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Archives for Instructional Design

Instructional Design

Instructional Design

Three Easy Activities to Build a Stronger Classroom Community

By Eileen Horn, Gaby Huebner-Noblitt
September 18, 2024

September 18, 2024

 

Being part of a community is very important to students, especially in online learning. When students feel connected and supported, they are more engaged, motivated, and open to collaboration. They also feel safe to share ideas and diverse perspectives. Courses that include community-building activities often see improved student retention and success rates. A learning community can be built and supported through structured and formal course activities such as group projects, peer reviews, or debates, but also through spaces like a virtual café, for example, where community can “happen” spontaneously and organically. We would like to share three community-building activities that are easy to build into your course framework and that your students will enjoy.

Consulting Scenario

The first activity we would like to present is a great way to build community while also building important academic and life skills. It uses the so-called troika consulting technique (source: OneHE.org) and can be used at any time during the semester. In this activity, students practice the following skills:

  • Self-reflection
  • Formulating a problem or challenge clearly and seeking input from classmates
  • Supporting their peers
  • Active listening
  • Problem-solving
  • Working across disciplines and functional silos
  • Building trust within a group through mutual support

Here’s how it works:

  • In groups of three, students decide who wants to be the “client” (i.e., the person who poses a course-related problem or challenge they are dealing with).
  • The remaining team members are “consultants” who discuss a solution for the client’s problem.
  • The client shares their problem or challenge. (1-2 minutes)
  • The consultants ask the client any clarifying questions. (2 minutes)
  • The client then turns around with their back facing the consultants.
  • The consultants generate ideas, suggestions, and advice. (3 minutes)
  • The client turns around and shares how the discussion has helped them solve the problem. (1-2 minutes)

You may wonder how this technique works in an online environment. We recently used it in a group of instructional designers and found it’s easy to adapt and works quite well. Instead of having the client turn around, they simply turned the camera off as the consultants deliberated and discussed solutions.

Cultural Exchange

The second activity is a fun icebreaker you can use at the beginning of the semester by itself or as part of an introductory activity (source: OneHE.org). The question is simple: Ask your students how they make rice (or any other simple dish that is similar in many cultures and regions).

Here are a few possible prompts you can use to get the conversation started:

  • How was rice cooked in your home when you were growing up?
  • How do you cook rice now?
  • Does it have any cultural or historical meaning?
  • Is there a story or experience related to how you cook rice you would like to share?

The goal is to invite students to share something meaningful to them and perhaps something interesting and unique. It should be fairly easy to come up with for everyone. The activity shows your students how people may learn the same topic or concept in different ways but with similar results and that everyone comes to class with a unique background and experiences, which can influence how we approach a conversation, how we do things, and how we might answer a question.

Feedback with a Human Touch

Our third example is about promoting both teacher and student well-being throughout the whole semester (beginning, middle, and end). Called I Wish My Students/Teacher Knew, this activity helps you and your students connect and communicate effectively. It’s valuable for rapport building and adding a human touch to your class by suggesting periodic self-reflection. It’s also useful for adapting course management techniques, strategies, and assignments based on the responses or feedback from students.

This technique can be used periodically throughout the semester and can be broken into the following steps:

  1. Create a non-graded discussion area. We recommend setting the discussion to “Partial” anonymity so students can choose to reveal their name or not.

    Canvas discussion settings
    Canvas discussion setting to allow anonymous posts
  2. Write a sentence or a paragraph starting with “I wish my students knew that…” and post it in the discussion area. Encourage students to respond with their own “I wish…” statement.
  3. Students write a sentence or a paragraph starting with “I wish my teacher knew that…”
  4. Try this activity early in the course and seek input from your students on how often such reflective activities would be valuable (every two weeks, month, etc.). You might use a surveying tool to measure the effectiveness of this activity, decide the frequency, and receive further suggestions.
  5. Students are free to write as much as they want, but you should keep your paragraph short, so they do not get bored.

Consider making statements related to learning, life, or anything else. Here are some examples from one course, which were posted at different points throughout the semester.

