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Faculty Spotlight: Marya Wilson

By Abbie Amadio
September 18, 2024

In this issue’s “Faculty Spotlight,” we feature the inventive approaches of Prof. Marya Wilson, who integrates various community-building techniques into her online master’s-level course on supply chain management within the UW Collaboratives Sustainable Management program. By blending engaging discussion boards with virtual guest speakers, Prof. Wilson creates opportunities for meaningful student interactions while maintaining the flexibility of online learning. In the following interview, discover how these strategies have positively influenced student performance, fostered professional connections, and prepared students for working in both online and face-to-face environments.

Marya Wilson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Operations & Management Department at UW-Stout Marya Wilson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Operations & Management Department at UW-Stout.

Interview

Can you give a brief description of how this strategy works in your course? Tell us what students are expected to do when they complete this activity. How are they evaluated and what kind of feedback do they get?

Community building in SMGT 782 is done through discussion boards and speakers. Now, I know we are hitting an age in technology and learning that we are questioning the purpose of discussion boards and do they help. My answer: YES, they do. Our students join our program because it provides flexibility AND interaction. We have a centuries-old mindset that the only way we can build community is through F2F [face-to-face] contact. Personally, I love F2F contact, BUT these discussion boards give people a way to interact with their “course community.” The interactions are in-depth, filled with lived experience, and personal connection (either through a bit of humor or sharing of tools/articles, etc.). Having speakers come to our course also provides a chance for community building. Because this is an asynchronous course, I will not require students to attend extracurricular activities, but we definitely make sure they have access to the speakers when they are able to take time. You can see this in their discussions with each other. It’s so fun!

Can you talk a little more about developing and including this strategy in your course? For example: What appealed to you about the idea? What were you hesitant about?

Hoping the above answered this!

What learning benefits do you think this strategy provides to students?

Each of these students brings a lived experience that is beneficial to all, and that includes me! When we can share our knowledge and also share our questions, we have the ability to help each other learn, grow, and innovate.

How has this strategy impacted student performance or engagement?

I believe both of these approaches have played a huge role in the success of student research in this course. AND, I am so excited to share that professional connections grow with these discussion boards and the chance to interact with professional speakers.

How is this strategy similar to what students might do someday in a future career?

Any community building our students will do will be in all kinds of environments. We are a global economy and that is not turning back. With communication tools, we have the ability to create relationships and grow partnerships through technology. F2F is incredible but to deny the ability to build relationships via online tools is quite defeatist. This course, this program adds to the incredible community-building skills they already have! Now, surrounded by their passion for sustainability. It’s a blast!

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

This takes a lot of time, but I would suggest setting up short burst one-on-one calls (video or audio) just to introduce yourself to each other. Of course, as instructors, we can create videos and intros and “blah blah blah.” None of that is bad, but how about we actually connect with our students, even for a very short time? I’ve been doing this approach for nearly 17 years…it’s been the difference between average and high-level performance. AND, it has built community in our classrooms…virtual and not.

Please contact your instructional designer if you’d like to try similar activities in your course.

Integrating AI into the Classroom: Strategies from UWEX Faculty

By Jessica O'Neel
May 6, 2024

A year ago, there were significant concerns, curiosities, and questions about how artificial intelligence and large language models like ChatGPT would impact higher education. Now, though questions and concerns change and evolve, curiosities have been turned into course activities. As AI continues to reshape various industries, UWEX faculty are actively exploring ways to harness its potential in the classroom. From enhancing accessibility and fostering critical thinking to simulating real-world scenarios and generating assessment assets, faculty members across disciplines are pioneering innovative approaches that leverage AI to enrich the learning experience.

Assessing AI’s Impacts in the Field and Creating Authenticity

In Dr. Adam Fornal’s Agile and Traditional IT Project Management course, students actively explore how AI is changing the field of project management and how it might impact their work in IT management. Dr. Fornal believes it is important for students to accept AI and learn how it can supplement their existing roles as opposed to fearing it. In the course, AI is responsible for handling some of the more administrative-type tasks for project managers (e.g., following up on assigned items, logging the status of tasks, transcribing and summarizing meetings, and generating project communications among other things). Students also complete a reflective journal and assignment to reflect on how AI is impacting the skills needed for project management work.

In a different course, Dr. Fornal uses an interactive AI simulation with students where they serve as project managers, and based on their decisions, the simulation will respond with different variables and situations. This is a great way for students to apply their knowledge and see how projects function as close as possible to the real world. Student feedback supports that this is a worthwhile and enriching activity. It is also a different learning method as opposed to more traditional readings and assignments.

Critiquing AI’s Capabilities

In Dr. Dubear Kroening’s Heredity course, students are encouraged to ask AI to generate a paragraph for a research paper for them. Students are then asked to determine the accuracy of the information, including if AI plagiarized the information from another source. They also critique the AI’s output to see if it replicates their style of writing. Students then keep asking the AI tool to generate content until they get it to hallucinate or produce definitively false information. The assignment concludes with a reflection on the experience, including what they learned and how it could be helpful in the future.

