Inspire Blog Author: mungeram

Peer Review: Providing a Rationale for the Process

As online educators, we strive for a balance of learning activities that incorporate three types of engagement: learner-to-content, learner-to-instructor, and learner-to-learner.  The learner-to-learner component is often filled through discussion boards or group projects, but an underutilized and undervalued option is peer review. The Rationale There are many ways peer review benefits students, among them Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation lists: Empower students to take responsibility for and manage their own learning. Enable students to learn to assess and give others constructive feedback to develop lifelong assessment skills. Enhance students’ learning through knowledge diffusion and exchange of ideas. Motivate students to engage with course material more deeply. More broadly, the authors of The Knowledge Illusion argue that our individual capacity for knowledge … Peer Review: Providing a Rationale for the Process
by · November 13, 2019

Before Recording Narrated Slides: #1 Copyright

Curious what an Ecampus Instructional Designer is looking for when they approve slides for narrated lectures?  It certainly depends on the course content. Generally, the top three things I am looking at are copyright, accessibility, and aesthetics. For this post, I am going to focus on copyright and I will return to the other topics in a future post.  A copy of the slides, which includes links to helpful materials, is available below the video as well as a list of resources. https://youtu.be/49DNaOW82Ho Slides: Copyright Considerations for Narrated Slides Resources: Creative Commons Search (may require attribution) Flaticon (requires attribution) Freepik (requires attribution) Unsplash (does not require attribution)
by · June 5, 2019

Lecture Videos: Short & Sweet

When teaching face-to-face, you might break your lectures into weeks because you will only meet with students once or twice a week.  You hope to give them all the information they need during your face-to-face sessions for them to successfully complete work independently between classes. While a typical face-to-face lecture can span 50-90 minutes, there is evidence to suggest shortening the length for your online students may be a better practice.  Your online students may be in and out of your course many more times than they would be face-to-face and this gives you the opportunity to think about designing your video lectures differently.  Organizing your lectures topically, rather than weekly can be a powerful way to redesign your course. … Lecture Videos: Short & Sweet
by · March 18, 2019

Fostering a relationship with your Instructional Designer

Intake meetings, where I met instructors for the first time, is one of my favorite aspects of being an instructional designer because every meeting is so different.  I especially love having first meetings in the instructor’s office and getting a glance at the books adorning their shelves, the art displayed on their walls, their projects, research, and insights on whiteboards, napkins, and notepads.  Sometimes faculty come in with little to no online teaching experience and are not sure where to start; other times they have years of experience and crystal clear ideas on how they want to design their course.  I really feel fortunate to work with brilliant minds from a variety of backgrounds! But, what makes for the very … Fostering a relationship with your Instructional Designer
by · December 5, 2018