  • I wish my students knew that I don’t like deadlines either.
  • I wish my students knew that I am so proud of their amazing presentations. They were excellent! Seeing their progress made me so happy.
  • I wish my students knew that today I was so disappointed because after spending the whole weekend writing feedback on their drafts, their final essays did not show the desired progress. Sometimes I feel they don’t even read my comments.
  • I wish my students knew that I feel bad about the instructions for the last assignment not being clear and causing confusion.

Remember to encourage your students to respond with their own “I wish…” statements. This helps create connections and keeps students engaged in your course.

As you can see, each of these three activities is fairly easy to implement and facilitate. Talk to your instructional designer during revision time if you are considering one of these activities and would like assistance with adding it to your course.

 

2024 Faculty Symposium Preview

By Abbie Amadio
May 2, 2024

May 2, 2024

Rebecca Glazier, PhD

Keynote Presentation by Dr. Rebecca Glazier

This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Rebecca A. Glazier. A political science professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dr. Glazier’s research interests span religion and politics, foreign policy, community engagement, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and more. Her book Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) details how simple, regular, and science-based rapport-building strategies can significantly improve student retention and success. In 2023, EdTech named Dr. Glazier one of the top higher-education influencers to follow, which highlights Dr. Glazier’s championing of technology to connect with students on a human level in the virtual classroom. In her keynote presentation, Dr. Glazier will share research-backed evidence demonstrating the impact that building rapport can have, how to build that rapport, and how to make meaningful connections with your online students.

Faculty Breakout Sessions

At this year’s symposium, you’ll have the opportunity to attend several breakout sessions led by UW faculty and experts in instructional design and media. Offered in various formats, the sessions will all focus on current best practices in online teaching and learning and offer practical strategies on everything from producing impactful lectures to cultivating personal resilience and preparing students to flourish in the age of AI. Get a glimpse of each breakout session below and see the full details on the UW Extended Campus 2024 Faculty Symposium website.


 

Coaching Students on How to Thrive in the Era of AI

Dee Piziak, UW-Milwaukee

💻 Presentation Gain insights into the far-reaching impact of AI on various industries and careers and how educators can equip their students with the tools they’ll need to succeed in an AI-driven world.

 


 

Creating Effective 15-Minute Narrated PowerPoint Lectures for Online Classes

John Bennett, UW-Parkside

💻 Presentation Learn a streamlined approach for crafting concise and impactful 15-minute narrated PowerPoint lectures that efficiently use publisher-provided resources, existing slides, and additional relevant course material to foster a more engaged and informed learning experience.

 


 

Aligning Curriculum with Changing Industry Needs

Kelli Stein, UW-Parkside, and Eileen Horn (Instructional Designer), UW Extended Campus

💻 Presentation Through the lens of revamping the UW Flexible Option’s Project Management certificate, you will explore strategies for effectively aligning curriculum with changing industry needs. Additionally, this presentation will cover identifying emerging industry trends and integrating them into course design, ensuring students are equipped with relevant and marketable skills in their field of study.

 


 

Strategies for Incorporating Labs into Online Science Courses

Laura Lee, UW-Stevens Point; Kristine Prahl, UW-Stevens Point; Jennifer Bray, UW-Stevens Point; and Kristine Pierick (Instructional Designer), UW Extended Campus

🎤 Panel Discussion Learn innovative strategies for delivering meaningful lab experiences in online science courses. You will also have the opportunity to brainstorm and share your own best practices for designing and teaching online lab courses.

 


 

Challenges and Opportunities in Online Asynchronous Group Learning

Pritosh Kumar, UW-Parkside, and Michelle Gabor, UW-Parkside

💻 Presentation Explore the best methods to create, manage, and monitor effective group assignments for both undergraduate and graduate online students. You will also discover new online tools for group learning and how to gauge success by evaluating metrics like participation, cohesion, and individual learning in a group setting.

 


 

Creating Effective Group Project Teams

Scott Dickmeyer, UW-La Crosse

✏️ Workshop Learn how to craft better work groups by identifying students’ individual managerial strengths and communication styles, ensuring a balanced and effective team environment. You will complete a hands-on activity where you’ll learn your own managerial strengths and communication styles, thereby experiencing the same dynamics as your students when grouped using this approach.

 


 

Teaching Communication in Degree Programs

Tim Krause, UW-Stevens Point, and Terry Tao (Instructional Designer), UW Extended Campus

💻 Presentation Discover effective strategies to inform students of the importance of clear communication in diverse technical professions, particularly when engaging with students who may question the need for strong communication skills in their respective fields.