The goal of this activity is to use AI to better understand the benefits and detriments of using it for both academic work and everyday use. Dr. Kroening believes it’s important for students to understand the difference between legitimate research and just finding things on the uncontrolled internet. Moreover, as AI will be used much more in the future, students must understand how it can be used properly to help with a variety of tasks.

*This is our featured example from the Instructional Strategies and Course Design Showcase for this issue!

Enhancing Accessibility and Deepening Discussions with AI

In Dr. Ryan Zellner’s Roots of Rock and Roll course, AI was used to generate song descriptions and visual representations for students who may have a hearing impairment. In this course, students are asked to analyze songs. Having these descriptions not only helps students with hearing impairments complete the activity successfully but also provides support for students who may not have a strong musical background.

Students were also asked in a discussion to reflect on how AI may impact the music industry in the future. Dr. Zellner states that students were able to apply their critical thinking skills in terms of the intersection of technology and music. In the discussion, students applied concepts they’d already learned in the course to make predictions about how AI might affect music in the future, such as the ability of AI to come up with new genres, the ability to bring “back” musicians who are no longer with us, and even the possibility of music completely generated by AI. This led the discussion into a deeper analysis of ownership, copyright, and the higher concept of art. Would music still be art if it is generated without human interaction?

Using AI to Create Assessment Assets

Dr. Jamie O’Neill is using AI in the classroom by giving students the option to use AI tools in creating marketing material for a public health campaign. If students choose to use AI, they are also tasked with evaluating the quality of the tool’s output, such as what they would change or improve or how they might revise the prompt they submitted. Not only does this give students awareness of the capabilities of AI tools, but it also asks students to critically think about their limitations and opportunities for improvement.

Dr. O’Neill believes that because AI is a tool available to everyone, it is helpful to give students ways to work with it to gauge its pros and cons. Students can then decide whether using it in their future work would be helpful.

Evaluating AI

Dr. Sakib Mahmud’s course Corporate Social Responsibility is a writing-intensive graduate course in the Sustainable Management program. It includes topic-focused writing assignments, case studies, a term paper, a group project, and discussions. During the course’s revision last fall, students’ use of AI in developing and writing the course assignments and how to evaluate their work were addressed. The goal was to provide robust guidelines that invite students to use the technology but also make them aware of the ethical and policy implications as well as quality and accuracy. Information on citing the AI tools was also provided to the students. Here is an example of verbiage provided to students from one of the writing assignments in the course:

“Apply caution and sound judgment when using artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications (including, but not limited to Chat GPT, DALL-E, and others) in course assignments. Using them without appropriate citation and documentation is akin to plagiarism and a violation of academic misconduct policy.”

While the discussions and the group project in this course also reference the use of AI and how work will be evaluated, the verbiage here is deliberately brief and less detailed. In these types of activities, it was more important to encourage conversation and collaboration among students without making the use of AI such an important evaluation criterion as in the more formal written assignments.

Conclusion

The innovative practices highlighted in this article serve as a testament to our UWEX faculty, who are dedicated to equipping their students with the skills and mindset to be well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. By integrating AI into their curricula, faculty are not only demystifying the technology but also empowering students to become active participants in shaping its responsible and ethical application. Though you may still have questions and concerns, hopefully, some curiosity has been sparked to incorporate AI into your course.

2024 Faculty Symposium Preview

By Abbie Amadio
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.

Faculty Spotlight: Blanca Munoz

By Abbie Amadio

In our latest “Faculty Spotlight,” we share the experience of instructor Blanca Munoz who proudly holds the distinction of being the first instructor to receive the Level Up digital badges upon successfully mastering each of the courses. Our Level Up professional development courses are designed to support faculty members in the planning, development, and teaching of online courses.

Instructor Munoz underscores how the Level Up courses empowered her to enhance her online course significantly. Through a comprehensive understanding gained from the Level Up courses, she was able to refine her course planning, development, and teaching methodologies, resulting in a more engaging and effective learning experience for her students. Her perspective of these courses serves as a testament to the profound impact they can have on faculty members, equipping them with the expertise and confidence needed to excel in online teaching. In the following interview, instructional designer Kristine Pierick sits down with Instructor Munoz to discuss the transformative benefits she gained from completing our Level Up courses.

Blanca Munoz, Adjunct Instructor of Modern Languages, University of Wisconsin-Parkside Blanca Munoz is an Adjunct Instructor in Modern Languages at UW-Parkside.

Kristine Pierick, Instructional Designer, University of Wisconsin

Kristine Pierick is a Senior Instructional Designer with UW Extended Campus. She has worked on the UW Independent Learning, Collaborative, and Flexible Option programs.

Interview

What motivated you to enroll in these courses, and what were your expectations before starting them?

What motivated me to enroll in these courses was to learn more about how to prepare a good online class. I had taught synchronous online classes but not asynchronous, so the preparation was different. My expectations were to learn more about how to help students have a good experience with their online course as well as obtain all the necessary tools to prepare my course and provide students with good teaching.

Could you share some insights into the Planning Your Online Course? What key concepts or strategies did you learn that you found particularly beneficial?

