in-time” announcements? What do you post in the discussion boards as the instructor? There are lots of ways to be seen more by students and watch engagement improve. 

Did you know that students report greater satisfaction in online courses when they perceive the instructor to be active and engaged? Our most-read article this year provides suggestions to increase your online social presence in your courses. Learn about creating a social presence plan, customizing announcements, utilizing feedback, and more to increase your presence in your course.  

🎉 Happy New Year! 

All of us on the UWEX Instructional Design Team appreciate each of you and what you do. The fact that the most-read articles this year are all about trying new things and reflecting upon existing practice to improve demonstrates the care and dedication you have to your teaching practice and our students. Cheers to you and 2023! 

We’d love to serve you better in 2023! If you have a topic or idea you would like to read more about in the IDeas newsletter, let us know! 

Dr. Holly is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at UW-Green Bay and teaches in UW Extended Campus’s Master of Science in Sustainable Management (MSMGT) program. Sustainable Management was one of the first collaborative programs offered by UWEX and is still going strong as students seek a degree they can use to lessen our impact on the natural environment and improve our well-being.

In his course MSMGT 785, Waste Management and Resource Recovery, Dr. Holly includes what’s called a life cycle assessment (LCA) activity, which looks at the environmental impact of a product or service over its entire life. Because prospective students commonly asked whether LCA was taught in the program, MSMGT leadership decided it should be featured in a course. Since Dr. Holly’s course already discussed the theory of LCA, it seemed like a good fit for a practical component.

In Dr. Holly’s activity, students use open-source software and a free agricultural and food products database to perform an LCA of three different pasta recipes, two selected by the instructor and one of their choosing. They start out by comparing a chicken pasta recipe and a vegetarian mushroom and lentil ragu, then create their own entirely new recipe. In this spotlight, Dr. Holly gives us a more detailed look at the activity and its benefits for students.

Why is life cycle assessment so relevant today?

Dr. Holly calls LCA “a critical tool for sustainable managers to quantify the environmental impact of processes and products.” He explains this concept further in one of his course videos:

Over the past 20 years, life cycle assessment has grown from an academic exercise to an accepted decision-making tool for sustainable management. LCA is used by large companies and entire industries…to develop sustainable products and to quantify emissions and natural resource use to stakeholders and consumers…lifecycle inventories include thousands of calculations and require LCA software to complete. (MSMGT 785, Unit 3 Introduction)

What do students do in this activity and take away?

After going through a tutorial to learn about the software they will be using, students use “openLCA (a free life cycle assessment tool) to quantify the environmental impact of two defined recipes and one recipe of their choosing. Students then write a report discussing the environmental impacts of the recipes and assumptions used for analysis,” Dr. Holly explains.

Student feedback on the activity has been positive. They see it as relevant to their career paths and appreciate the knowledge and experience they gain using a “hands-on tool they use in industry.”

What advice would Dr. Holly have for other faculty who may want to try a similar activity in their courses?

Using outside software in a course can sometimes be cumbersome or present a financial burden to students. In this activity, however, students do not need to install any software on their computers. Instead, they access it remotely through the Virtual Lab, a tool that UW Extended Campus’s IT team set up for this course. According to Dr. Holly, the “Virtual Lab can reduce some of the risk with incorporating software into a course.”

Dr. Holly’s activity is a great example of preparing students in the classroom to work in their field. The activity gives students both industry-specific knowledge and hands-on experience. It’s also well aligned with the goals of the MSMGT program itself, which is to prepare students for a variety of careers focused on the “three Ps”: people, planet, and prosperity.

Now, it’s your turn to participate! Any guess as to which recipe is better for our planet: the chicken pasta or the vegetarian mushroom and lentil ragu?

Was your guess correct? As you can see, the chicken recipe has a significantly larger negative impact on the environment than the vegetarian option.

Starting in Spring 2023, the UWEX Instructional Design team will be rolling out a revised series of faculty professional development courses called Level Up. In the interview below, Instructional Designer Amy Lane gives us an inside look at the new courses.

Amy Lane is an instructional designer with UW Extended Campus. Her experience includes several years of teaching online as well as coursework and experience working with faculty to develop instruction that helps students make meaning of their learning experiences. She enjoys collaborating with faculty to create innovative and engaging learning experiences for students using high-impact practices in online learning.

Interview

What are the new Level Up courses for faculty development?

The new Level Up courses provide professional development in online teaching for UW Extended Campus faculty. There are three courses in the series: one that focuses on course planning, one on development, and one on teaching. Notably, the courses contain numerous resources and peer examples from UW Extended Campus courses. They also show faculty how to use high-impact practices in online teaching and incorporate principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion into their courses.

What format are the three courses offered in?

All the Level Up courses were developed as fully online courses. There are many benefits of the online format. It allows faculty to do the following:

• Save travel time and expense
• Use a flexible schedule to help with life/work balance
• Create a personalized learning space
• Select an optimal time for their learning
• Learn new technical skills at their own pace
• Enhance their knowledge and experience of online learning
• Expand their skills for future online teaching opportunities

How were the courses developed?

These courses were designed by the UW Extended Campus Instructional Design team using research-based best practices for online teaching to increase student achievement and success. The courses serve as a foundation of knowledge to support the professional development of our online instructors. Over 200 faculty have piloted these courses and have offered extremely positive feedback.

Do the courses apply to faculty with online teaching experience already?

The Level Up courses are appropriate for instructors of all levels of teaching experience; however, we developed the courses with two primary audiences in mind. The first is instructors who are new to online teaching and want to learn more about the best practices in the field. The second audience is experienced online instructors who want to level up their skills to keep up with best practices in the field of online teaching and learning.

How do faculty take these courses?

Faculty members with UW Extended Campus will automatically be enrolled in the courses by their instructional designer at the beginning of the course development or revision process. While faculty work on course development, they will work through the three courses with an instructional designer to provide a foundation of knowledge for online teaching.

What will faculty take away from the courses?

After completing the three courses, faculty will be even more prepared and confident in developing new courses and revising existing ones. Importantly, they will be able to implement new teaching methods and online strategies that incorporate high-impact practices and the principles of EDI that produce positive outcomes for their students.

See you in the courses this spring!