 


 

Managing Capstone and Other Online Projects

Tim Krause, UW-Stevens Point; Michael Steury, UW-Stevens Point; and Kristin Kowal (Instructional Designer), UW Extended Campus

🎤 Panel Discussion Gain deeper insight into the challenges of guiding capstone students through applied projects in an entirely online, asynchronous setting. You will gain a deeper understanding of how to help students evaluate and select their projects and manage them throughout the semester using methods like Agile and scrum reporting via Google Sheets, interactive video demonstrations, and the Capstone database.

 


 

Practice Resilience by Inviting New Challenges: Activate Your “Bucket List”!

Theresa Dionne, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Madison

✏️ Workshop Learn how to cultivate resilience by designing a personalized “bucket list,” a strategy for increasing well-being and reducing the negative effects of stress often encountered in the demanding world of academia.

 


 

Driving Choice and Collaboration in Asynchronous Quantitative Environments

Lauren Mauel, UW-Green Bay

✏️ Workshop Discover innovative strategies to foster collaboration and empower student choice within asynchronous online courses, specifically looking at quantitative subject areas.

 


 

Open Topics Discussion

Ryan Anderson (Director of Instructional Design), Kyle Sky (Instructional Designer), Laurie Berry (Instructional Designer), Kristine Pierick (Instructional Designer), and the Media Team, UW Extended Campus

🎤 Open Discussion Join experts from the Instructional Design and Media Teams for an open discussion with your fellow online faculty members. In this engaging session, you will brainstorm with other attendees to select four main topics of discussion, ensuring a balanced conversation on each. The moderators will also review the resources available to faculty to assist with course development.

 


AI Roundtable Discussion

Nate Ewings (Instructional Designer) and Kelsey Zeller (Instructional Designer), UW Extended Campus

🎤 Open Discussion Join instructional designers leading the conversion about AI in online education for this roundtable discussion that will give you the opportunity to share with your colleagues how AI has impacted your teaching, how you’re using AI in your work, and how you are seeing students use it in your classroom.

 


See the full schedule and read more about the sessions and speakers on the UW Extended Campus 2024 Faculty Symposium website.

Prepare Your Course for AI with the Generative AI Course Reflection Tool

By Kyle Sky
September 14, 2023

September 14, 2023

With the arrival of ChatGPT and other AI tools during the past year, many faculty have wondered how these tools will change how they teach, and how students should prepare for their future careers.

The UW Extended Campus instructional design team is excited to introduce the Generative AI Course Reflection tool. This resource makes discussing AI tools during course development projects easier and helps you think about how AI will impact your courses.

Using this tool, you will be guided through the backward design process, complete with examples and tips to enhance your students’ learning experience. You will also find suggestions for starting your AI learning journey.

Our goal is for this document to remain valuable well into the future. Each time you use it, you will discover ways to make incremental improvements to your course. For most faculty members, the first step is creating a clear course-level policy that tells students how AI tools can be used in your course.

We invite you to explore the Generative AI Course Reflection tool and incorporate it into your next course development or revision.

Common Accessibility Challenges Faced by Students and How We Can Help Fix Them

By Brian Chervitz
April 27, 2023

April 27, 2023

As part of serving the people of Wisconsin, UW Extended Campus strives to ensure every student, no matter what, can earn a high-quality and accessible postsecondary education. In service to this goal, the UWEX Instructional Design team and faculty work together to fix the common accessibility challenges faced by UW students. In fact, the UWEX ID team works hard to check our courses to address many potential accessibility issues before they ever become problematic. Checking images, HTML code, text, videos, language, links, and more is part of our process for every course.

What about your course announcements? We know things can change and you may need to share other learning resources or web links with your students in an announcement. While the ID team is available to lend a hand, we want you to feel confident in ensuring your announcements or other course updates are as accessible as the rest of the course.

In the video below, see how three common challenges might appear in a course announcement, and how they can be fixed using the accessibility tool already integrated into Canvas. The rest of this article reviews some challenges beyond those addressed in the video.

See the video on MS Stream.