Planning Your Online Course is the starting point for creating a great online course. What do we want students to learn at the end of the course? We cannot start creating a course if we do not have the main goal and the course objectives in front of us. This course helped me plan my course in a more organized way and take into account the course objectives. Also, it helped me write each of them considering they are divided into three parts: verb, content, and context. This is thinking about each lesson goal. In this course, I also learned how to create a course alignment map so that the course meets all the objectives in an organized way. Another thing that was beneficial and important to me is the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, mainly the verbs because they help a lot when writing the course objectives. Before taking this class, I ignored how beneficial it is to start planning a course from its objectives.

How did Developing Your Online Course contribute to your understanding and execution of effective online teaching strategies? Were there any specific tools or methodologies introduced that stood out to you?

According to the course Developing Your Online Course, for an online course to be effective, we need different strategies. For example, after we have prepared the course objectives and the course alignment map, then we can start with the next steps, developing the lessons and assessments. To design a lesson, we can think about having different types of activities to help all students and their different needs. Achieving the main points of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, we can create formative assessments, summative assessments, and authentic assessments. By having multiple activities, we give students the opportunity to receive good feedback and re-learn what they studied to meet the learning objectives. Something that caught my attention was the use of scaffolding activities because they are good and very practical for students to reach the course goal. Another thing is the use of Universal Design of Instruction because it helps design courses that are accessible and inclusive for all people who want to take those courses.

Transitioning from course planning and development to actual teaching, what were some of the key takeaways from the Teaching Your Online Course? How did it help you in implementing your online teaching strategies effectively?

Teaching Your Online Course focuses on how important it is to be present as an instructor in the class during the whole semester. This course helped me think about how I could be more present in my class. So, I established my presence from day one with two videos. In one, I give a brief introduction about myself, and in the other, I give more information about the course; I recorded videos in each lesson as well. I’ll also reply to students’ discussion posts and give feedback on their assignments in a reasonable time frame. Giving them good feedback and time helps students to not continue doing the same in the next activities. This helps them to get and achieve the course objectives.

In what specific ways have these courses enhanced your ability to engage with students in the online learning environment? Can you provide any examples of strategies you’ve implemented successfully as a result of this training?

These courses have helped me improve student engagement by providing me with good strategies for how I, as a teacher, can be present and active in the course. Some examples they have given are providing various contact methods on how students can ask their teacher their questions and giving students feedback in a short time. It is important for the teacher to be part of the discussion posts. To be present in the course, I have two videos at the beginning of the course, one to welcome students to class and the other to introduce myself and give a short biography. Also, for each lesson, I prepared videos to give them a brief review of what they would find in each chapter.

One concern many educators have with online teaching is maintaining student motivation and participation. Did these courses offer any insights or strategies to address this challenge? If so, how have you applied them in your teaching practice?

Maintaining motivation and participation in online courses is a bit complicated. In these courses, I learned how to solve these challenges and what activities to prepare to help students. In my course, I have prepared different and fun activities through which students can connect with their classmates. For example, in some discussion posts, students record videos and then reply to their classmates. This motivates students to see their peers and be in contact with each other. I also respond to their posts with feedback, which helps me to be in contact with them and motivates them to complete their work.

Reflecting on your experience completing these courses, how would you summarize the overall benefits they provided in terms of enhancing your online teaching capabilities?

All three courses were very interesting and provided very good training to start teaching online courses. The courses provide good pedagogy and also practice. In all three courses, there were assessments that I had to complete to see if I was on the right path. I learned from how to write the course objectives to how to teach and be present in the online course. The feedback that I received from the activities I completed was also very good and helped me improve my own course. Now I feel more capable of being able to teach students in an online course and not just in in-person courses.

Finally, for educators who may be considering similar professional development opportunities, what advice or encouragement would you offer based on your experience with these courses?

These courses are very good, and they have a lot of good information. Sometimes it may seem overwhelming, but it’s all about patience. It is not necessary to finish everything in one sitting; it is better to take your time. Little by little you can reach the goal and thus you can pay more attention to the content of each module.

Please contact your instructional designer to complete the three Level Up professional development courses.

Create Interactive Content with H5P

By Kyle Sky
January 31, 2024

The UWEX Instructional Design team is always working to innovate and improve students’ learning experiences. Over the past year, Jessica O’Neel and Kyle Sky have been investigating H5P, an HTML-based tool for creating interactive learning objects.

H5P allows instructional designers to quickly create content that can be dropped into the midst of a Canvas page, such as this example where students to explore more detailed elements of a painting by clicking on the plus (+) icons:

With H5P, static content, such as this painting, was made more interactive and dynamic. There are a multitude of uses for this tool, but our team has found thatH5P is useful for creating low-stakes self-assessments, interactive diagrams, or even assets for other kinds of assessments.

Jessica and Kyle have created a brief video introduction to this incredible tool. Check out the video below to learn about the various applications for H5P and how you can work with your UWEX instructional designer to use this tool to quickly enhance your courses.

Note: If you do not see the video below, or are having trouble playing the video from our blog, you should be able to access it via this link.