Download the “Common Accessibility Challenges and How to Fix Them” infographic above or the accessible PDF to share with your students or colleagues.

Further Issues, Their Causes, and How We Fix Them

There are several other accessibility issues that the ID team addresses during the design of a course. Check out how we fix the issues below.

Issue: Students who are deaf or hard of hearing aren’t getting the key information from a video. 

The cause of this issue 

The video likely doesn’t have a transcription or closed captioning (or the captions are inaccurate). 

How we fix it 

If there is a video as a learning resource, we need to verify that the video has captions or a transcription. Resources made with UWEX Media Services automatically have both. To resolve a lack of captions or a transcript, we might reach out to the instructor to either make them or find a new video. 

Best practices 

To make videos as accessible as possible, we comply with following best practices: 

  • Captions are best for videos while transcriptions are best for audio-only resources. 
  • If using auto-generated captioning, rewatch the video to check that the captions line up with the audio, there are no critical errors, and fix likely mistakes, such as names or acronyms. 

For more information, visit the Transcripts page from the Web Accessibility Initiative as well as the Captions/Subtitles page from the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Issue: Students using assistive technology can’t distinguish links when searching through them. 

The cause(s) of this issue 

Screen readers will read all the text that is on the screen, including URLs, letter by letter (“h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-w-w-w-dot…”). Furthermore, screen readers can jump from link to link for easier navigation, but knowing the correct link to select can be a challenge if they all say, “Click here.” 

How we fix it 

We make each link on a page succinct, descriptive, and unique. Consider the differences between the following three examples: 

  1. Here is the website for the Web Accessibility Initiative: https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/.
  2. Click here to view the Web Accessibility Initiative website.
  3. The Web Accessibility Initiative website has plenty of resources to help you. 

The third example has the most accessible link because it is unique and concisely describes the link’s destination. 

Best practices 

For clear and accessible links, we comply with following best practices: 

  • Avoid phrases like “click here” or “read more.” Even if the student only reads the linked text, they should know exactly where the link takes them. 

Issue: Students using assistive technology have difficulty finding the information they need on the page. 

The cause(s) of this issue 

In addition to the challenges described in the video, there are a few other reasons a webpage can be inaccessible. One is an inefficient or clunky presentation of information. Just as an entirely written-out URL can disrupt the smooth reading of a paragraph or list, the use of a table to structure a page could prevent a logical interpretation of the page by assistive technology. 

How we fix it 

As mentioned above, w make sure links are succinct, descriptive, and unique. In addition, we check that tables are only used to present tabular data. If the situation demands a table to help us structure the page layout, we will change the HTML code to set the table to role=”presentation”, such as in the image below. 

In the image, the HTML code of a table is shown. In the table tag, the role attribute has been set to presentation.

Best practices 

To ensure the course’s pages present information undisrupted, we comply with following best practices: 

  • In the body of the text, write in short, clear sentences and paragraphs, and use list formatting as appropriate. 
  • When using tables to present data, include headers and a caption. 

How to Use Plain Language in Your Online Course

By Abbie Amadio
April 26, 2023

April 26, 2023

Download the “How to Use Plain Language in Your Online Course” infographic above or the accessible PDF to share with your students or colleagues.

If you’ve ever tried to explain your work or research to anyone outside your field, you may have realized how much your discipline relies on specialized language that is often difficult for people outside your field to understand. To students, this type of language can be especially intimidating. And even more so when they aspire to join your profession or discipline and may not want to admit they don’t understand something.

But jargon doesn’t only occur in academia—it occurs across fields, especially in health and medicine where critical information often needs to be communicated to patients and the public. With this in mind, U.S. Congress passed the Plain Writing Act in 2010 to make public communications from the federal government clearer and easier to understand. But many of the plain writing techniques detailed in the 2010 Act can be used to make any type of writing clearer. In your courses, these techniques can be used to explain lengthy assignments, assessments, or discussion prompts. They can also be used for longer-form writing and media like presentations and scripts. Many of the techniques highlighted in this article are especially useful for writing online, where many readers often skim the page and look for what they need to know and what they need to do.

To put it simply, plain language is used to communicate complex topics to a broad audience in a digestible way. And it’s an important part of making online courses at UW Extended Campus accessible for all students. Here are some key techniques to write in plain (or plainer) language in your online courses.

Know Your Audience

Write for your audience (your students), and write directly to one person in the class. Use “I” to refer to yourself and “you” to refer to your reader.

Use Detailed Headings

Use detailed headings, so your reader understands how your document is organized. Consider writing headings as questions or statements. To keep your headings accessible though, keep them under 120 characters in length.

Use Simple Verbs & Present Tense

Tell your reader what they should do and keep it simple. Write in the present tense, and use “must” to communicate anything your reader is required to do. For example, avoid “should.” Rather than telling students, “You should keep your paper under two pages,” say, “You must keep your paper under two pages.”

Keep Sentences & Paragraphs Short

Limit sentences to one idea and paragraphs to one topic. When you write a sentence, remember to put your subject, verb, and object close together, and keep any modifying information concise.

Use Examples, Tables, & Lists

Use examples to clarify abstract concepts, tables to break up and organize complex information, and lists to highlight important tasks.

Format Carefully

Only use bold for emphasis, and use it sparingly. Avoid writing in all capital letters or underlining, which can be distracting or confusing. Only use underlining for links.

If you’re interested in reading the complete guidelines, check out the Federal Plain Language Guidelines.


See Plain Language in Action!

Here are two examples from an introductory marketing course that have been revised using plain language techniques. The first example is instructions for an essay assignment; the second is an excerpt from an instructor’s commentary. Both examples use some of the same techniques (notated in pink italicized text) to make the language clearer.


Original Instructions

As part of your academic obligations to this course and its field, expectations are that you write an eight- to ten-page essay using one-inch margins, double-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font, that examines a current trend in the marketing industry such as privacy marketing, micro-influencing, chatbots, social commerce, or another topic. Write 2000-2500 words.

Revised Instructions

In this course, you will write an essay on a current trend in marketing. Directly address your reader. → You may choose to write about privacy marketing, micro-influencing, chatbots, social commerce, or another marketing trend. ← Use consistent language. Use the same words to refer to the same things. Your essay must be 8 to 10 pages (2,000 to 2,500 words) double-spaced in 12-point, Times New Roman font with one-inch margins. ← Group similar information together.


Original Commentary

Consumers make many purchasing decisions, some rather unimportant day-to-day purchases, and some substantial and infrequent decisions. The amount of effort we put into making these decisions depends on many factors. For example, when you are choosing a snack to buy to take to a party, some factors you may not even be aware of that are part of your decision may include: How much can you afford to spend? Does an advertisement you’ve seen for a snack item come to mind? If no one likes your snack, will you feel embarrassed? Would you feel guilty for bringing an item you consider to be junk food if the people at the party are health and fitness oriented? On the other hand, would you feel awkward if you brought a health-food snack to a group that prefers beer and nachos? What if you’re taking the snack to a birthday celebration for an 8-year-old? Maybe you previously brought a certain snack to an event that was the hit of the party so you’ll return to the store to buy the same item without considering other alternatives.

Now that students have some understanding of consumer-buying processes, in the next module, they will be asked to author and submit a document in which they assess their own purchasing decision.

Revised Commentary

Consumers make many purchasing decisions. Some are routine, but others are rare and much more significant. ← Keep sentences short. Try to use one idea per sentence. This sentence was split into two separate sentences. The effort we put into these decisions depends on many factors.

Say, for example, you must choose a snack to bring to a party. You might consider the following questions:

  • How much can you afford to spend?
  • Did you recently see an advertisement for a particular snack?
  • Will you feel embarrassed if no one likes your snack?
  • Would you feel guilty bringing junk food if the group is health conscious? ← Keep language consistent. Use the same words to refer to the same things.
  • Would you feel awkward bringing a healthy snack if the group prefers beer and nachos? ← See the above list item. These two items were revised to use consistent language.
  • What if the party is for an eight-year-old child?
  • If you recently brought a snack to another party that was a hit, would you buy the same item without considering alternatives?

      ↑ Use lists, so your information is easier to read. Also, make list items parallel in structure. All these items are questions.

Now that you have learned about how consumers make decisions, you’ll tell me how you decided to buy a product (or not) in the next module’s assignment. ← Directly address your reader, and use simple, clear words to tell them what they need to know or do.

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